The New Spiritualist Worldview with Dr. Jeff Myers, part 5
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Dr. Jeff Myers: In regards to Biology, Cosmic Humanists / New Spiritualists subscribe to Cosmic Evolution. In other words, where a lot of people believe that Evolution says that we are going to continually move to higher and higher states. Evolutionists believe that we humans are the highest state as of yet, but Cosmic Evolutionists believe that there are higher states, including one where we can transcend beyond our physical bodies altogether.
Consider an article in TIME magazine titled “The Rapture of the Nerds”. The piece featured a picture of a man named Gabriel Rothblatt doing some sort of meditation pose in his garden. Rothblatt is a pastor of a new religion known as Terasem, whose goal is to have believing people’s memories digitally captured and uploaded to a satellite. You see, Terasem teaches that you are the sum total of your memories and life experiences and that some point in time, if your memories are preserved, some sort of being will come along that will your live your life forever… and that is how you can attain eternal life.
Regarding Psychology, New Scientists believe in a Higher Consciousness, which we have previously addressed.
In Sociology, the Cosmic Humanists hold to Non-Traditional Family Church and State. Remember, they are on a continual search for higher consciousness, so societal institutions may actually be restraining us and keeping us from this higher consciousness. So, we need to be liberated from them and allowed the freedom to graduate to this higher state.
Under Law, Cosmic Humanism uses “Self-Law”. What is right or wrong is determined by each individual by him or herself. Admittedly, there is a certain amount of truth to this, as well as to their take on Politics, which is Self-Government. After all, self-law and self-government are at the basis of law and government, in that if people don’t govern themselves, leaders can’t govern them as a nation, except by putting together lots and lots of restrictive laws. But, even that doesn’t necessarily do the trick.
I have friends who had a foster child who was living with them. The foster-father was telling me about the plethora of laws in regards to foster parenting. For example, there is actually a law in Colorado mandating that foster parents cannot feed a foster child from a dog bowl. Now, why would such a law be necessary?! The answer is because some cruel person did it and a law had to be made prohibiting it from ever happening again. Can you imagine saying to a child who already has had his home ripped from him and is acclimating to the foster system in a new house, “You’re no better than a dog, so you must eat from a dog bowl”?
See, you can pass laws to make people not do certain evil things to others, but you can’t pass laws making people love one another and behave in a gracious, loving fashion. That has to come from the heart. That’s why I can contend that self-law and self-government are at the foundation of public law and public government. But, remember, from a Cosmic Humanist worldview, this is not true because we need to govern ourselves in order to have a good and orderly society, but it is true because if we are responding to a higher consciousness, we will automatically align ourselves to believe what is actually true.
Regarding Economics, New Spiritualism looks to Universal Enlightened Production – the universe will make you rich. In other words, if you get in touch with your higher consciousness, you will receive good business ideas and all the resources you will need. Now, there is no actual evidence that this is accurate. When it comes to goal-setting, research reveals that the goals most likely to be accomplished are not the type of “I want to be rich”, but rather similar to “I have an idea to start at specific business to release a specific product at a certain time by having certain people invest. And, we will release it by this particular date and market it in this specific way…” In other words, the people that have become successful are the ones who got down into the “earthy” stuff that physically existed and worked really hard at it. As a result, the odds were in their favor of finding success. The people who merely earnestly desired success did not necessarily find it. They had to do something practical.
And, finally, in regards to History, New Spiritualists subscribe to Evolutionary Godhood. This idea is that if we can actually evolve, through time, we can actually become more of the god-nature than we already are. The reason why we may not be able to recognize our current godliness is because sometime in the past, we human beings broke the contract with “Mother Nature” or what some people call “Gaea”. So, since breaking this contract, we are now trying to restore ourselves to our original state.
Oddly enough, many people might say the same thing about the Christian worldview: That we broke the contract between mankind and God… but in the Christian worldview, God is a person, not “the universe”. So, as God’s creation, we long for things to be as they ought to be. The answer for that break of contract is for us to repent of our sins and live life on this earth, fully recognizing that it is God’s nature and character coming from outside the earth that make life really… come to life.
But, the Cosmic Humanist ends up in a very different place, even though they may begin with many of the same questions that Christians may have.
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