America's Evolutionary Evangelists

Connie and Michael discuss a variety of ways in which new technologies and new information systems are boosting and challenging their own work: both in staying informed and getting their ideas out into the world. Kevin Kelly calls this suprabiological phase of evolution, "The Technium."  New modes for the free exchange and collaborations of ideas and meaning include not only podcasts, such as these, but video uploads to YouTube, video "mashing" (by which third parties freely offer their time to make video snippets more accessible and entertaining), downloadable and thus ever-updated curricula, webinars and teleseminars, and synergistic mixes of all these modes. 

View from the Center of the Universe made a powerful impression on Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow when it was published in 2006. This podcast celebrates its coauthors: Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams and their continuing role in interpreting cosmological science in ways that offer modern peoples not only a deeply meaningful universe but one in which the human project can be experienced as central. Michael and Connie offer listeners a sampling of their favorite quotations from this book, while reflecting on their own experience of evangelizing mainstream science as our common creation story. Web references include: Primack Quotes and View from the Center of the Universe, as well as two YouTube videos: Nancy Ellen Abrams: "Cosmic Society" and Joel and Nancy's 4-part 2009 Terry Lectures.

Tom Atlee, fellow evolutionary, has just published a book titled Reflections on Evolutionary Activism. This book enters new territory in applying an evolutionary perspective for motivating, guiding, grounding, and consoling those now in or called into any form of activism for bettering the human project and ameliorating our collective ecological impacts on the world. Connie and Michael discuss how this book informs and inspires them and how feeling oneself as an expression of this creative universe profoundly builds trust and an openness to possibility, even in the midst of chaos and disappointments. Click to learn more about the book, view the table of contents, purchase the paperback, or download for free.

Marital infidelity is big-time in the news again with the Tiger Woods debacle. Also, the New York Times Magazine (November 17) offers an in-depth examination of a new marital dilemma: with cheap and easy DNA paternity testing, we have entered a new era in which husbands grown suspicious of their wives sometimes have to cope with devastating news that they are not, in fact, the biological fathers of children they dearly love. Michael and Connie, as usual, bring an evolutionary perspective to these heartbreaking family issues.

"Public v. private revelation" and "day v. night language" are two distinctions Dowd has brought to religious audiences that have yielded tangible benefits in bridging the reason v. faith divide. In this podcast Dowd and Barlow reflect on their experiences with these key distinctions — notably, why and how these concepts move traditionally religious listeners to shed fears of embracing an evolutionary, evidential worldview. The independent discovery of species change by means of "natural selection" provides a timely historical example (given this 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species) of the foundational distinction between public revelation (Darwin's long honing of his idea) v. private revelation (the spark of insight itself gained by Wallace during a malarial fever). Link to the book chapter Dowd refers to: "A Story Big Enough to Hold Us All" and to Barlow's book chapter: "Evolution Now!"

"Right relationship with Reality" is how Dowd defines, what he calls, the Big Integrity model of evolutionary spirituality, which he regards as a secular (nonmetaphysical) expression of human universals, grounded in our best scientific understandings of both objective and subjective realities. The bedrock understanding is that individuals and humanity as a whole are expressions of the universe, 14 billion years in the making. Consequently, an ultimate concern of those on this path is "leaving a positive legacy." Personal challenges, however, can sabotage that endeavor, so adopting an appreciative stance ("making life right") and looking for "what's possible now" when an inner or outer breakdown occurs are primary spiritual practices. Dowd suggests that eastern "enlightenment" and western "salvation" are ineffectual if personal "unfinished business" remains uncleared. Foremost, we must let go of resentments and acknowledge that we are always interpreting -- and that our own interpretations are not the onl

"Death is natural and generative at every level of reality." That affirmation was a core part of Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd's teachings during their years of living on-the-road as America's Evolutionary Evangelists. Having a naturalized view of death in the cosmos is not, however, intended to diminish the sadness we feel when a loved one dies. Rather, this insight, which emerges from the sciences, provides a "cosmic container" to hold us safely as we experience our grief. What better way to convey this perspective than by story? In this podcast Connie reads to Michael a 5-chapter, interactive story she wrote in 2009, called "Tree Talks About Death." You can freely download this story by visiting the Children's Curricula page of TheGreatStory.org website. A wealth of resources for adults on the topic of death can be accessed via Connie's "Death Through Deep-Time Eyes" webpage.

Connie and Michael explore a smorgasbord of related ideas and current events in the ongoing religion-versus-science controversies, beginning with the recent atheist invention of "Blasphemy Day" and the New Atheist critique of liberal religionists (and moderate atheists) who "accommodate" (and thus inadvertently foster) religious fundamentalisms. Taking a broader perspective, the duo detect in the current foment and antagonisms the signs of evolution in action: cultural emergents tossed into the pool of possibilities by which the religions of the world are, themselves, becoming "naturalized."

Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd riff on the latest sensation in musical culture -- which is also the latest sensation in the public understanding of science. It is a new music video series created by independent video artist John Boswell. Posted on YouTube, and also available in mp3 for free download, the two projects Boswell created thus far have topped the charts. "A Glorious Dawn," which features the auto-tuned (and thus singing) voice of Carl Sagan is now the top-rated music video of all time. Boswell launched "We Are All Connected" on October 19, and within three days it surpassed 100,000 views on YouTube. It features four singing voices blended with the original video images from which the voices were drawn. These are: Carl Sagan, again, Richard Feynman, Bill Nye ("the science guy"), and Neil deGrasse Tyson singing the words from which the title itself is drawn. Watch this video and see if you, too, feel that a whole new world of possibility and hope is now beckoning us forward. Truly a religious

Connie and Michael reflect on mentors in the Epic of Evolution Movement, past and present. Among them: Thomas Berry (this photo), Richard Dawkins, Lynn Margulis, and Albert LaChance. Michael speaks of how his cancer challenge has shifted his own priorities away from individual action and leadership and toward mentoring others in this movement and ministry. Connie reminisces on the pivotal role that Carl Sagan's Cosmos series played in her own life and in the lives of others, rounding off this podcast with John Boswell's 4-minute amazing remix of Cosmos that turns Carl's narration into celebratory song.