by Guardian in Chief Richard A. London
Given in the Blue Star Memorial Temple
May 10, 2026
This talk was originally given in the Temple in 2005. Its inspiration came from a legal battle ending that same year, when the Dover Area School District of York County, Pennsylvania, lost its fight to incorporate Intelligent Design into its biology teaching curriculum.
With the exception of some minor edits, I am retelling this talk today as if it were 21 years ago. Its essence remains as relevant to me today as it did in 2005.
Can you imagine a time long ago when humanity had no idea what religion, science, and economics were all about? How about what it must have been like for humanity to begin coming to terms with their meanings in some evolving fashion?
The everlasting importance of religion, science, and economics lies in the pronouncement that they are the foundation stones of the Temple of the People, of the Temple of Humanity, and the cosmically corresponding Temple of the Universe.
According to the Temple Teachings, “There can be no true religion without its scientific basis, and there can be no right economic system not based on a science that is religious and a religion that is scientific.”
In the name of religion, science, and economics, billions of people have been helped, saved, renewed, industrialized, entertained, conquered, tortured, and killed from time immemorial. Throughout the history of civilization, the struggle between religion, or what we think we believe in; and science, or what we think we know about; with economics, or how we produce, consume, and exchange what we think has value — all while under the influences of our individual beliefs and knowledge, continues our process of transformation.
Have you ever wondered why love, unity, freedom, and democracy are not held up as the foundation stones of the Temple of the People? One would think caring, kindness, fairness, trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, and citizenship would make great foundation stones as well.
The architects of the Great Pyramid of Egypt knew some 4,600 years ago that each successive layer of stones was in fact the foundation for the next. We are reminded of this process in the Master’s 2005 Convention Message:
“You are but the latest in the stream of souls who, entering the gates of the Temple, have labored to build a solid foundation. This foundation is laid, and now is the time for each of you to emplace another stone in the wall of the edifice you are building. We cannot lift that stone for you; but before you place the stone you must chisel it to the shape needed for perfect fit. It is your responsibility to shape the stone with steady tools and place it in its proper place using all the attention and love within your hearts.”
Can humanity ever experience sustainable acts of caring, kindness, fairness, trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, and citizenship based on unity, love, freedom, and democracy, without the knowledge of a true religion that has a scientific basis and a right economic system that is based on a science that is religious?
This could be the riddle of all time if it weren’t for the fact that science still isn’t exactly sure how the Great Pyramid was put together.
No matter where we venture, we can find people who are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they have a handle on nothing but the truth, so help them God; and perchance they do. Believing this, many continue to develop and refine the ways and means to persuade the rest of us into accepting their line of thinking.
Just to be clear, there is very little difference between us and them and me and you. For better or for worse, we are all in this together.
The five objectives of the Temple of the People can be found in every Temple Artisan and songbook. Within these five objectives, we are provided with statements of purpose describing, in my estimation, the Temple’s ongoing intentions to help us know and understand the Universal Truths behind religion, science and economics.
That bears repeating. Understanding the five objectives of the Temple of the People is to offer the student of life the opportunity to come to know and understand the Universal Truths behind the interdependence between religion, science, and economics.
This is quite a mission. Talk about responsibility! Of course, there are many other organizations, groups, individuals, newspaper and magazine articles, books, movies, video and audio recordings, radio, television, and computer programs, internet blogs and podcasts, doctors, therapists, astrologers, clergy, and yes, politicians trying to show us the way.
Here in the United States of America, we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights — the results of intelligent design, great sacrifice, thought, and cooperation to show us the way. And yet, our country remains remarkably polarized when it comes to religion, science, and economics, not to mention the simmering regret for the subordination of women, the indigenous, and the enslaved.
As with other great sources of ancient wisdom, the Temple offers a variety of ways for discovery, learning, understanding and implementation. It can be as simple as meditating on the Temple motto, “Creeds Disappear, Hearts Remain,” or practicing the Golden Rule.
There comes a time in most of our lives when we find the desire and will to know, understand, and live the wisdom. While the Temple objectives are clearly stated, how we choose to evolve is entirely our own responsibility. We are often reminded that true growth is slow growth, and are also encouraged to rely on our own intuitions. While we may seek council from our fellows, we are on our own when it comes to discerning the Truth.
Despite having unfettered access to the same wealth of Teachings right here in Halcyon, you would still be hard-pressed to find common ground as to what the best economic system might be, whether locally or globally.
So, who is to say who or what is right or wrong? Can we ever be sure? How can we connect with or relate to an action or thought that on the surface appears contrary to what we believe in or think we know about?
Although we tend to think we know everything when we actually know very little in the early stages of our lives, the recognition of how much more there is to know usually dawns upon us near the end of our lives. Nevertheless, the accuracy and correctness of our convictions comes and goes as we explore how to contemplate, understand, and experience the potential for becoming One with the Reality of Truth.
