Thesis Number: #3 (Page 1 of 10)
Corrupted power must be tamed if humanity is to progress to the next phase of evolution. Early humans engaged with the divine life to arm themselves with the moral code that made it possible to create their social galaxy within the natural universe. Today, the Covenant with God, married to quantum physics, offers a cosmology that would restore the discipline needed to trigger further evolution. First, we must renegotiate the social contract to establish an authentic people’s democracy.
Divine Right & Betrayal of the Covenant
GOD can fall asleep, according to Pope Benedict XVI. The pontiff advanced this proposition in Rome on the occasion of his retirement. Could that explain the existential crises facing humanity? Or does responsibility fall on the three Abrahamic religions which no longer honour the founding Covenant on which monotheism was based? Someone or something must be responsible, because our societies are out of control.
The challenges we face include economic cannibalism, globalised poverty, abuse of Earth’s eco-systems and conflicts over resources in other people’s territories. Might these have been avoided if the three faiths had remained committed to the founding Covenant? That Covenant was a land deal: God gifted land in return for the promise to honour a moral code of conduct.
Alternatively, should responsibility be directed at scientific materialism? The secular approach to public policy has prevailed for three centuries. Forget Jesus, declaims Lawrence Krauss, the professor of theoretical physics at Arizona State University: “The stars died so that you could be here today” (Krauss 2009). The atoms in our bodies came from exploding stars. We originated as stardust, rather than as twinkles in God’s eye. So forget Jesus, and learn about carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and iron – all the elements that were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars that exploded in the universe, and initiated life on Earth. But as a tool for aligning our relationships with each other and with the natural world, scientific materialism has been found wanting. What is missing from the secular approach to life? To answer that question we need the anthropological context: we must return to the beginning.
Metaphysics empowered pre-civilised humans to evolve self-consciousness, develop their physiques, deepen their understanding of natural habitats and refine the rules for organising communities. The core of that metaphysics was a reverence for the divine, infused with the mystery of the universe. The key issue was one of relationship – to Earth, and to each other. Relationships had to come with meaning, which emerged through the stories that were recounted to make sense of life. Deities were at the heart of the narratives. Thus, humans were guided by their gods through time and space. In populating a divine world with deities, our ancestors revealed their pragmatic wisdom. This device served two purposes.
- Ownership of the planet was assigned to the deities: this removed land as an asset over which people might otherwise kill. Everyone would be treated as equal in relation to natural resources. Prosperity depended on sharing nature’s riches, not cheating by depriving others.
- Rules attributed to divine authority provided feedback mechanisms to create harmony. The Jubilee, for example, was an early practical device for securing social stability.
When gods ceased to be of service they were replaced. Finally, in the contest of the gods, one deity offered a deal that was too good to refuse: a new narrative of creation was born.