Fire, Flint and Faith

Xavier L. Suarez

Description

Fire, Flint and Faith is a coherent and holistic - but also entertaining - journey through the history of the universe. Following on other works by the author which analyze otherwise unexplainable jumps in the history of our planet, this book focuses on the so-called "Great Leap Forward" that scientists believe connected our species to our animal ancestors.
Using history, science and logic, the author convincingly debunks the latest in a scientific materialism, which argues that "only matter matters."
Instead, the author uses recent scientic discoveries and common sense to suggest that humans are a marvelous combination of body, mind and spirit.
Told in a conversational style that any adult can comprehend, the book goes on to conclude that humans are a wonderful combination of body, mind and spirit. In the process, it debunks the notion that
"only matter matters," as taught by some modern academicians.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 19 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665567145
• Langue: English

Extrait

Fire, Flint and Faith
Xavier Suarez


AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
 
 
 
 
© 2022 Xavier Suarez. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse  08/05/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6713-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6714-5 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Introduction
 
Chapter I A Brief History of Time
Chapter II The Third Chimpanzee
Chapter III The Great Leap Forward
Chapter IV Your Brain, Explained
Chapter V Sex, Gender, Science
Chapter VI Man’s Search for Meaning
Chapter VII Of Faith and Science
Chapter VIII Family: Crucible of Love
Chapter IX Of Human Personality
Chapter X Addiction And Grace
Chapter XI Until the End of Time
PROLOGUE
T he celebrated Netflix series, THE CROWN , features a marvelous scene in which Britain’s Prince Philip faces his long-estranged mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg. As a child, this royal lady had been wrongly diagnosed as deaf and schizophrenic.
Later in life, she managed to survive some form of barbaric therapy to become a nun and to found a new order dedicated to saving Jews during the Holocaust and to helping the poorest of the poor.
Mother and son are reunited in 1967 at Buckingham palace, a refuge given to her by her royal family in order to remove her from the violence taking hold of Greece at the time. In the featured scene, she questions Prince Philip as to his faith; he acknowledges that it is shaky, at best.
Then this former princess-turned-nun says to him: “Find yourself a faith. It helps. Not just helps. It’s everything.”
The story of humanity is often told as a tug-of-war between two extremes: one that values faith above all things and one that denies faith in all its manifestations. The latter view is the one that prevails in many of the so-called “scientific” halls of the modern European and American campus.
The former view, which considers faith in God the essence of all things, the key to our happiness and to the full flowering of our humanity – the sum total of the human condition – is not considered “scientific” at all. It is tolerated in the theology or religion department of campus, and occasionally makes its presence known in other departments (psychology, philosophy and sociology), but only to the extent that it helps to explain mysterious cures or unknown correlations between human behavior and faith in an almighty being.
This book is not intended as an apologia for religion or faith as an important value, although it will most likely have that effect on my reader. It is more like a survey of what we know about our species, using all of the tools that science provides.
But what exactly is “science”? As I was writing these lines, I was confronted by a fifteen-year-old girl, named Lauren, who seemed enthralled by the question. She said: “I am doubtful of any analysis which leaves out the wonder in the human condition. To me, that element is as important as any other, and needs to be part of the search for truth.”
Lauren is right. To insist that the scientific search for truth must be limited to things that can be measured with a clock or a yardstick is to exclude relevant evidence that is measured indirectly when we analyze human wellness. Modern psychology is all about measuring those indirect effects.
Mental health is in great part about motivation; and motivation is often an outside stimulus in the equation of human happiness. Or I should say outside stimuli, since there are many manifestations of this phenomenon. Humans, as we shall see, are motivated by witnessing and reading about what other humans think and do; they (we) are motivated by song, and poetry and visual arts.
There is also an inner stimulus that seems to come from some part of us that is not defined by our senses. Most of us – perhaps all of us – are motivated by the inner conviction that there may be life after death and that the measure of happiness in that the after-life is integrally related to the way we conduct ourselves during our physical lives.
