Mind makes matter?
Ever since I returned to religion after trying out atheism,
I have been working at reconciling the two. Both atheism and religion ask the
big questions of life but they arrive at opposing answers to the questions: Where
do we and all the stuff we see come from? Where does thinking come from?
Atheists who are also scientific materialists say our brains
create our thoughts. After mulling this over for years, I take the opposite
view—I think, therefore my brain forms the way it does. My thoughts form my
brain. Scientific experiments bear this out.
And I feel, therefore my surroundings seem as they seem. They suit my feelings and attitudes.Our language reflects this truth. We speak of sunny or cloudy days and dispositions. The metaphor shows the connection between outer and inner. The late Wayne Dyer expanded on this truth:
And I feel, therefore my surroundings seem as they seem. They suit my feelings and attitudes.Our language reflects this truth. We speak of sunny or cloudy days and dispositions. The metaphor shows the connection between outer and inner. The late Wayne Dyer expanded on this truth:
Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.
As I understand scientific materialism, it denies the
existence of any inner reality. It does not deny that we have thoughts, which
are non-physical, but explains them as products of our brains or physical stuff.
They believe outer reality creates inner reality. I invite my atheist friends
to let me know if I misrepresent their position. And let me know how you
disagree with the following, as I expect you will.
My feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes make up my
consciousness or mind. It creates my life. I’ll say it another way:
consciousness creates reality. This is the revolutionary idea I now accept and
use in my daily life. I wrote about it HERE
where you can see the materialist or physicalist position plus readers debating
it and mine.
When in conversations I bring up my belief in the power of
our thoughts, it is surprisingly not dismissed as flaky. Many people accept it
or at least don’t scoff at it. If it is true, if we have the power to mold reality
with our thoughts, we collectively could heal the ills in our world.
In 1988 Willis Harman wrote a book that made a huge
impression on me at the time and has stayed with me since. Cleaning out old
files, I found an article I’d clipped about him giving a talk at Carleton College
for a symposium on integrating human sciences. Harman was president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which
focuses on reconciling objective knowledge, the kind studied by natural
sciences, with subjective knowledge or inner wisdom and understanding.
The article mentions his book, Global Mind Change: The Promise of the Last Years of the Twentieth
Century. Happily I found the book on my shelf with a bookmark on the page
that resolved the question for me.
Harman lists 3 metaphysical perspectives:
M-1 Materialistic Monism
(Matter giving rise to mind)
M-2 Dualism
(Matter plus mind)
M-3 Transcendental Monism
(Mind giving rise to matter)
He said we are shifting from M-1 to M-3 in a global mind
change. I see evidence of the shift every day—in myself as well as in events
and beliefs expressed in the media. The implications are tremendous.
Harman warns,
that our world is not sustainable using our present systems. . . . [fundamental changes] can come through vast numbers of people changing their minds. By deliberately changing their belief systems people can change the world.
Whether or not the change is deliberate, it is happening.
While editorials were howling for decisive engagement in the
Syrian crisis, the Obama administration refused to send American troops into
the war against ISIS and against Assad because Americans are averse to sending more
troops into Mideast battles. Public opinion was shaping policy. Thoughts,
attitudes, feelings, etc. were creating reality. We’ll have to see how the
deepening crisis changes public opinion and how the administration responds.
The same process drives the policy of governments dealing
with refugees flooding Europe. Angela Merkel could be very generous because
Germans were still making up for Nazi atrocities, but as their compassion wears
thin because of economic hardship, Merkel’s popularity suffers. Policy follows
public perception. Consciousness changes outer reality, changing the global
mind.
I hope more Americans press for greater American involvement
in aiding refugees. But for that to happen, enough of us would have to press
our government to change our policy. If we accept that our minds give rise to
physical realities, we can help to reform the collective consciousness and thus
bring about a reformed world.
I believe with Harman that we can collectively produce
sustainable systems for our planet by deliberately reforming our consciousness.
Hours after posting this, I read an excellent opinion piece by Pia Lopez in the St. Cloud Times, "U.S. Must Take in More Syrian Refugees." She gives figures that should make us ashamed. These are the numbers of refugees taken in by the countries listed:
Hours after posting this, I read an excellent opinion piece by Pia Lopez in the St. Cloud Times, "U.S. Must Take in More Syrian Refugees." She gives figures that should make us ashamed. These are the numbers of refugees taken in by the countries listed:
U.S. 2,000These are tiny countries compared with ours. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar says we should take in 65,000. Let's support her.
Jordan 619,000
Turkey 2 million
Lebanon 1.2 million
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