The Common Creation Story as Sacred Revelation

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The Common Creation Story as Sacred Revelation
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• Einstein once suggested that there are only two
  ways to live our lives as though everything is
  a miracle, or as though nothing is.

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Our Common Story

• Sacred evolutionary narrative is common because
  it encompasses all beings, human and other than
  human
• Two sacred texts The Sacred Story and Creation
• The scientific story of creation is a sacred,
  revelatory text

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Our Common Story

• Myth is one way of coming to know our world
• Science is simply another way of knowing not
  based on intuition but rather on empirical
  evidence
• What scientists look for is determined by their
  assumptions about the nature of reality
• It represents the consensus view of our best
  scientists using the tools they currently have at
  their disposal

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Our Common Story

• 13 and a half billion years ago, the early
  universe flashed into existence
• From where or from what? Some have referred to it
  as
• All-Nourishing Abyss
• Cosmic Vacuum
• Zero Point Energy Field
• Fecund Emptiness
• Non-being or Nothing

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Our Common Story

• Sri Aurobindo refers to nothing as
• something beyond the last term to which we can
  reduce our purest conception
• It can be said that it is also the womb of the
  Divine

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Our Common Story

• No one knows why the Flaring forth occurred
• Some assert that the Holy One began the long
  journey of manifestation in the realm of time and
  space
• The secret One, slowly growing a body
• Hafiz

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Our Common Story

• It is the nature of Gods Being to overflow in
  all dimensions, including the realm of matter
• Dr. Sallie McFague invites us to think about the
  entire cosmos as the incarnate presence of the
  divine.
• The created universe is the body of God
• Sri Aurobindo asserts that the physical universe
  can be described as the external body of the
  Divine Being
• Plato referred to the natural world being a
  visible, sensible God

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The Supernova Sacrifice

• The energy at the centre of a star comes from the
  conversion of hydrogen into helium
• Smaller stars explode, there are successive
  collapses, a stream of neutrinos are released
• In the process, new heavier elements necessary
  for the emergence of life are synthesized
• From this supernova explosion, all the elements
  we know about flare forth
• We are literally made from stardust.
• The only difference between us and trees or
  rocks and chickens is the way in which these
  elements are arranged Barbara Brown Taylor

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Galactic Goldilocks

• Five billion years ago, earth situated itself at
  exactly the right distance from the sun for life
  to eventually emerge
• Everything around us is the one-billionth of the
  suns energy reaching the earth
• We are a solar event (the heat we give off is the
  heat of the sun!)

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Galactic Goldilocks

• Earth was the right size and the right distance
  from the sun for the evolutionary force of the
  universe to continue its journey
• After a million years of lightening storms over
  the sea, life sparks forth into being
• Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry would consider this
  an understatement

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The Fundamental Ethic of the Universe

• There are three interrelated dynamics
• Communion
• Universe is a single dynamic event in which
  attraction at all levels plays a pivotal role
• Without attraction, things would fly apart

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The Fundamental Ethic of the Universe

• 2. Differentiation
• Within this communion, each and every emergent
  being is different from the rest
• This leads to diversity
• To be is to be a unique manifestation of
  existence

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The Fundamental Ethic of the Universe

• 3. Autopoiesis
• This word means self-renewal
• Each being simply knows from the inside the
  next step to take in order to be a player in the
  ongoing evolution of life

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The Fundamental Ethic of the Universe

• Taken together, these three dynamics suggest a
  universal ethic biased toward life.
• They constitute a hidden pattern in the heart of
  the universe
• When surrounding conditions are sufficiently
  intense and there is enough free energy present,
  these hidden patterns are activated
• This is a fundamental condition of the universe
• This is the presence of the Creative Power at the
  heart of the universe

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Bacteria Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes

• Swimme and Berry describe these early life forms
  using the language of Myth
• Aries (astrological sign for the spring equinox)
  is the name given to the prokaryotes
• Aries lay the foundation for the evolution of
  successive, more complex forms of life
  including us!

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Another Myth

• Promethio (Prometheus, the Greek mythological
  figure who stole fire to help humanity) figured
  out how to capture sunlight and turn it into
  food, through photosynthesis
• This ability provided for future generations of
  plants, Eukaryotes who would exploit this and
  survive

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Another Myth

• Promethio learned how to convert carbon dioxide
  into energy.
• In the process, releasing oxygen into the
  atmosphere, fixing it at the current level of 21
• If it were at 22, wed all go up in flames!!
• B A L A N C E

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Another Myth

• Another bacterium, Prospero (the magician in
  Shakespeare's The Tempest) evolves
• Prospero, an aerobic bacteria, was able to use
  the new oxygen in the atmosphere.
• Prospero becomes the progenitor for the animal
  kingdom because of his ability to breath the
  oxygen

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Another Myth

• Together, Promethio and Prospero disrupt the
  early conditions of earth
• They destroyed previous life forms but also
  stimulated new more complex and elegant forms of
  life to emerge
• The eukaryotic cell, the first radically new
  creation within the oxygenated Gaian system, is
  the single greatest transformation in the entire
  history of Earth, overshadowed in significance
  only by the emergence of life itself

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Another Myth

• After 3 billion years, Kronos got the notion to
  swallow other creatures whole
• This process is called heterotrophy
• Prior to this, cells used the sun for food or
  other decayed cells
• This is the introduction of the predator-prey
  dynamic present today

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Together We Are

• None of this happened in isolation
• None of this happened independently
• None of this happened on its own
• All life happened in community

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Conscious Self-Reflection

• The evolution of the human being represents the
  conscious self-reflection in the human race
• Humanity gained the capacity to be aware that we
  are aware.
• The universe stood up and gazed out upon itself
  with the arrival of humanity
• We are all children of the One who fired it all
  into being and who is our source
• Unity through differentiation is the way of the
  universe