Glossary

Many of the conflicts between science and religion stem from misunderstandings about definitions of words. Words are symbols to describe ideas. To avoid as much conflict as possible, I present here a glossary of terms used throughout this web site. Because many of the terms have multiple definitions in the dictionary, I define the words here according to my usage.

Agnostic - a person who is not sure about existence of God.

Atheist - a person who believes in no God.

Awareness - sensing the envrironment. Even the first and simplest bacteria have awareness. Differs from consciousness and self aware

Bias - filter of understanding that informs any act of knowing. Bias cannot be eliminated from scientific knowledge, but it can be regulated  through recognition of the bias.

Cognitive Dissonance - psychological condition whereby two conflicting views remain unresolved.

Consciousness - self awareness; knowing that we know; distinct from perception which is awareness of environment; trait of all life.

Communication - language; coordination of behavior; instinctive or learned.

Dharma - teachings or the law

Depression - separated from one’s true self - Alice Miller. Sense of isolation either from others, from self or from God.

Deism - belief that God set in motion the universe and did not need to tinker with it afterwards.   Practiced by Thomas Jefferson, E.O. Wilson, among others.

Ecumenism - the coming together of religions.

Emergent  - entities (properties or substances) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them. (For example, it is sometimes said that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.) or (Wimsatt, 1976, 1985). a property of a set of elements, which is neither explicable nor predictable solely on the basis of the properties of those elements together with some simple aggregative operation such as addition, multiplication, or integration (in the math sense).5 Understanding of an emergent property (generally not present in what we call "collections") requires specification of the particular way in which the elements are configured and the particular way they communicate elsewhere.  Emergence describes the appearance of a new set of properties of something that is not predictable based on the properties of the elements that make up the new thing. For example, life is not predicted by a collection of non-living elemental chemicals.  Life is an emergent property of matter.  Spirit is an emergent property of life. 

Emerging Theism - a type of Theism, similar to Process Theology, that recognizes that God is ever-changing and new properties of God emerge over time.

Endosymbiosis - the permanent living together of different kinds of organisms to create an altogether new organism.

Energy - the capacity to perform work,

Enformy - the capacity to organize (Don Watson, enformy.com)

Entelechy - stepping into full potential and power.

Evangelism - spreading one’s beliefs.

Evolution - change through time, from Latin ex= out = volvere = to roll.

Experience -

Experience of Immanence - sense of the divine in things

Experience of Mystery -

Faith - beleif that one's spirit can survive any problem encountered in material world.

Fundamentalism - belief that own religion is only true path to God and belief that own scripture is literal word of God.

Gaia - the series of interacting ecosystems that compose a single huge ecosystem at the Earth’s surface. ~ Margulis.

God - Ultimate Reality, Transcendent and immanent essence of all with power to save or destroy. Beyond definition, but still attempted (see web page on God)

Golden Rule - see Platinum Rule, Law of Reciprocity

Grace - The dictionary defines grace as divine love and protection bestowed freely upon humanity, to be favored.  I describe grace as the experience of this divine love, feeling protected and that all is well in the world. Grace is experiencing the divine. You get grace when you say grace. Grace is for me a peak experience, an overwhelming sense of belonging, of everything making sense, a feeling of wholeness and holiness.  Grace happens when you do the right thing, the thing that benefits you, your family and the world. Some might call this doing the will of God.  For those who do not believe in God, grace is the sense of flow. We all have access to grace, that experience that all is well with the world.  Grace is like the lottery ticket that we each have won.  Many of us simply don't know how to claim our winnings. In modern, biological terms, we experience grace when our bodies are rewarded with oxytocin which produces a feeling of serenity, sureness, gratitude and grace. An easy way to access a state of grace is to say grace, to give thanks.  When you appreciate what you've got instead of dwelling in what you don't have, you can find peace and grace in the world. Grace is a verb and a noun. When you experience the noun, you do the verb.

HeartDance - movement to integrate body, mind and spirit in order to cultivate grace.

Heuristics - The art and science of solving problems.  Rules of thumb or strategies, educated guesses used to help solve problems  Heuristic is the art and science of discovery and invention. The word comes from the same Greek root as "eureka": which means "I find". A heuristic is a way of directing your attention fruitfully.

Holon - "Arthur Koestler proposed the word "holon" [Koestler]. It is a combination from the Greek holos = whole, with the suffix on which, as in proton or neutron, suggests a particle or part. holons simultaneously are self-contained wholes to their subordinated parts, and dependent parts when seen from the inverse direction."

Holarchy - "hierarchy of self-regulating holons which function (a) as autonomous wholes in supra-ordination to their parts, (b) as dependent parts in sub- ordination to controls on higher levels, (c) in co-ordination with their local environment"

Karma - law of cause and effect.

Metaphysics - search for deepest levels of truth. search for truth about Ultimate Reality. speculation on questions not answerable by direct observation or experiment.

Mysticism - union with the All, experience of God.  A test for authentic mysticism is justice and compassion.  A mystical state is one in which we merge with the All of creation. W.T. Stace: “ the apprehension of an ultimate nonsensuous unity in all things, a oneness or a One to which neither the senses nor the reason can penetrate. In other words, it entirely transcends our sensory-intellectual consciousness.”

Natural Selection - process of organic evolution in which organisms produce more offspring than a given environment can handle and the least fit organisms die.

Noosphere - conscious layer of life enveloping the Earth.

Pantheism - God is everything in the universe (distinct from panenthism, in that God is not more than the universe)

Panentheism - God contains everything in the universe and yet is more than the sum of its parts.

Perception - awareness of environment; trait of all life (distinct from consciusness, which is self-awareness).

Prayer - being in the presence of the Divine

Process Theology - God is in flux. God provides potential for the future, but not reality for the future. (see Emergent Theism) "Reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature." "Process philosophy suggests that fundamental elements of the universe are occasions of experience. According to this notion, what people commonly think of as concrete objects are actually successions of these occasions of experience." ~ Wikipedia

Purpose - some find purpose written in the Bible. Others find purpose in our genes.

Reincarnation - movement of a soul into a body

Religion - from the Latin: to bind together again

Religious naturalism - Faith in nature. The biologist Ursula Goodenough is a famous religious naturalist.

Resurrection - rebirth, transformation of soul at body’s death. From Latin, to resurge.

Sangha – community

Selfish – acting in own interest in shortsighted manner to the exclusion of concern for others

Self-Interested – acting for one’s best self interest which takes into account that acting in one’s best interest includes caring for others.

Sentient being - a person or animal (in future a computer?) with a soul, who senses right and wrong, good and bad.

Science – “the research activity and the theories conceived to account for the results of observations and experiments”

Spirit – “the single, great, and eternal mystery that permeates and animates everything in the universe and yet transcends all. Ultimately, each soul exists as an agent for spirit." ~ Bill Plotkin

Soul - the vital principle in sentient beings forming immaterial entity.  The immaterial entity of a person that motivates thought and action.  The spiritual nature of a sentient being that is separable from the body.  Soul is the essence that connects with other souls.

"By soul I mean the vital, mysterious, and wild core of our individual selves, an essence unique to each person, qualities found in layers of the self much deeper than our personalities. . . . Ultimately, each soul exists as an agent for spirit." ~ Bill Plotkin

Supernatural -

Symbiosis - the living together of different kinds of organisms. Term coined 1873 Anton deBary.

Tao – The Way of the Cosmos

Theistic Naturalism - philosophy in which "God creates in, with, and through the natural as unveiled by the sciences" ~ Arthur Peacocke

Yoga – discipline to attain enlightenment, often associated with movement; from the Sanskrit meaning to yoke oneself to the divine.