materialism

A New Worldview?

by Wes

It’s not often that human society goes through a radical change in world view. In fact, that last time it happened was about 400 years ago. Then, as now, most people were completely oblivious to the transformation while it was happening but within just a few generations people were looking at the world quite differently. [...]

Science and Fundamentalism

by Wes

I was inspired to write this article by an exchange of comments on a science blog that I got involved with a while back. It reminded me of how similar people are regardless of their education and point of view, and how fundamentalist behavior can be found just about anywhere. The discussion was started by [...]

Consciousness in Physics

by Wes

In science, for the last 200 years the dominant belief underlying the description of the universe has been materialism – the belief that the universe’s basic structure is matter and everything that exists has developed from matter blindly following natural laws of evolution. This includes human consciousness and our inner sense of self, which are [...]

Monistic Idealism is designed to explore the intersection of hard science, consciousness studies and spirituality by discussing new research, publications and commentary on these issues. As in any emerging discipline there are more questions than answers, but it is encouraging that there are more and more very smart people addressing them. Your comments are encouraged.

Here is a PDF of a paper I presented in October, 2009 at a conference on Science and Religion. I maintain that the unifying factor between those two areas is consciousness, and that there are numerous science problems that cannot be solved without somehow incorporating consciousness as a causal element.

The Emerging Importance of Consciousness in Physics

Please note that just because it was a Science and Religion conference doesn't mean that I think that materialist, deterministic science, and literalistic ancient religion can agree. I'm an optimist, not a magician. The conference attracted the more open minded from both camps.

Here is a PDF of a summary of the material I taught in a 3-week class at Unity of Prescott in the spring of 2011. The class covered the first 400 years of Christianity and the four main, and very different, theologies that competed to be "official" Christianity. Part of the class covered how the New Testament was put together and the problems with authorship and forgeries.

The Battle For Christianity

We can never have an intelligent discussion about science and spirituality without being open minded and following the trail in both disciplines wherever it leads us. As Fox Mulder would say, "The truth is out there."