See:
Article reads: Buddhist, Shaman, New Age, Christian, American Indian, naturalist, agnostic and many others describe an awareness and experience that transcends religion, self, and other: something that speaks to the deeper interconnectiveness of all things, in all things, flowing outward into all things.
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Article reads: In a contemporary sense, “spirituality” has acquired new meanings based on the intersection and encounter between and among world religious traditions. Such dialogue has been in process now for more than a hundred years and, in recent times, has produced a sense of “spirituality” which has tended to distance itself from any one tradition and to refer to a less institutional, less structured approach with emphasis on personal growth. In this sense, spirituality has become disassociated from any particular tradition and has been strongly influenced by social reform movements such as feminism, ecology, transpersonal psychology and even theory in quantum physics and biological sciences.
See:
http://www.theborneopost.com/?p=41895
Article reads: With the awareness of who we are and knowing our inherent worth, we will then be able to have respect for ourselves and forge a connection with the source. This is meditation.
See:
Article reads: Monsanto won the battle, but environmentalists landed some hard blows; next summer is the earliest the still-banned seeds could be planted. Numerically, the justices came down firmly on Monsanto’s side. But in their decision the high court focused on the legality of the ban, not on the legality of the seeds. GM alfalfa is still banned (the goal of Monsanto’s opponents), and will remain so until the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the wing of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that oversees biotech crops, conducts a review.
See: video beyond link:
Article reads: This video tells the story of speciation in Central Africa’s roiling, rapid Lower Congo River. This river is home to an extraordinary assortment of fish — many truly bizarre.
In an early post I presented my three refutations to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, see:
/natural-selection-is-not-evolution/
The three arguments were identified by the evidential refutation, the ontological refutation, and the metaphysical refutation, respectively. I have now finished going through each of these arguments in turn, adding details to facilitate better understanding.
I refashioned the metaphysical argument, and presented this essay.
/on-affection-and-self-interested-logic/
I refashioned ontological argument, and presented this essay:
/assumed-randomness-and-geometry-can-hide-teleology/
I refashioned the evidential argument, and presented this essay.
/leading-to-the-rejection-of-natural-selection-based-on-evidence/
I immediately followed each of the three new essays with two contemporary news stories (or editorials) that were found relevant, so there are a total of six news stories and you are invited to read them again. I have provided the following links if you want to check these supporting connections that I had found in the news.
The essay on-affection-and-self-interested-logic was supported by:
/confused-darwin-ethics-turns-to-music-and-lyrics/
/trust-issue-hits-global-warming-question/
The essay assumed-randomness-and-geometry-can-hide-teleology was supported by:
/touted-proof-of-natural-selection/
/fins-coopted-and-turned-into-limbs/
The essay leading-to-the-rejection-of-natural-selection-based-on-evidence was supported by:
/michael-ruse-looks-at-complexity-in-evolution/
/ten-years-after-the-human-genome-became-known/
So I did a lot of work to make these arguments stronger.
The three arguments have a natural flow, given by the transitions dealing with the ontological refutation, the evidential refutation, and metaphysical refutation, in that order, see:
(1) Ontological refutation
Our thinking might start with the belief that teleology is not testable science. But then we note the contradiction that natural selection is said to explain teleology while natural selection sees itself as a testable science. Demonstrating that teleology can hind in the preconditions of natural selection, the assumed random variation coming from mutations and the assumed fitness landscape, reveals that natural selection cannot distinguish itself from teleology on ontological grounds. Therefore, we are forced to look to evidence to see how a now assumed natural selection is different from teleology.
(2) Evidential refutation
But looking at the evidence fails to make any useful distinctions, and the assumed natural selection may just be masking teleology. The apparent evolution is found getting more and more complicated as we dig deeper into molecular biology, leading to complexity that was completely unanticipated by a belief in natural selection. Teleology is found remaining apparent, as much so as the apparent beauty that is found confronting the rational mind on a nature walk; this confrontation never weakens. What has been gained now is the knowledge that Darwin’s natural selection was only said to explain teleology, but when looking at the details the arguments were found to be empty. The watchmaker cannot be asserted to be blind!
(3) Metaphysical refutation
We are left with the apparent puzzle until reality hits us. It is life’s vitality that drives the apparent teleological evolution. It is life’s vitality that gives impetus for the said struggle for survival. It is vitality that relates to self-interested logic, and all human logic is self-interested. Therefore, to understand life and reality there must be a universal grammar that permits self-cultivation of what is now felt and self-evident. It is self-evidence that permits a deeper study into transpersonal psychology and complementary medicine. It is self-evidence that relates to Trinitarian philosophy, the subject of my book.
See:
Article reads: In his new book, “How Pleasure Works,” Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom argues that understanding pleasure — a little-studied area — is critical to understanding humanity. As he writes in his forward, “If you look through a psychology textbook, you will find little or nothing about sports, art, music, drama, literature, play and religion. These are central to what makes us human, and we won’t understand any of them until we understand pleasure.”
Article reads: Bloom suggests that this incredibly complex mechanism can be explained by a simple truth about human nature: We are, at our core, essentialists. We look not at the thing or the person but, as he defines it, the deeper nature of what that thing or person is — or, just as importantly, what we believe the deeper nature to be. For us to derive pleasure, we must be convinced that our engagement is with an undeniable authentic — be it a Picasso or a person.
See:
Chopra writed: Science comes down to earth as technology, religion comes down to earth as comfort. But viewed together, they fall short of a common factor that guides every moment of daily life: consciousness. The future of spirituality will converge with the future of science when we actually know how and why we think, what makes us alive to the outer and inner worlds, and how we came to be so rich in creativity. Being alive is inconceivable without being conscious. “I think, therefore I am” is fundamentally true, but Descartes’ maxim should be expanded to include feeling, intuition, a sense of self, and our drive to understand who we are.
See:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=simple-twist-of-fate
Article reads: In twistor theory, causal sequences are primary and do not fluctuate. (The theory gets its name from what causal relations look like around a spinning particle, as shown at the left.) Instead the location and timing of events fluctuate. But twistorians could not make this idea precise—until string theorists showed that an event of ambiguous location and time is nothing more or less than a string.
See:
Article reads: Global warming will be on the ballot this November after California state officials this week cleared the way for a vote on an industry-backed initiative that could suspend the state’s landmark 2006 climate change statute.
Trinity: The Scientific Basis of Vitalism and Transcendentalism 