Shifting Truths

I had a discussion with a friend who argued that if one cannot empirically observe or measure something, then it doesn't exist. In his linear Newtonian way of looking at the world, he was excluding the entire existence of the unseen world from what we acknowledge as real, which I perceive as the matrix behind the entire nature and mechanics of the Universe that we claim to scientifically know. The current ruling paradigm of scientific materialism has established itself as the conclusive arbiter of what is real and true, such that if something is deemed unscientific it becomes at best questionable and at worst something illegal or even punishable by law. The defenders of scientific dogma too often see their conclusions as absolute, infallible, and unquestionable.

This scientific paradigm that defines the truths we live by is based on four dominant tenets that are deemed indisputable facts. First, the physical world we can measure is all there is. Second, that nature favors the strongest and the fittest will prevail. Third, that we are victims of our biological inheritance and the most that we can hope for is that science finds a way to compensate for our inherent flaws and frailties. And fourth, that life is essentially random and without guiding purpose. With these tenets as our foundation, it is clear how we have arrived at a point where money, material goods, and machinery are more valuable than things unseen.

Science is now our religion, but it wasn't always the arbiter of truth. Before Darwin sailed in the Beagle, it was the Church that served as the guiding paradigm of all things true. The truth was different then. The tenets of the Church were essentially that we were on this Earth only by divine intervention, put here to live out a morality drama and obey the Word of God – or else. And before that the truth was that we came from chaos, here only to please the whimsy of mischievous gods that one had better not anger or offend.

Like the adherents of science today, the Church positioned itself as the sole source of civilization's knowledge. The Church was able to control the power of that knowledge by controlling education, amassing vast wealth and great influence in the process, not unlike defenders of science today. As the mighty intercessor between God and the King, the Church was able to secure the arm of the law to secure its dominion. In time, with its intoxication with power and authority, the Church's original mission of helping humanity took a back seat to the more immediate mission of helping itself. Like science today, its precarious power and authority rested solely upon the fragile foundation that its knowledge represented absolute truth.

But nothing lasts forever – not even truth - and the Church was inevitably challenged as followers arrived at new truths. The bloody Inquisition and the Renaissance laid a path for science to supplant the old paradigm with its new truths. And like the Church, the things that pass for truth in our mass consciousness today, as defined by the scientific paradigm, will pass as well. This is already happening under the weight of its own inquiry. The spirit of science is alive and well. Scientists thinking outside the defined parameters of scientific limitation are creating unexpected upheavals at the leading edges of science. It is their new findings that are dramatically rewriting the way we see the world. Look around and we see we are in the throes of revolution. The defenders of the old scientific dogma have dug in to hold onto a paradigm that is quickly slipping away. Like the Church, it is those who profit from obsolete dogma that most resist the change of long held cherished beliefs. Science can no longer defend its disappearing dogma by saying “it is true because we say it is.”

A new paradigm of holism that includes unseen things is emerging. There is much, much more to the universe than just the things we can observe and measure. Matter does not matter as much as the unseen matrix behind it. We are not alone. We share a universe that is teaming with all manner of conscious beings. Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis, in part, is but one of many working hypotheses. We are not victims of genetics, but have full control over our biological expression at all times merely by changing the way we perceive the world we interact with. We are not here by chance but because of a driving overarching purpose. Every aspect of life has meaning, and like our scientific understanding of energy, that which makes us alive cannot be destroyed and is eternal. These are the truths we will come to know and believe and trust as we transition into a new paradigm, a new era, now, right in front of our eyes.