“The One Great Prize,” found in Volume 2 of Teachings of the Temple, reminds us that “It is not easy for man to understand that two diametrically opposed methods of action may both be right.”
While the Temple Teachings are in tune with both Eastern and Western philosophies, it is the latter that continues to dominate the political direction and global influence of the United States of America. As we attempt to navigate our way through this political jungle, let’s see if we can learn anything from the ongoing controversy between religion and science. The constitutional principle of the separation of church and state is what appears to have become the crux of the matter.
The issue at hand is what we teach our children. Although the First Amendment makes it very clear that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of one’s religion, “creation science” continued to be the curriculum taught in our public schools for some 170 years after the amendment’s ratification. The first significant challenge to this curriculum came in 1925 when John Scopes, a high school biology teacher from Dayton, Tennessee, was put on trial for breaking the state’s Butler Act law. It was still illegal to teach anything that might have caused one to question the story of Divine Creation, as it is told in the Bible. Popular opposition to the theory of evolution remained high until the early 1960s, with most textbooks making little or no mention of evolution, and the ones discussing evolution often omitting it from their indexes.
Today, one can’t help but notice how far the pendulum of public opinion has swung in the opposite direction. Despite the fact that our country was founded on a belief in God, this year (2005) a U.S. District Court judge upheld that mandating recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was a violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. The court ruled that the pledge’s reference to one nation “under God” violated school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”
Additionally, the fastest growing religious concept in America has become known as the ‘Nones.’ Their numbers have more than doubled in a decade, to nearly 30 million. As a concept, were the Nones to be considered a worldwide organized religious denomination, they would be trailing behind only Christianity and Islam in terms of their membership numbers.
The ‘Nones,’ are named for their responses to the question in public opinion polls, “What is your religion, if any?” Some ‘Nones’ are atheists, others agnostics, still others are self-styled dabblers in a variety of faiths and philosophies. Despite their discomfort with organized religion, many consider themselves quite spiritual and believing in God, while describing themselves as unaffiliated rather than as non-believers.
So, what’s going on? Besides the ongoing challenges facing Christians, Muslims, and Jews, we are now encountering the evolving trend of the Nones. Can humanity exist without any religion, on just science and economics alone, or could it all just be a matter of semantics?
Just when humanity was getting used to the world not being flat, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was theorizing not only that the Earth was round, but also that it had never ever been at the center of the universe. The notion that the Sun was not revolving around the Earth was a strong challenge to the church’s view of reality. Being a clergyman, Copernicus kept his ideas to himself for most of his life until, nearing death, his conscience prevented him from taking his theories to the grave. Upon its publication, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres was immediately placed on the papal index of forbidden books by the Vatican. Years later the Italian scientist and inventor of the telescope, Galileo Galilei, found himself condemned to house arrest for the remainder of his life after publishing Dialogue in 1632, where he defended the Copernican theory.
The debate between evolution and creation science encompasses a complexity of light years beyond humanity’s ability to come to terms with the true shape and location of the Earth. Yet, greater clarity about the differences and similarities between evolution and creation science may be found when we consider our placement within the Universe.
When we study the Temple Teachings, we eventually come across a number of precepts such as the Law of Centralization. We may not recall ever being explicitly taught about this Law while in school; however, it was implicit within every structure of existence that we had to study. We would have found it in the sun of our solar system, in the nucleus of the cell, in the protons and neutrons within the atom, in the queen of the beehive, in the chairman of the board, and in the leader of a nation.
Paradoxically, through the Temple Teachings I have also come to appreciate that it is the same Law of Centralization that challenges our ability to perceive the world realistically. By way of a brief explanation, it is the Law of Centralization in relation to the Laws of Attraction, Repulsion, and Cohesion, and their resulting interaction, that impacts every aspect of the evolution of matter, force and consciousness. Working in concert, these Laws hold the Universe together. While some may call these various combinations of Laws God, others may think of them merely as forces like magnetism or gravity.
You may even come to think of this wonderment as an intelligent design. It’s what brings two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen together to form a molecule of water. It’s what gives the newborn calf the ability to recognize its mother from the rest of the herd, despite sight unseen. It’s what draws the fragrant rose out of its thorny stem. It’s what maintains a healthy relationship between predator and prey, always bringing the producer-consumer-decomposer cycle into harmony.
Yet, it is the same force that discourages certain atoms from forming unions that might make our atmosphere incapable of sustaining life — at least, as we know it.
