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While not generally recognized, Mead was a deeply religious woman who called for a "20th Century Religion" to meet the present needs and demands of human kind. Her conceptualization of such a religion included the following beliefs:
(1) Science and religion could and should work hand in hand to solve the world's problems. In 1966, at the World Conference on Church and Society, she said: "With knowledge and no faith, we may well see a world destroyed. With faith and no knowledge, we may still see a world destroyed. With faith and knowledge bound together, we can hope to cherish and protect the lives of the men and the life of the world." And Mead asked, "Is it Christian to insist that it is nobler to minister to the individual sufferer than to use technology to wipe out the disease from which that individual is suffering?"
(2) Those who were determined to adopt a "20th Century" faith should actively support the establishment of international law and worldwide institutions. "They should encourage the development of food banks to prevent famine and the removal of restrictions on the use of contraceptives to control population growth. They should support interim measures to bridge the gap between rich nations and poor and should encourage equality of opportunity for all races and socially dependent groups. They should be in the forefront of the environmental movement."
(3) A universal language should be established which every person in the world could speak.
While Mead was an Episcopalian, I was struck by how similar her beliefs were to those of the rapidly growing Baha'i faith, which holds the following to be "Truths for a New Day:
1. The oneness of mankind.
2. Independent Investigation of Truth.
3. The foundation of all religion is one.
4. Religion must be the cause of unity.
5. Religion must be in accord with science and reason.
6. Equality between men and women.
7. Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten.
8. Universal Peace.
9. Universal Education.
10. Spiritual solution of the economic problem.
11. A universal language.
12. An international Tribunal.
Einstein, whose name sadly conjures up images of the atomic bomb for many, despite his tremendous dedication to world peace, had three very strong beliefs in common with Mead. First, he, too, believed in the magnificence of God, saying: "I want to know the mind of God. The rest is all details" Second, he also recognized our interdependence and urged us to show compassion for all living things, stating:
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe' - a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness . . . Our task must be to fee ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and to the whole of nature in its beauty."
Einstein called for measures to be taken to create a greater unity in the world. In his later years, he repeatedly advocated for the creation of a world government. This government, according to Einstein, would possess power over all military matters, in addition to one other power - to interfere in countries where a minority was oppressing a majority. While he feared the potential for tyranny that the institution of a world government might create, he feared a world destroyed by war far more.
In an interview with Bill Moyers, Patricia Smith Churchland, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, described her meeting with the Dalai Lama. She and a number of other neuroscientists had been asked to give him a tutorial on the workings of the brain. What impressed Churchland most about the Dalai Lama was:
"...he had no dogma. He was willing to change his mind about anything depending on the nature of the evidence. He seemed to take as the most important aspect of the religion of Buddhism those questions of how to live a life. And there he talked about compassion, about honesty, and so forth. But he didn't advert to any dogmas about the nature of the universe... about whether species were created, or whether there was a mind independent of the body, and so on, He said, 'If those are the facts, those are the facts... on the issues of science... he wanted information from the people who knew, or the people who had the most information available. And he was not going to insist that the universe be one way because the Buddhists had thought it was so for two thousand years. He is deeply concerned with how people live their lives and with political issues of compassion..."
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