Growth In Psychological Intelligence Will Require A New Definition Of God© Dick Rauscher - Issue #31

We are all entering the busy holiday season and time is at a premium for all of us, so I will keep this year-end holiday issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter short.

In the last issue of the Newsletter I wrote about the need to increase our nation's psychological intelligence so we can more creatively resolve the many crises and challenges that our scientists and our cultural experts have warned us we will soon be facing. The article generated a lot of email from readers asking for more details regarding the nature of the impacts that I think we are going to be facing and what they might be able to do to prepare for them.

After thinking about these requests I have decided to use the next couple of Newsletters to highlight the challenges that I believe will impact us the most. I am also writing an in-depth article on this subject that I will post on the Stonyhill website (www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm) within the next couple of months.

There is no doubt in my mind that intentionally increasing the growth in psychological intelligence, and maturing our primitive ego consciousness to achieve the more enlightened consciousness that will be required to successfully cope with the changes that are coming, is "the" single most important and vital challenge we have ever faced as a species.

Because our narcissistically oriented, "me" first, primitive ego consciousness emotionally accepts as "real" only those issues or problems that affect us personally and directly, it will be very difficult for us as a species to creatively address these rapidly approaching, culture altering challenges. As Einstein once said 'you cannot solve the problems that face us by using the same thought process or level of consciousness that created the problem in the first place'.

Only when our individual and collective level of consciousness has been transformed from the worldview of a narcissistic primitive ego consciousness to the worldview of a more enlightened observing ego consciousness will we have the ability as a species to emotionally engage the problems that we know intellectually are coming. Only when they become emotionally "real" will we have the "will" as a species to allocate the financial, intellectual, technical, and social resources that will be needed to solve these rapidly approaching challenges.

Primitive Ego Theory© (PET) can offer us the skills and insights necessary to achieve the growth in consciousness that needs to take place, but if we are to cope successfully with the problems that are coming, we will have to move as a species beyond primitive tribal thinking and begin to evolve a more cooperative global consciousness; an enlightened global culture with a worldview that sees our planet not as an object to be used, but rather as a living system that needs to be cared for. This critically needed transformation in consciousness is especially true of our theistic religious beliefs and ideologies where most of the conflict and violence we are experiencing globally is currently being generated.

In other words, we must not only learn to embrace an enlightened, middlepath, world-centric global culture grounded in verifiable, modern and pre-modern knowledge, we also need to create a non-tribal, non-theistic definition of "God" that can be fully embraced by all of our world's religions and all of our world's religious people. Only then will we become a responsible Co-creative species capable of working cooperatively with the Initiating Consciousness; a Consciousness that chose to use the infinitely on-going process of evolution to create the form we refer to as "our universe".

There are many religiously conservative people this holiday season who "believe" in intelligent design; the idea that what we create in this universe is ultimately pre-ordained and controlled by a theistic "God". They believe that we are essentially helpless children whose primary religious goal is to please "God" and achieve eternal life through a born-again, child-like obedience to what they believe are "God's" laws.

I am not one of these people.

I do not believe in either theism or intelligent design for several reasons…. reasons that I will expand on further in the next few issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter.

For now, let me say simply that I believe in free will; the idea that every one of us is fully capable of creating the forms called love and compassion; or pain and suffering. Free will simply means that whatever forms we choose to create, there will be consequences that result from those choices. I do not believe that "God" is a theistic male "person" or "object" that lives in a place called Heaven endlessly tinkering with his creation and assuming us to be helpless, mindless puppets; children to be scolded, judged, punished or rewarded. "God" does not go around "undoing" the consequences of our choices.

Our universe is a form exquisitely designed by the Initiating Consciousness to support the evolution of life and consciousness.

After a careful study of our universe and its origins, quantum theoretical physicist Dr. Lee Smolin came to the startling conclusion that had the primary energies and physical characteristics of our universe varied by more than an unimaginably small one part in 10 to the 27th power at the moment of creation, in other words one part in a thousand trillion trillion, our complex universe of chemistry, galaxies, and biological life could not have evolved.

Our universe would have already imploded because of the forces of gravity, or it would have expanded so rapidly that galaxies, stars, and matter itself would not have evolved as we know it today to enable the creation of life and consciousness.

Because the potential for life and reflexive consciousness was fully present at the moment of creation, and because there is no form that is not preceded by reflexive consciousness, it seems clear to me that the Initiating Consciousness meant for living, reflexively conscious beings to share as Co-creators in the ongoing creation of form in our universe.

Had the Initiating Consciousness "not wanted" reflexively conscious beings to share as Co-creators in the creation of new and unique form, "It" would not have created the conditions necessary for the evolution of reflexive consciousness in the first place.

Because every choice and every behavior we individually or collectively make creates a consequence, which then creates infinitely novel new choices and new consequences, and because the creative evolutionary process that the Initiating Consciousness set in motion at the moment of the Big Bang was designed to create infinite novelty in our universe, it seems clear that the Initiating Consciousness has no more idea than we do what this grand experiment we call our universe is going to create.

Whether we are comfortable with this reality or not, our reflexive consciousness and free will clearly gives each of us the ability to create new forms. As such, all of us are fully responsible Co-creative partners with the Initiating Consciousness for all of the beliefs we hold, and for all of the forms we consciously or unconsciously create as a result of those beliefs. Every form we create, and every choice that we make, will result in infinitely novel new choices and novel new consequences. Each of us has the ability to create the world we live in.

I do not believe that the Initiating Consciousness will intervene to "undo" any of the "consequences" that we, or any other reflexively conscious species, chooses to create. So if we are waiting for a theistic "God" to fix our problems, we are going to be badly disappointed. We have created the problems and it is we who are going to have to fix them…..or not.

To summarize simply, religious theism is a very dangerous way for a species to think about "God" if it wants to survive. There is no way tribal theism can avoid creating the form called violence when the object called "my God" attempts to establish supremacy over the object called "your God"; or vice versa. Theism inevitably leads to the conflict inherent in all primitive, black-and-white dualistic thinking.

When a species ability to exercise power exceeds its psychological intelligence, it will not take long for it to destroy itself. If we choose to continue using our primitive ego to manage our species future and assume that our personal tribal "God" represents the "only" valid definition of God, there is a good chance that life and consciousness in this tiny corner of the universe will simply come to an end.

If we continue to make the kind of choices that appear to be leading to the extinction our species; if we continue to make the kind of choices that will result in the end of life itself on this particular planet; it will only mean that the reflexively conscious life form called "human life" on planet earth will simply have chosen to disappear into the mists of time. The "possibility" called humanity will simply be another extinct life form in the Creator's 14 billion year old dusty bin of failed possibilities. The universe will continue to evolve without us.

Perhaps there is, or will be, a reflexively conscious life form on some other planet that will fare better than we did. Perhaps they will be wiser; more psychologically intelligent. Perhaps instead of primitive tribal theism they will find a safer, more evolved global way to think about "God". Perhaps they will simply agree to define "God", the Initiating Consciousness that existed prior to the Big Bang, as the life force known as love and compassion.