THE EPIC OF EVOLUTION:FROM MECHANISM TO SPIRITUALITY

摘要

During the several thousand years of the development of western civilization, itrnincorporated into its mythological core many assumptions about the nature of the Earth.rnWhile these assumptions presumably have served it well, many are not congruent withrnhow the Earth actually functions. With the increasing human population andrnindiscriminate use of the Earth as resource, these incongruities have resulted in ourrnpresent environmental, social, and spiritual crisis.rnThe crisis is a result of our leaving the community of life of Earth, extracting ourselvesrnfrom the ecological web of relationships that both nurtures and restricts all other creaturesrnon Earth. It is easy to understand and appreciate why we chose to do this. What we arernonly now beginning to realize is the cost of gaining the freedom to control our ownrndestiny.rnIn this century, and especially in recent decades, several long standing understandings ofrnthe Universe have been profoundly modified. The three that most directly affect ourrnwestern worldview are the discovery of the birth and evolution of the Universe, thernirreversibility of time, and chaos theory. These three have been woven together in recentrndecades into a comprehensive evolutionary understanding, the Epic of Evolution. Thernresultant narrative is an origin story of epic proportions in the same sense that the biblicalrnGenesis story is an origin story. It is a story of how the Universe came to be as it is,rnthereby setting a context for understanding natural systems and the relationships ofrnhumans within those systems.rnThe Great Work of the 21st century will be to reinvent our culture within the context ofrnthe Epic of Evolution. In this process there are at least two ways of thinking that willrnchange substantially: the powers of the Universe, the divine will be understood asrnimmanent as opposed to transcendent; and the basic mode of the culture will be spiritualrnas opposed to materialistic.