February 2009: Check Your Values at the Door

Astral Facts, February 2009

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Check Your Values at the Door

This past month has been noteworthy due to the celebrations related to February 12th, traditionally recognized as Lincoln’s birthday. The fact that this was the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday wasn’t really noted. However, the emphasis was on Feb. 12th being the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday. It is interesting that two such different life paths started on this same day, one focused on the external aspects of human existence and the other concerned about the internal.

What seems even more interesting is that commentary on the ideology of Darwin’s theory was the focus of the Seattle Times’ Feb 7th weekly “Faith and Values” column:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008717631_dority07m.html

I’m sure most people are aware that the scientists subscribing to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution have insisted for generations that it does not purport to be an ideology or value system, for it is based upon scientific principles of observation and objective measurement of physical reality. In other words, it is a scientific theory, as the natural scientists define the scientific method, and not an ideology, as the natural scientists define ideology. Thus, it is an academic subject to be taught as the most reasonable and unbiased explanation of life.

Someone needs to clue in the Humanists that they have crossed the line!

Of course, when considering the “survival of the fittest” view that has evolved from Darwin’s observations, people must blur lines to justify all the parking spaces reserved close to the mall for the vehicles with the disabled stickers!

C. S. Lewis mentions in one textbook I use that, when he was an atheist, his main argument was that he couldn’t believe in a God who would allow so much injustice in the world. However, when he considered his argument more deeply, he asked himself why he would expect to find justice in the world. He realized that such an expectation must have come from something outside his own self, which is when he denounced his atheism and went in search of that source.

Of course the main issue in this internal/external dichotomy between philosophy (religion) and science had its most dramatic split back in the 1500’s and 1600’s when the scientists Copernicus (a Catholic cleric) and Galileo (a philosopher) observed that the official Catholic view that the sun revolved around the Earth was not supported by physical evidence. The religious leaders of that time took the “My doctrine, right or wrong, but my doctrine” view, which was their downfall, leading to the undercutting of their authority and credibility.

Perhaps they should have read ahead from the Dali Lama, who has since said,

"Open your arms to change, but don't give up your values."

In other words, when we find ourselves at a doorway and it’s unclear whether we are seeing either temptation or opportunity behind that door, we need to check our values at the door before we choose to venture forward or not.

But what does this mean, really? In our current culture, does it mean to measure (check) the choice against some moral standard? Or does this mean to “put away” our values (in some checkroom) so we won’t feel conflicted once we pass through?

With the current advertising that “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” being so prevalent and accepted these days, we can see the frontlines of the culture wars right in the privacy of our living rooms.

This reminds me of an experience I had while serving in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan in the 1970’s. One evening in Jalalabad several of us volunteers noticed a slight discoloring of the moon. Someone mentioned that we would be having a lunar eclipse, so we all took some chairs and a table up on the roof to view it “up close.” It was quite remarkable, for the people were reacting differently than we expected.
We were having tea and oranges and enjoying the scene while the air, already heavily laden with smoke from cooking fires, was filled with a myriad of sound. We could hear a wailing sound coming from the women in the surrounding neighborhoods. At a different pitch were the sounds of crying children while moaning men’s voices were rising and falling in a lower key. In addition, the mullah at the local mosque was chanting over the loudspeaker system that usually called people to daily prayers.
Some of us went downstairs and asked Ghrafar, the cook and housekeeper, what was going on.
“The people are repenting,” he said. “They believe Allah is eating the moon to punish them for their bad behavior. They are saying they will change. They are asking Allah to stop eating the moon. That is what the people believe.”
He stopped and asked us, “What do you believe?”
So Ed Ciok (who now teaches at Seattle Central CC) picked up an orange and a grapefruit and held them up to the light. He showed Ghrafar how the Earth (the grapefruit) rotated around the sun (the ceiling light) and the moon (the orange) rotated around the Earth. Then, when the orange passed behind the grapefruit, the orange was in the shadow. Likewise, what we were seeing outside was the shadow of the Earth passing across the moon.
“That is what we believe.” Ed concluded.
Then he asked Ghrafar, “What do you believe?”
And Ghrafar responded, “I believe about the grapefruit and the orange like you do!”
“Then tell me,” Ed asked, “what makes the moon go around the Earth and the Earth go around the sun?”
As Ghrafar stood there, puzzling over this one, Ed filled in the blank.
“Allah makes it happen!”
“Yes!” Ghrafar exclaimed. “It’s always Allah behind everything!”

Sometime later we were all back up on the roof laughing and enjoying the experience and camaraderie, when we noticed that Ghrafar wasn’t around. I went downstairs and through the window of Ghrafar’s room I could see him frantically bowing and praying.

Like Ghrafar, many of us are conflicted between our perceptions of the physical realm and the perceptive reality of astral facts.

Albert Einstein has often been misquoted about his religion, and he offers this clarification:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

But from another perspective, Rev. Sun Myung Moon has said, “God is the original scientist.”

Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices