God as Universal Experience: A Buddhist and Mormon Perspective

Speaker 1

Our next speaker will be Evan Hadfield. Evan is a student at the University of Texas at Austin. Majoring in computer science and economics. Evan recently founded the campus organization Texas Transhumanists. and has been active in the Austin startup scene, participating in events at South by Southwest, Three Day Startup, and Code for America. Evan has also attended several Mormon history conferences and considers himself a dedicated Mormon history hobbyist. Please welcome Evan.

Evan Hadfield

Hi, um, so I’d like to Basically, laid the claim that I’m going to make a definition for God, and actually, I’ll overlap with some of Kathy’s statements earlier, so that’ll save me some time. I don’t have to delve into what I mean by the sort of universal God, I’ll delve into. But what I’d like to describe is a similarity that Mormonism shares with Buddhism and why specifically that similarity is important and what insights we can draw from that.

Evan Hadfield

So first, of course, why Buddhism has advocates, as I assume most of you are, for technological progress. it is worthwhile to consider Buddhism as the most strikingly influential form of religious practice in the technology space. The first things to come to mind, of course, Steve Jobs retreats and now famous practices of Buddhist of Buddhism. There’s hallmarks of Zen Buddhism and making design simple. And of course meditation is very popular in the sort of rising creative class that we associate with the technology field. And of course, just conjuring images of the West Coast, liberal Whole Foods, electronic car drivers is also these Buddhist meditators and yoga practitioners.

Evan Hadfield

But Mormonism does not conjure up those same sort of images. And I think that’s the issue that we’re that I think needs to be addressed.

Evan Hadfield

Buddhism today is enjoying an unprecedented renaissance with a revival in largely atheist China, but also importantly as actually the fastest growing religion in the West, a major world religion. The major Pew study of religion in the U. S. conducted a few years back found that Buddhism was actually primarily made up of American-born adherents, whites, and converts. In sharp contrast to other non-Western religions, which were mainly made up of immigrants. Only one-third of American Buddhists are actually Asian, and three out of four Buddhists in America are converts, the highest of any single religious group.

Evan Hadfield

Meanwhile, less than one out of four Mormons in the US are converts. Mainstream Christianity in the West, and Mormonism in particular, are experiencing major demographic decline in a key demographic. Mine. Males in their mid to late twenties are leaving the church faster than ever, and by many measures, the rate of active participation in the church in the U. S. is actually in decline.

Evan Hadfield

Some of those that leave will seek other avenues for spirituality, and Buddhism is successfully thriving as a part of that sort of spiritual conquest. Not only are most American Buddhist converts, but half were raised Christian. And I think this is the most interesting part. Only Buddhists reported a higher life satisfaction rate than Mormons.

Evan Hadfield

Now, I’m not going to try to argue for any specific tenets of the Buddhist faith or that there are any more valuable tenets of that religion over any others, and I’m not even going to try to argue for a specific track of Buddhism. Um and any formal student of Buddhism is probably going to cringe at my crude summation of Buddhist teachings and my lumping various sects together. Um but for the purposes of what I’m trying to argue I find it proper to lay out just a few of Buddhism’s key tenets.

Evan Hadfield

Buddhism’s most important teachings are summed up in the Four Noble Truths. Essentially, it’s that life is filled with suffering, which is caused by our mortal cravings, and that these cravings can be extinguished by following a concept of rightness, essentially a moral code.

Evan Hadfield

Zen Buddhism, the most popular variant of Buddhism in the West, is atheistic. It actually rejects all sort of superstitious dogma, it rejects karma, reincarnation, and even nirvana. But it does demand meditation, concentration, and physical discipline as a means to achieve enlightenment. A state of mind where the individual comes to realize him or herself or what other gender, as part of a universal oneness. The word to describe this connectivity is satori, the idea that all living things share equally in the eternal.

Evan Hadfield

It is intentionally left vague, subjective, and mystical. Buddhism generally teaches that by coming to this union with the world soul, man’s ego disappears and therefore the problems of ego and thus suffering disappears. This is the fundamental idea I want to build upon now.

Evan Hadfield

The Mormon God, as a physical, more advanced being, is quite congruous with transhumanism’s belief in the eventual immortality and power of post-humans. This Creator God is, however, a very Abrahamic concept of divinity. It describes a physical being in an advanced state who is the ultimate initial cause of our existence.

Evan Hadfield

In Buddhism, as with other Eastern reli religions, there is no concept of a first cause or creator. Thus, the insight I want to pull from Buddhism to today is an entirely separate, although not entirely new, as clearly Cathy has pointed out. definition for God, the oneness of all present, past and future experiences. Um th this God is the collective manifestation of the universe experiencing itself. It is this collective experience, the most incredible, beautiful, and misunderstood process in the known universe.

Evan Hadfield

Joseph Smith’s cosmology gives the most earnest and sincere glimpse into what I feel is a fundamentally Mormon interpretation of this universal God. At least before Brigham Young got a hold of it, and as with most things, Brigham Young did, kind of ruined it.

Evan Hadfield

In 1833, near the beginning of his ministry, Smith declared, as Cathy pointed out, that Glory of God is intelligence, or in other words, light and truth. I will take that as meaning light for its immaterial and yet morally illuminating quality and truth. for its eternal essence and key part of the universe. He is essentially describing information, and if you’re familiar I’m and I’m using that in a sort of quantum physics term of the word, the most fundamental, simplest element of the universe.

