Why we wont 'wake up', page 1

We have a serious problem in the modern industrialized world. The most accepted and beloved theologies teach what the most trusted science proves to be false. The two monolithic structures that provide stability to these societies are completely and irreparably inconsistent with one another, and both are in the business of explaining who we are, what we are , and how we came into existence. And the worst part is that neither can definitively prove the other to be in complete error.

One hundred years ago, the average person could wonder about all the advances is scientific knowledge, and the questions might surface from time to time, but the general society hadn’t taken and implemented the results of that scientific knowledge yet. The day-to-day hand tools of life hadn’t become constant reminders of how wrong the traditional narrative of God, man, and heaven and hell felt each time a lights switch was thrown.

Albert Einstein hadn’t up-ended the game table yet. Protons, neutrons and electrons hadn’t become the building blocks of the there that would soon stand up and demand to be acknowledged. The sky hadn’t opened into the universe for most people yet. At least not in the same way as it did when photographs, taken by people looking back from that universe, started making their way into the homes and lives of ordinary people who had been taught that it was God’s heaven that hung over them by people who had been taught that same truth by people who’d been raised to believe it as well. Science and technology shifted the entire world on these people, as their religions refused to, or were unable to, allow them a new narrative that would respect their capacity to discern the truth as it aggressively presented itself to them. A precarious balance between faith and the acknowledgment of hard fact was the only possible option for those who refused to accept the loss of either, while the rest moved solidly behind one or the other, and cursed the opposition as a plague on humanity.

As we come in to close the first decade of this new millennium, this is where it remains. Two bitter encampments in desperate struggle for the allegiance of those who refuse to surrender their neutrality to either side. If this were about anything other than the basis of human perception, then it’d still be disastrous. The fact that this schism describes the foundation of how the human race views reality itself, is beyond comprehension in its total impact on how we, as a species, proceed. That this issue must be addressed, is a very small statement.

So, what can we do to reconcile the human race to an agreement with itself over what is and what isn’t? One side will tell you that the only hope for humanity is to turn from the demon of science and embrace the God of our ancestors, believing in the oldest traditional narrative as if it were the lead story on the 11:00 news. The other side will tell you that only if we cast out the gods of thousands of years of devastation and oppression can we ever hope to achieve the peace that has evaded us for longer than anyone will ever know. Still others simply throw up their hands and wonder what the fuss is all about as they grab everything they can get their hands on and stuff it all into the deep emptiness that defines their frenetic lives.

And the whole mess just remains, growing more malignant as the years unveil new and even more threatening revelations for either side to rage against. More dichotomy to embrace as truth, as the entire expanse of reality becomes less and less reliable, and the damage to our faith – in our own ability to trust that we can ever know anything for sure – threatens to metastasize into a terminal condition.

In essence, when you can't even reconcile reality within yourself, what chance do you have with the finer points of existence?