Here’s a recap of some of my favorite postings from 2006 in this category:
The Creation Continues — and We’re Involved
• What It’s All About. Whether we know it or not, we’re all serving as part of a cosmic construction crew. We’re participating in the continuing creation of the universe. We can surmise that the Creator puts to use, not just our successes, but also our failures. On the whole, over time we’ve been doing our infinitesimal bit in bringing order from chaos, in making our corner of the universe more "good." We seem to be most effective at participating in this ongoing process when we follow Jesus’s teachings. [link and link]
• Creation: A Titanic Set of Processes That Continues Today. I try to summarize, in ‘big animal pictures,’ what we know of how the universe came to be what it is. [link]
• Progress, Hope, and Trust in God: A Thought Experiment. Ask yourself: Would you permanently trade places with a random person who lived 100 years ago, or 10,000 years ago, in your ancestral culture? (Based on a thought experiment in Gregg Easterbrook’s book, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.) [link]
• The Continuing Creation: Not Carpentry, But Bonsai. It seems highly likely that God envisioned an overall design for the ‘garden’ we call the universe, and that he planted various seeds in various places. Perhaps somehow, on an on-going basis, he might also guide and constrain the growth of the ‘trees,’ which would otherwise grow wild. Gradually building a universe through ‘gardening’ would certainly be an impressive feat. [link]
• Doing God’s Prep Work. I recounted a story told by a friend, how he fretted that he wasn’t doing anything meaningful with his life, and then he had a dream in which God brought him up short. [link]
Where Jesus’ Teachings Come Into Play
• The Great Commandment and Evolutionary Success. Facing the facts and seeking the best for others are sound evolutionary strategies. [link]
• Love Thy Neighbor: An Engineering Trick by the Creator? There seems to be more to loving one’s neighbor than meets the eye — it may well be an awesomely-clever engineering trick by the Creator, one that plays a vital role in the ongoing construction of the universe. [link]
• A Paradox: Human Altruism May Have Arisen in the Brutal Evolutionary Crucible of War. Altruism, lauded by countless religious- and philosophical traditions, may have been forged, like a diamond from coal, in the brutal evolutionary heat and pressure of humanity’s war-like tendencies. [link]
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