The International Court of Justices March ruling against Japans scientific whaling program was not as decisive as whaling opponents had hoped. Scientific whaling is likely to continue in some form, alongside coastal whaling and small cetacean hunts.

The Whale Wars are, therefore, also likely to go on, pitting environmental and animal rights nongovernment organizations and anti-whaling governments against Japans whaling establishment.

We can expect little change in either sides positions. There will be the usual arguments about culture, environmental values, science and morality; and while such arguments may rally home front support, they are ineffective at changing minds, let alone fostering mutual understanding.

A recent call by former Asahi Shimbun reporter Akira Ozeki for a more philosophical approach to the whaling debate should therefore be welcomed. On both sides, there is a need for housekeeping to tidy up the muddled common-sense beliefs framing their arguments. With better organized thoughts, all parties could, as Ozeki hopes, fight each other with reason, come to a compromise and make concessions though at present his hopes do seem rather optimistic.

And as Ozeki rightly suggests, many Western, humanitarian opponents of whaling like myself do have to tidy up their thinking. Less reflective carnivores protesting the cruelty of whaling need to look more closely at factory farming methods that deliver cheap animal protein to their dinner plates, at often appalling costs to animal welfare.

Humanitarian opponents of whaling argue that cetaceans, like some primate species, have special cognitive and emotional capacities that justify respecting them as persons. It may or may not be valid to derive cetaceans moral personhood from evidence of such capacities, and differences in those capacities between different cetacean species also need to be addressed.

The question arises of how to accommodate growing evidence of cognitive and emotional capacities in other animals including livestock animals. If whaling critics are consistent in acknowledging this evidence, they must rethink their principles for humans duties to animals (and not just cetaceans) and adjust their dietary preferences and moral judgments accordingly.

How can they achieve this adjustment? That depends on how much they think different cetacean species and other animals eaten by humans meet the emotional and cognitive criteria that they associate with personhood, or with other morally significant categories like sentience. They could do as philosophers like Peter Singer recommend, become humanitarian vegetarians, and campaign against both livestock meat farming and whaling.

Or, like the philosopher Roger Scruton, critics could deny personhood to animals and maintain their humanitarian credentials as ethical meat eaters. Then they could oppose factory farming and inhumane slaughtering methods for both livestock and cetaceans.

Either way, they can dodge accusations of hypocrisy leveled at them by whaling advocates.

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102.48 /$ (5 p.m.)

WASHINGTONIn a world of uncertainty there appears to be an abiding desire for some kind of surety about the hereafter. The Washington-based Conversations on the Green, tapped into this wellspring of interest Sunday afternoon when it presented the bestselling author of "Proof of Heaven," Dr. Eben Alexander, and Dr. Lisa Miller, a scholar on spirituality at Columbia University, in a debate that explored the role of spirituality in modern life.

Dr. Alexanders own near-death experience left him profoundly persuaded that there is life after death.

The packed forum was moderated by former NBC News correspondent and talk show host, Jane Whitney, a local resident and it benefited Greenwoods, a Litchfield County nonprofit that provides help to anyone struggling with emotional, behavioral or psychological issues.

Dr. Alexander's book details the events leading up to his illness, as well as the unearthly journeys he took while in a coma caused by bacterial meningitis. He met God, he says, and now believes that death is a passageway to an eternal world led by a Divine being.

He is currently preparing another book, "The Map of Heaven," to be released this fall.

Tongue in cheek, Ms. Whitney opened the discussion by asking Dr. Alexander, You say that during your near-death experience, you saw God. What is she like?

The deity is beyond anything you could remotely put in words, he responded. When I first came back and was trying to understand what had happened, I realized it was more than words could describe. When journeyers do go there and come back, it is important t to realize that earthly language cannot do justice to that realm. Language very much gets in way. Its hard to use earthly worlds to describe something that is not like a trip to Disney World.