Evan Hadfield

Um interestingly, there’s a similar concept in Buddhism, that of the Dharmakaya. The Dalai Lama describes it as a space of emptiness, inherent clear light, the essential nature of the mind. It is out of this dharmakaya that all things are created and existed in their earliest form. It is the most reduced essence of everything again, information. It is um and it sounds equivalent to the concept to of Mormon intelligence. With these dual perspectives, we gain insight into how this definition of God takes form.

Evan Hadfield

God Himself, finding He was in the midst of spirits and glory, because He was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest Could have a privilege to advance like unto himself, taken from Joseph Smith’s now popular or well-known King Paul sermon. Viewing God as our collective experience or consciousness, I think, casts a transhumanist light on Joseph Smith’s description of the process of godly evolution.

Evan Hadfield

God, like the human body, naturally developed, from its most primordial state, a means by which to bring the smallest unit of which it is made, a cell, into a higher form resembling the whole. In the body, it is the process of reproduction that enables this sort of cell dividing and replicating itself into a very complex, functional, conscious human being. In God, and the God I’m describing, it is the process of refinement through technology, knowledge, and creating meaning through experience that brings us as individuals into a higher state like unto itself. the full realization of a posthumanist a posthumanist future where intelligent beings are super conscious and infinitely intelligent.

Evan Hadfield

So essentially to wrap up, I’m not arguing that this is a new definition or we need to redefine God and that because it doesn’t conflict with, I think, the Abrahamic context or the new God argument. But what I do think it does is defines God in a way that is congruous with the sort of awe and devotion that we attribute traditional concepts of God. The God where we are all a part of it, where we all share in the experience and derive our morals from our shared conscious and collective brings us empathy and the value of diversifying our technologies and education and knowledge. That is something worthy of devotion, worthy of a moral code to follow and praise and praise and song

Evan Hadfield

The scientific God, the God of Dawkins, the God of Mormonism, the Creator God through natural scientific means, still uses Pretty cruel evolution and death and suffering to achieve its means. And while it can be viewed in a valuable light, I will argue that through Buddhism and through kind of seeing where Joseph Smith and Buddhism intersect, We derive a more powerful and more spiritual and lasting meaning of God.

Evan Hadfield

Thank you. Yes.

Speaker 3

Go ahead. Oh, okay. Um you’re talking about um using Buddhism in the in a new technological world. Um and to help us advance. And um it is that right? It sounds like you were. Um and it it just seemed like Um like the more I’ve learned about Buddhism, it seems like it’s about detachment and about not uh of basically accepting the suffering or avoiding the suffering right now. being attached to the world around us. Um how do you reconcile that with um with the technological advancements?

Evan Hadfield

So the question is, Buddhism is associated with the feeling of like detachment from material possessions and suffering and like reducing your lifestyle. And that seems incongruous with sh normal transumist ideals. I think that what we are seeing with Buddhism and why it is increasingly popular is for its sense of simplicity and that The technology sphere, where we have all these gadgets and wires and everything, is very complex, and we just want to buy all these gadgets, I think, is really just a temporary state. And we’ll look back on as well, that was kind of a crazy couple of decades where we had a bunch of stuff. But what we’re seeing now is a glimpse of technology is ubiquitous, it’s seamless with the natural world, and we don’t really recognize it as separate. And I think that’s where Buddhism is going to continue to resurge. Sure.

Speaker 4

Um it seemed to me like a step might have been missing there that might help uh people to get to where you are. And what what I was what I was hearing was that the God of Mormonism to you seemed rather kind of as one who operates within the universe according to natural law. Seemed like one that, if you think of it that way, is less awe-inspiring, right? But I think that the traditional view of the Mormon God is Quite awe-inspiring. It’s only when you try to think about it in a scientific way that sometimes you run the risk of losing the awe. And so Are you is that what you’re trying to do? Are you trying to you’ve already come to the conclusion that the scient the scientific view of God is compelling, but you’re trying to bring back the Awe? Is that what you’re doing?

Evan Hadfield

Yes, so the question is, with is am I saying um with the scientific view of God it’s lost some of its awe and trying to re-establish that traditional awe, essentially? Uh yes. I I Essentially, I do think that we can make a good case for an Abrahamic God that there’s a being in an advanced state, but by doing so we lose a lot of that power and oomph and motivation for doing good things. I think if we take a sort of Buddhist approach to it and really what I think Dode Smith was getting at, I think it restores some of that power. One more? Sure.

Speaker 5

Just kind of a question and comment in terms of you referred to The Mormon God as being, in similarity to other Abrahamic gods, a first cause. And I wonder if you recognize, in terms of the quote you gave for Joseph Smith, of God finding himself amongst Does it imply not a first cause God, but rather a God that did exist in the existence of eternal setting and and essentially became God. Um and and doesn’t that change some of some of your arguments in terms of of the Mormon understanding of God as this separate first cause who did all of this stuff, rather than this God who organized and indeed the ability for almost some of what you may have talked about in terms of the universe to become what it is becoming

Evan Hadfield

Okay, so your question is if the real Mormon concept of God is like a God who exists in an already existent sphere and doesn’t actually create or for initiate. Okay. Does that lose some of the meaning? And I know we’re pressed on time, so I’ll answer that pretty quickly. I think the answer is that What I’m describing. Essentially, I think that the Mormon that the Mormon concept of God is no different because it doesn’t give really solve Where our meaning comes from. It’s just a step in the process. Well, that God came from another God, who came from another God, and it’s just like this endless chain of being. And it’s still a very scientific, like creating and initiating. But why. And I think the why derives from the sort of Buddhist perspective.

Speaker 6

Thank you.