Fascinating …
Note: This may be offensive to some. I do not support everything included herein. That said, I find the discussion enlightening on many levels.
Rupert Sheldrake is an Oxford professor who has a theory on morphic resonance. He also promotes the idea that one’s consciousness does not reside in the brain as the materialists propose. He is an Anglican and yet has interesting views on scientific and religious topics. He believes in entities existing outside our material realm. I recommend the video to those who have open and exploratory minds and wish to understand different perspectives and learn new things.
When I was teaching at the Military Academy I had a lesson I utilized involving sheep pens. The idea being that there are five sheep pens. One American, one Israeli, one Japanese, one Indian, and one Iraqi. The lambs born in the American pen would likely be Christian, Jewish in Israel, Hindu in India, Buddhist in Japan, and Muslim in Iraq. The accident of birth defining one’s religious affiliation.
I then took the Iraqi lamb. He was a skeptic. His parents, siblings, friends and the Imam all told him there is only one God, Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet. The Iraqi lamb wished to know if this was true. I then questioned my students, how could he find out? The answer was he had to leave his particular sheep pen and explore the others. He could return to his home pen, if he wished, but with a better understanding of the others.
I offer this post for those who want to examine other pens. I am not picking a fight and for those who have no interest in the examination of other understandings, please disregard and ignore this post. There is no need to pontificate on your own religious affiliation.
This interview was done 10 years ago. OP should put a description of the podcast in the post. Who is Sheldrake and why am I interested in listening to an old podcast?
Rupert Sheldrake is an Oxford professor who has a theory on morphic resonance. He also promotes the idea that one’s consciousness does not reside in the brain as the materialists propose. He is an Anglican and yet has interesting views on scientific and religious topics. He believes in entities existing outside our material realm. I recommend the video to those who have open and exploratory minds and wish to understand different perspectives and learn new things.
Thanks for asking. I’ll add this to the post.
NOTE: 9 minutes 30 seconds of COMMERCIALS at the start. Fast foreward is your friend.
He could probably stay in his pen and critically analyze how his religion says a person gets/comes to God and look at some of the ideas taught, like man-love Thursday being OK because Allah doesn’t pay much attention on Thursdays. Getting to God cannot involve working for God’s approval or gaining His favor by working for it, so these quick ideas alone stood cause an adherent of a false religion to think differently about the whole she-bang. Thinking about the attributes of a true God would help as well.
Without a thoughtful investigation using critical thinking skills you will be stuck with a mind that simply accepts “evidence” based on someone else’s perceived, and possibly mythical, authority.
I firmly believe that reality is not what we are taught. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t find this discussion objectionable. Learning from others, even those you disagree with, can teach you how the other person thinks and understanding their motivations will give you perspective on how to deal with them.
For now, we are all on this one planet. Until one’s demise, we may as well get along with others. It doesn’t mean we change our core beliefs to match theirs.