All of these motivational realities are part of the scientific method. Understood properly, science is what Nobel Laureate Percy Bridgeman called “doing one’s damndest to search for truth – no holds barred.”
That includes insights that emanate from looking at the human condition as a triune reality, commonly referred to as body, mind and spirit.
Let me add that unlike many philosophers and theologians, I do not attempt to suggest which of the three is more important. In other words, my analysis does not include a bias in favor of spirituality over matter or mind over body.
My analysis presupposes no hierarchy among the three dimensions of the human reality. It simply takes all three into account. The methodology has been referred to as “integral humanism.” (My niece, Margarita Mooney, currently a professor at Princeton Theology Seminary, has recently referred to the same philosophical concept as “humanistic synthesis.”)
Much of academia oppose this integral way of thinking. They cling to a strictly materialistic explanation, often referred to as “scientific materialism.” (I define it, pithily, as “only matter matters.”)
In the field of anthropology, the logic of scientific materialism has led some scientists to embrace the idea of what is called “sociobiology.” It appeared first in the writings of Harvard’s E. O. Wilson and it was not particularly welcomed, for the simple reason that it seems to absolve humans of any culpability for antisocial behavior.
Sociobiology seeks to explain human behavior as a strictly biological phenomenon. It has not prospered much since being introduced, in the 1970’s. Instead, we see science taking a more holistic approach.
We see this particulary among health-care professionals, who find the purely materialistic approach singularly ineffective in understanding and treating mental health issues.
That should not surprise us. Describing any member of our species based on biochemistry alone is bound to fail. Diagnosing any illness, particularly those of the mind-psyche, exclusively in terms of the instinct to survive and procreate, is nothing less than professional malpractice.
Humankind is nourished by food, by the companionship of others, and by the image we humans see of ourselves as worthy of the love of our peers and of our own inner selves. Those who suffer much, and those who dream much tend to seek in a higher power the kind of inspiration that is often needed to endure and excel.
And all of us, whether we have suffered much or dreamt big dreams, can only be fully human if we see in all others of our species a basic equality. For most of us, that insight comes from realizing that all humans are sons and daughters of a common creator.
In this book, I argue that the same realization can be deduced from a proper reading of history and from the step-by-step acquisition of knowledge that our species has pursued as we became more and more civilized.
I will argue that advanced civilization requires collaboration, that collaboration requires trust, and that trust requires the kind of faith in human goodness that only comes from belief in a common parent.
When humans share key discoveries, formulas, ideas and inventions, they thrive collectively. Just as two heads are better than one to solve a problem, two societies are better than one at advancing civilization.
Fire and flint were the first two key discoveries. The idea that there is one, common, loving creator was the third one; faith in such a “god” brought people together and enabled them to collaborate in finding truth and shaping a more prosperous society. Faith prompted our ancestors to suspend their prejudices, allay their fears and commune with the tribe next door.
This book thus argues that fire, flint and faith were the key factors that helped end tribalism and begin civilization.
Getting along with other tribes requires, as a first step, that we get along with our own tribe. My good friend, who is presently the archbishop of Boston (Cardinal Sean O’Malley) likes to say that “we must love our enemies as much as we love our neighbors – and, often, they are the same people.”
Having neighbors who are enemies is the norm in uncivilized societies. By contrast, making friends of your neighboring tribes is the norm of societies that accept the idea that we are all made in God’s image.
That is the story of faith, which is the subject of Chapters VII and VIII. There, as well at various other points in my narrative, I describe how communication and collaboration among tribes began with tolerance for the differences that exist even between members of the same family.
People with the same genes and with the same upbringing are markedly different in their conduct. That reality, which surprises the scientific materialists, is the topic of the next section.
INTRODUCTION
I t has been a week since my cousins, on my mother’s side, got together in Miami for a family reunion tha