Evolution and the Inward Light: Where Science and Religion Meet

Evolution and the Inward Light: Where Science and Religion Meet

by Howard H. Brinton
Evolution and the Inward Light: Where Science and Religion Meet

Evolution and the Inward Light: Where Science and Religion Meet

by Howard H. Brinton

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Overview

The Logos philosophy presented here is the simplest and most profound of all philosophies, the newest as well as the oldest. There is only one other philosophy of the same importance and that is materialism � in its most extreme form, the attempt to explain man and all life, however complex, in mechanical terms. The latter was dominant up to a few years ago, due to the enormous success of physics and chemistry. All other sciences such as psychology, sociology, economics, etc. attempt to imitate physics, but they fail because they are dealing with human beings who share in the life and power of the Logos which is �unscientific� in its aims and methods.

Those psychologists who reduce human behavior to a simple stimulus-response mechanism are called by Arthur Koestler in his The Ghost in the Machine �Flat earth psychologists� (New York, 1968). A surveyor in surveying a small piece of ground, perhaps five or ten acres, treats it as if it were flat, but if he is surveying a large area, determining, for example, the boundary of the state of Kansas, he must take into account the curvature of the earth. The psychologists or philosophers who base all reasoning on what can be observed or measured, in other words, those who wish to imitate physics, and so share its success, are like the flat earth surveyors who can ignore the curvature of the earth because they are surveying only a small part of it. Many of our activities can be defined in terms of stimulus and response, but it does not follow that our bodies are simply very complicated machines. Though a mechanistic explanation can be useful to a biologist for purposes of observation and measurement, the life process itself is entirely different.

The thinking part of the brain is concerned with means and not ends. The ends are known only by feeling, which may be feelings of love or hatred. Only the feeling of love would permit the species to survive through cooperation and mutual support. The feeling of hatred destroys the possibility of cooperation which is essential to survival. Hatred destroys the environment on which life depends. Love is not only the greatest virtue, but the most practicable. If those who profess the Christian religion would take seriously the commandments of Christ, our chances of survival would be enormously increased.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940150421103
Publisher: Pendle Hill Publications
Publication date: 08/13/2014
Series: Pendle Hill Pamphlets , #173
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 30
File size: 127 KB

About the Author

Howard Brinton taught at half a dozen institutions, including such Quaker centers as Haverford, Guilford, Earlham and Woodbrooke. The last of these four provided a model for Pendle Hill. He also worked overseas in Japan and Europe for the American Friends Service Committee. Between 1936 and 1950, he served as director of Pendle Hill, sharing that job with his wife, Anna Brinton.
The Brintons first came to Pendle Hill in 1936, where they faced the contingencies of a pioneer school community. All sorts of odd jobs, which a maintenance crew might later handle, fell to the Director of Studies. Howard Brinton was frequently seen traipsing across campus on his way to negotiate the latest crisis, pursued by his rabbit Tibbar and the family dog Nuto. Gerald Heard, then a member of the Pendle Hill staff, watched this peaceable kingdom o n the march with delight and saw in it a practical illustration of the philosophy of survival by reconciliation.
In addition to writing more than a dozen Pendle Hill pamphlets, Howard Brinton wrote Friends for Three Hundred Years, a classic work of Quaker faith and history. Howard Brinton died in 1973.
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