About

W E L C O M E
to

2nd Enlightenment

In "SERVICE TO RELIGION" since 1992

In Darkness and Light,
Our Consciousness, Our Lives,
Shine on, Live on
After us,

A New Light,
A New Voice,
Shining and Singing,

A Presence Filling
The Great Polyphony
Of Voices, of Lives,
That has illumined our Comings.

And so may we
Illumine the Comings of Others.

Generally speaking, “enlightenment” is the wisdom-consciousness of self-reflectivity. As conscious reflection is open to enlargement (evolution), so is enlightenment. The rational process of intellectual enlargement (evolution) accomplishes growth in consciousness by means of thinking (analysis and synthesis), dialog (communication), and social experience (interaction).

For purposes here, Enlightenment refers specifically to a cultural period in European history, characterized by the accelerated public awakening of reason and science, and by the challenges reason and science present to imperial church (Roman Catholic) which imposed a theology of dominion, i.e., dependency on priestly, hierarchical supremacy and general disregard toward the natural wisdom process of evolving consciousness.

The cultural conflict between faith and reason, between belief and science, ultimately led to the Thirty Years Wars of Religions (1618-1648). The aggravated hostility between religion (faith) and Enlightenment (reason) is still an unresolved matter of deep and unresolved difference.

Today’s faith/ reason conflict is generally reduced to polarized positions of “belief in God” (theism) and “non-belief in God” (atheism); on the terms of theism and atheism the ideological wars of faith and reason are yet fought.

“Second” Enlightenment seeks a middle ground by which atheism and theism can come to terms on the common cause of developing the symbiotic rationality of evolving consciousness. In the common purposes of human wellbeing, a sense of symbiotic altruism can be accommodated in which the religion of “Godlikeness” and the enlightenment of wisdom consciousness can come together for purposes of mitigating frictions and advancing commonsense moral understandings of personal/ social wellbeing.

Together, Albert Einstein and Teilhard de Chardin provide a physics and metaphysics of reconciled human relationship. What distinguishes “Second” Enlightenment from “First” is its accommodation of a “metaphysics” that reconciles the “spirituality” of consciousness with the quantum physics of General and Special Relativity.

Because Einstein and Chardin are contemporary, groundbreaking luminaries of scientific and religious evolution, it is quite proper to associate them with the beginning of the Era of 20th Century Postmodernity and with the leap of accommodated consciousness beyond Modern Era violence driven by a culture of mutual intolerance by Religion and Enlightenment.

The science of quantum relativity (Einstein) and the theology of evolution (Chardin) mutually inform all human relationships, and together converge on sensible understandings by which people can live together, peaceably and sustainably.

Religion and science can find accommodation in the joined sense and sensibility of joined Faith/ Evolution consciousness, the subject matter and purpose of the Evolution Syllabus.

The Cosmic Principle of Universal Correlation

In this time of ecozoic (ecological/zoological) crisis, no one is exempt from the obligation of conscience and from considering how one’s personal living impacts for better and for worse on others and on nature.

It is well for us to ask ourselves the all-important question:
“What is the connection of practical living and Cosmic Intelligence?”

It is the quantum-informed insight of universal relationship that practical reality supposes functional reality in all aspects of the cosmic, quantum continuum, and that “practical living” is also a process of cosmic rationality, the determining consciousness of intelligent living.

With the same level of confidence we can say that
“faith supposes reason” even as “religion supposes civility”.
Confidence is the basis of intelligence even as intelligence is the basis of confidence. Except for reason (intelligence) there is no confidence (faith) and except for faith, there is no intelligence.

If we believe in the “essential continuity/ unity” of cosmic evolution, we cannot reasonably avoid assenting to the essential correlations of energy/ matter, of spirit/ substance, of spirituality/ secularity, what is to say, that we must acknowledge the evolution and diversification of the identity-correlations of function (energy) and form (matter).

In the evolving cosmic continuum, the universal and reciprocal relationships of energy/ matter obtain and apply everywhere. In every aspect of Earth-cosmic substance, the identity-correlation of energy/ matter evolves.

Reciprocal interrelationships obtain in such a way that cosmic energy is nominator and denominator of matter even as matter is nominator and denominator of energy, that is to say that “function” is nominator and denominator of “form” as form is nominator and denominator of function.

By the proportioning correlations of nominator and denominator, reciprocal processing occurs psychically and physically in life’s evolution.

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In the SUBSTANTIATION of COSMIC ENERGY, the correlation of energy/ matter is identity, that is, “form” supposes “function” even as function supposes form, as materiality supposes “spirituality” (consciously qualified energy).

Based on this “Cosmological Principle” of evolution it can be concluded that “physics” (physical form, matter) suppose “metaphysics” (psychical function, spirituality, intentional consciousness) even as metaphysics suppose physics — and that the two are identified as correlated aspects in the continuing relationships of the evolving cosmos.

SYLLABUS RESOURCES for Adult Faith / Evolution Study

Adult Faith Studies, Part One: Year One
Evolution 101: Cultural Orientation:
Introduction to
The Unity of Consciousness and Faith/ Evolution
Resources:
“The Global THINKING Community”
“2000, A SUMMARY PREVISION toward Global Revitalization”

Adult Faith Studies, Part Two: Year Two
Evolution 202: Programmatic History:
The Quantum World and
The Second Enlightenment Trilogy
Resources:
PRIMARY SCRIPTURE, Cosmic Religion’s First Lessons;
QUANTUM RELIGION, the Good News of Rising Consciousness; and
RELIGION & CIVILITY, the Primacy of Conscience

Adult Faith Studies, Part Three: Year Three
Evolution 303: Plateaus of Consciousness:
Insights of Quantum Consciousness and
The Conscious Light Trilogy
Resources:
The POSSIBLE JOURNEY, Uncompromised Trust;
WHAT SELF-DONATION IS, Kenosis, Eucharist and Green Religion; and
GREEN RELIGION, Inside the Cultural Spectrum

Adult Faith Studies, Part Four: Year Four
Evolution 404: Intension/ Intention and Secular/ Spiritual Harmony:
Cosmic Poetics and
The Poetree Trilogies
Resources:
I. NOVOGENESIS: Faith-based Communication;
II. METAGENESIS: Hope-based Consciousness;
III. THEOGENESIS: Love-based Conscience