A listener asked me recently, "Why is it necessary to speak of God." Then she went on, "We have to see this God or whatever it is in relation to all that is valid and workable in science."
I agree. Because whatever you call Him - God, energy, the Great Spirit - the world is poorer by excluding Him.
Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, The Relevance of God in our Modern Society.
And as I launch into this program, I am fully aware of the heat this will cause in some circles. One of the distinguishing aspects of our modern society is the almost certain guarantee that if you talk openly about the need to introduce God into human affairs, you are sure to raise howls of protest and derision in many circles. God, it seems, is considered at best old fashioned and quaint, as if talking about Him suggests you're a child who needs the comfort of fairy-tale proverbs about miracles and salvation to help you sleep at night, and at worst like you are a dangerous Bible thumping lunatic spouting Biblical scripture in answer to any dilemma and leading any who follow into a mind-controlling cult.
I feel this keenly whenever I enter into this subject here on the program. I'm a modern Canadian, after all ... a baby-booming WASP raised with the requisite Darwinian scientific education. I remember wll how I felt when listening to the religuous people who came knowcking on my door on Saturday morning.
I do believe we have been fed a very distorted story about God, and that we are very out of touch with a meaningful understanding of God and the nature of Man and the universe. To the point where we now have knee-jerk reactions when we face this issuethat have nothing to do with reason. My colleague, Sofie Bergqvist, talked in a previous podcast, Liberating Ourselves From our Free Will, about this when she told a sotry about an immigrant student in her Swedish high school who innocently stated in Biology class that she didn't hold to Darwin's theory and instead believed that God had created the world and all in it. Sofie's classmates were predictably cruel in meting out their justice for this heresy. They simply shunned the girl. No one talked to her, no one invited her to parties, no one had anything to do with her.
It's not difficult for me to see the same thing happening in my native Canada. Ad we are countries, Canada and Sweden, who consider ourselves paragons of tolerance. But let me tell you, my dear, northern, first-world, modern compatriots - that primitive shunning and ex-communication would never happen in Brazil.
Another of my colleagues, a Brazilian, was conducting a Portuguese class for a group of foreigners trying to learn the language when the subject of belief came up. One of the students started to speak about his belief in God and how he thought it was important for the human being to have contact with this spirituality. A fellow student - from France - rose up in protest and started the standard put-down that I don't need to describe.
"Whoa, hold on a minute," my colleague said firmly. "You're in Brazil now. Here, we don't attack others for their beliefs or lack of belief. We're not like you in the first world. Here, we respect a person's right to have his beliefs, even if they're different from ours."
Dead silence from the French woman. Message received.
When I came to Brazil 9 years ago, I remember teaching an English class where one of the students began to speak about his faith, and I said, "You mean, you can talk about these things here?!" The students laughed good-naturedly. Another ignorant foreigner lost in political correctness and censorship.
The good news today is, my dear listener, that we can begin again to consider a scientific view of God through the remarkable work of Brazilian psychoanalyst and social scientist, Dr. Norberto Keppe, whose science of Analytical Trilogy is a re-union of science with philosophy and, can you believe it, theology to give us a vast, deep and comprehensive view of the human being and the society in which he lives. Keppe's work is a vital contribution to the intellectual treasure of human civilization.
And if you'd like to know more beyond this podcast, there are many resources on our Trilogy portal. And please communicate with me directly so I can keep you posted about any news from our International Society of Analytical Trilogy ... rich@richjonesvoice.com
Today, Swedish journalist, Helena Mellander, joins me for a thoroughly modern discussion about the relevance of God in our modern society.
Click here to listen to this program.