Immaterialism
Immaterialism is the intellectual and psychological challenge that stands between us and complete understanding.
Down thru the ages, immaterialism and idealism have always been prevalent in philosophy and religion. That is true today. Even in modern philosophy, they continue to bubble up in various guises from just beneath the surface.
The successes of science have managed to keep a heavy lid on idealist speculation, especially in the last century. Postmodernism has raised the lid for metaphysical discourse amongst the intelligentsia, but this tolerance emphatically does not extend to questions concerning God and Cosmos.
The inhibitions and prohibitions on cosmological speculation are both intellectual and political. For the last three centuries, in case you missed it, there has been at least a cold war between religion and science. Just in the last two decades, it has become tolerable, if not quite respectable, for an academic to speculate about metaphysics as long as the God question is kept firmly in check. Anything more would be to provide an academic arena for the feared and reviled Creationists, for instance, and would seem too much like a unilateral disarmament after all these centuries of struggle. The mood is to just let the 'Cretans' find their own soap boxes. The emotional heat of battle is certainly not conducive to either side calmly considering the alternatives. Evidently that is our job.
On the intellectual side, Darwin and the Big Bang present a formidable obstacle to alternative cosmologies. Immaterialism is the only way to meet this obstacle without making it a direct confrontation on the materialists' own territory. We should wonder why the theists cannot find their way to the high road of idealism. Again, history provides a partial answer. Theists have grown much too comfortable with duality, and particularly with the duality of body and soul. Immaterialism carries the strong odor of pantheism and mysticism. They would much rather continue with the familiar skirmishes, than have to take on a whole new battlefield. Never underestimate the power of habit, especially in matters of the mind. None of us is immune to habit, but some of us feel more strongly the fascination of the uncharted.
Now you ought to have a better idea of from whence we come as we launch into these uncharted waters.
7/4/02