Just as every cell in our body is held together by its individual nucleus, each cell is instinctually attracted to a center outside of itself while simultaneously experiencing cohesion and/or repulsion with neighboring cells; the very fiber of our being is held together by this cellular instinct. Within our bodies are centers within centers, in a similar fashion to the way a moon orbits its planet as that planet revolves around its sun. As the Sun is the ultimate center for the Moon, so every cell finds its ultimate center to be the mind of the body where it exists. By the Grace of Mercy, our Hearts also play a vital role in fulfilling our centeredness.
The Law of Centralization can play tricks with our mind because our body happens to be a universe onto itself. As far as the cells in our body are concerned, our brain is the control center of their universe. Through the Temple Teachings, I have come to appreciate that this powerful cellular instinct has a tendency to inspire our minds and thoughts into believing that everything in life revolves around ourselves. This physiological arrangement is reinforced naturally by the way our parents begin to make us the center of their universe, even prior to our birth.
Unlike the nucleus of our cells, our minds have free will and are capable of choice. This free will allows us to choose our perceptions. As in the time of Galileo and Copernicus, many of us spend a lifetime struggling to outgrow some of the thoughts and ideas naturally instilled into our earliest perceptions. The Law of Centralization helps to explain why being self-centered comes so easily. It gives us a clue as to why the ego may become so attached to having its way, and how truth can actually become its opposite, and why sometimes being right is more important than what’s right. It’s why we tend to like our own ideas best, and why we may be so quick to notice an offensive odor coming from our neighbor while being divinely indifferent to our own.
Recognizing where we are in life can be very helpful in understanding where we came from and where we may be headed. Now that we know that we’re not at the center of the universe, how we got to this point in time is what evolution and creation science are attempting to address.
Where did we come from and how did we end up on Earth? Whoever can answer this question definitively probably knows precisely how the Great Pyramid was built. In the meantime, those of us who care to speculate need to rely on what we think we know and what we believe.
The Temple Teachings uses the Law of Correspondences to remind us to look for the Universal Principles in all expressions of existence. Although we are not exactly sure how the Great Pyramid was built, we do know that each layer of that structure continues to be dependent on the foundation. This hierarchical structure can be found within everything, as it takes many cells to make an organ and not nearly as many organs to make a body. Can we intuitively use the model of the Great Pyramid to help resolve the confusion between the ideas of evolution and creation science? Perhaps. Yet it is only when we climb to the very top of the pyramid that we can observe the only stone that is in the image of the entire structure while including itself.
One could say that the Great Pyramid was created — or one could say it evolved — by the thoughtful placement of one stone being laid to the next and then on top of another. We might even agree that the Great Pyramid was intelligently designed.
Once we learned about the birds and the bees, we became aware that it was the union of our parents that brought us into being.
Although parents are necessary to create children, who could imagine being born as a fully-grown adult? Through the attraction and cohesion of the female egg with the male sperm, we evolve into grownups. But can anybody say for certain that this process was not intelligently designed?
Many people believe in random chance, but have a difficult time imagining creation and evolution solely based on the “roll of the dice;” although there are some who do.
Some proponents of creation science (or intelligent design as it was recently rebranded and then unsuccessfully asserted in the first school district curriculum legal challenge of its kind) say that presuming the laws of science can explain all natural phenomena promotes materialism, secular humanism, atheism, and leads to the idea that life is accidental. They argue that Darwin’s theory of natural selection over time cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Intelligent design advocates believe that it may even be unconstitutional to assert Darwinism in the classroom because it is not ideologically “neutral.” Others argue that intelligent design’s recent prominence in politics is motivated by the desire of many religious conservatives to tar science with the brush of materialism. This seems rather hypocritical to me, when desire for material convenience and glamour has blighted the natural order of the once-pristine “Garden of Eden.”
If Darwin and Jesus miraculously appeared before the world today, proclaiming in unison their belief in the evolution of matter, force, and consciousness and in a Power greater than themselves as a fact of life, would it make any difference?
When we study Theosophy, we open up to the possibility that creation is the process of Love becoming Light and Light becoming Life. Then we can explore the plausibility that the hierarchical structure of degrees and orders existing in the outer or physical world may be corresponding to a reflection of what might be taking place on the inner or spiritual side of life. Although Theosophy refers to the ultimate source of creation as the Unknowable or Absolute, the Temple Teachings assert that God is Love.
With this in mind, the possibility that Jesus was further along the Spiritual Path than the rest of His contemporaries, while His Father was another child of God even farther along that very same Path, doesn’t seem nearly so implausible. One may even imagine Charles Darwin praying in secret during his lifetime.
Realizing that Unity is key to the vitality of any body, state, or society, what unifying thread could possibly weave together those who are driven by their understanding of God’s purpose in life with those who harbor little to no reverence for the existence of God?
Next Sunday, we will continue our exploration into the sacredness of the Foundation Stones of the Temple of the People, with a deeper look into the contemplation of the economic side of life.
— Richard A. London, Sixth Guardian in Chief