MIndful America

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120669/2014-year-mindfulness-religion-rich

Gadamer and openness

http://www.iep.utm.edu/gadamer/#SH3b

Flow and openness: Picard

"Contemplating the nature of the mind...is a deep and fruitful experience combining relaxation and flow. Relaxation is the form of inner calm, flow in the form of a clear and open presence of mind, alert but not without tension. Perfect lucidity is one of the principle features that distinguishes this state of mind from ordinary flow...The experience is a source of inner peace and openness to the world and others. Matthieu Picard (the "happiest man in the world") in "Happiness"

Metaphors of openness



the Tibetan hermit and wondering barred Shabkar sang of enlightenment and compassion:

Relax, at ease and it very state of freedom,
I arrive at the immense sky– realm
That is an unconditional absolute state.
When it is left to itself, as a vast sky
Utterly transparent and serene,
The poisonous, painful bindings that her mental constructs
Loosened by themselves.

When I remain in this state
Which is like a transparent, Empty sky,
I experience joy beyond words, Thought, or expression.

Looking on with the eyes of a wisdom
That is more immense than the all-encompassing the sky,
The phenomena of Samsara and Nirvana
Become delightful spectacles.

Within that brilliant continuum,
There's no need for effort,
everything occurs by itself,
Completely at ease, very naturally:
Complete contentment!

Compassion toward sentient beings
Once my mothers,Surges up from deep within me–
These aren't just empty words:
Now I'll work to benefit others!

History of the New Left

http://www.democracyjournal.org/35/what-new-left-history-gave-us.php?page=all

Pluralism and openness

And Robert Bellas religion in human evolution he has a footnote to William James the principles of psychology in James's classic introduction to religious experience he speaks of multiple realities and worlds interchangeably. Alfred Schutz, reinterprets James suggesting that were James is concerned with mental realities and subjectivity,  Shutz' approach is phenomenological and intersubjective." James is concerned with mental realities, Shutz with realities that are also cultural. In general, however, James's insistence on pluralism was as much ontological as it was psychological. Let's footnotes 7, Page 612 to 613.

Leo Strauss and Nietzsche by Laurence Lampert

"One of the gods announced one day, 'There is only one God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and all the other gods--died laughing." (T.S. Zarathustra, Nietzsche.) "The death of that presumptuous deity presages the rebirth of the laughing gods." Lampert

"Nietzsche sets out to accomplish philosophy's rule over religion by generating values true to the earth, opposite values to those employed by Plato in his successful accomplishment of philosophy's rule over religion." Lampert

The cognitive science of religion

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/09/why-are-millenials-unfriending-organized-religion.html

This collection of data all suggests that built into our psychological make-up is a way of interpreting the world that makes us particularly susceptible to religion and religious ideas. It might be possible to move past these innate biases, but Banerjee suggests that it’d be difficult. “Overriding these sorts of intuitions may be effortful,” she says, “and therefore not nearly as easy to eliminate as Krauss suggests.”

“Change is always one generation away,” he told the audience, referencing the rapid cultural shifts on gay marriage and slavery, “so if we can plant the seeds of doubt in our children, religion will go away in a generation, or at least largely go away. And that’s what I think we have an obligation to do.”

Mind; Cognitive Psychology; Panpsychism

http://philosophy-compass.com/sections/mind-and-cognitive-science/

Panpsychism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycRu9bhrWhc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

Evolutionary[edit]

The most popular empirically based argument for panpsychism stems from Darwinism and is a form of the non-emergence argument. This argument begins with the assumption that evolution is a process that creates complex systems out of pre-existing properties but yet cannot make "entirely novel" properties.^[1] William Kingdon Clifford argued that:

[...] we cannot suppose that so enormous a jump from one creature to another should have occurred at any point in the process of evolution as the introduction of a fact entirely different and absolutely separate from the physical fact. It is impossible for anybody to point out the particular place in the line of descent where that event can be supposed to have taken place. The only thing that we can come to, if we accept the doctrine of evolution at all, is that even in the very lowest organism, even in the Amoeba which swims about in our own blood, there is something or other, inconceivably simple to us, which is of the same nature with our own consciousness [...]^[9]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSmfhc_8gew 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEIXijQctlQ

Liberation Theology and Openness

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/charity-or-justice-pope-francis-revisits-liberation-theology

"The core commitment of liberation theology has been to make theology a critical reflection on the lived experience of the poor—an existential stance regarding the dignity of marginalized human beings in their real historical circumstances, rather than abstract reasoning toward supposedly timeless truths. Material reality on the side of the poor must be lived, argued Gutiérrez; only then can theological conclusions be derived from it."

"Francis prays for politicians who will take inequality seriously, but never makes reference to liberation theology’s cornerstone scriptural story: the Exodus, when with God’s help the Hebrews freed themselves from slavery.

“Charity,” St. Augustine wrote, “is no substitute for justice withheld.” If the Vatican truly wishes to engage with liberation theology, rather than eulogize it in its sunset moments, Pope Francis will have to address the power behind the markets—the police, the military, and the whole military-carceral state—as Romero, D’Escoto, and indigenous communities in Chiapas did."

Pope Francis and openness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/19/pope-homosexuality-church-gay_n_6010904.html

Pluralism, American Pragmatism, and Native American Philosophy

http://philosophy.uoregon.edu/profile/spratt/

Conservatism, Law, and Fear: Abortion and American Reconstructionism

http://www.propublica.org/article/this-alabama-judge-has-figured-out-how-to-dismantle-roe-v-wade

"...Foundation for Moral Law, a think tank devoted “to protect[ing] the Constitution and protect[ing] the heritage of our Country.” It promoted the far-right strain of Christianity known as Reconstructionism — supporters believe that the Bible should be the governing text for all areas of civil and political life; that America’s Christian founders intended it to be a Christian land; that there is no law without God; that the law and the Constitution don’t evolve any more than humans do, but are fixed and immutable. "

"Parker won a spot on the state’s top court in 2004. Once elected, he freely recruited the kinds of committed, somewhat eclectic culture combatants who made up Moore’s circle. For the powerful behind-the-scenes job of chief of staff, he chose John Eidsmoe, an ex-law professor and author of several seminal Reconstructionist works — “the top Biblical law commander of the era,” according to Frederick Clarkson, a journalist and historian of far-right religious movements and senior fellow at Political Research Associates."

 “The liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court already look down on the pro-family policies, Southern heritage, evangelical Christianity and other blessings of our great state,” Parker declared in one particularly blistering op-ed, in which he excoriated his fellow justices for following that court’s precedent and overturning the death penalty for a man convicted of murder as a juvenile. “We Alabamians will never be able to sufficiently appease such establishment liberals, so we should stop trying and instead stand up for what we believe without apology… It does no good to possess conservative credentials if you surrender them before joining the battle.”

“When judges don’t rule in the fear of the Lord, everything’s falling apart,” he would argue, citing the Book of Psalms. “The whole world is coming unglued.” 

Empathy and morality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_King

Platonic Fundamentalism

http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~nunez/web/FM.PDF

https://www.google.com/search?q=Where+Mathematics+Comes+from%3A+How+the+Embodied+Mind+Brings+Mathematics+Into+Being&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS503US503&oq=Where+Mathematics+Comes+from%3A+How+the+Embodied+Mind+Brings+Mathematics+Into+Being&aqs=chrome..69i57.1315j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

https://www.academia.edu/726498/Review_of_Where_Mathematics_Comes_From_by_George_Lakoff_and_Rafael_Nunez