The word God was such a puny little human word, he continued. I had witnessed was what many call Godcheck off God, Jehova, Yahweh, Buddhawhatever you call him. I came to realize the hard problem of consciousness, what near death experiences have been telling us for millennia, is that there is something we dont understand at all and it is really beyond naming, that infinite power, that all-loving light. It takes the fear of death away forever.

He said he came to accept what he had seen slowly. I had been a man of science, he said. I liked facts and I really didnt buy into this. I had grown up in the Methodist churchmy father was both religious and scientificbut over the course of my career in neurosurgery, my faith waned. I couldnt understand how consciousness survived the death of the brain. For the eight years before my coma I was agnostic.

But the belief that the physical brain creates consciousness is false, he concluded. Whether it filters it or allows it to come into existence is quite another thing, but the hard problem of consciousness is that no one can give you the first sentence on how the brain creates consciousness, because it does not. Continued...

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'Proof of Heaven' Conversation is Held

Spirituality is often identified with the value center of life, especially with all we do to find meaning and purpose in life and connect ourselves to others by means of compassion and empathy. Cultivating a spiritual life affects our relationships and, more subtly, our thinking our perceptions, our evaluations and our ways of knowing. We all acquire frames of understanding that we trust will help guide us to the truth about ourselves and the world, but with spiritual growth comes a freedom to engage in deep questioning about our ability to see the truth we seek.

The spiritual point of view allows us to take seriously questions that challenge our ordinary ways of thinking and our culturally embedded assumptions. This was recently brought home to me when a friend asked, "Who understands more about breathing, the pulmonologist or the yoga master?" Many would no doubt respond, "the pulmonologist," and for this reason: if science is the arbiter of truth, and you want to know the truth about breathing, go to the scientist who specializes in breathing.

But there is more to the story, which is why asking questions about yoga masters and pulmonologists or about geologists and potters (who best understands clay?) is important. Such questions provoke reflection and self-confrontation. There are cultures in which people trust the deep understanding of yoga masters and potters, so what do we do with that? We might express our disagreement and give our reasons, or even dismiss such unenlightened thinking, but perhaps some humility is required. Perhaps the more important question to ask is this: "What is it they know that I don't?" Allowing ourselves to be stumped when confronted with our own assumptions reflects an openness to learning and even some deeper spiritual stirring or awakening.

Calling assumptions into question is the work of scientists as much as it is that of philosophers and theologians. William James, an early 20th century philosopher and scientist, refusing to be boxed in by the boundaries of disciplines and the artificial orderliness of academic structures, once commented that the universe is a "more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific sect, allows for." He then followed up by saying "science and religion are both of them genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure house to him who can use either of them practically ... ."

On this understanding the geologist whose mineral and soil analysis leads to a decision about where to put a building to avoid a landslide is akin to the potter who whirls clay on a wheel, shapes it, glazes it, fires it in a kiln and makes a functional and perhaps beautiful pot to enhance daily living. Both understand earthen materials clay and both hold a truth that does not negate the other's.

If spirituality so affects thinking and understanding that it breaks down the barriers we have created to avoid complexity, then we do well to take James' serious point about truth that truth appears in what is practical. And the practical test of spiritual growth will appear not only in outlook and attitudes but finally in the most practical thing of all our actual behavior.

Consider a central spiritual value, humility, and how it is expressed in practical behavior. Humility has its critics and despisers, but there is no doubt that genuine humility is a difficult spiritual attainment. Humility poses a direct challenge to the egoism and competitiveness that is so fostered in our society, and if the English author and philosopher Iris Murdoch was right when she said, "Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real," then humility is actually necessary for the seeing beyond ourselves that is love.

What does it look like to see humility expressed practically in action?

In the 1960s, England's secretary of state for war, John Profumo, got himself tangled up in a sex scandal with a call girl who had herself been involved with a Russian spy. After lying about the affair and having the lie exposed, Profumo resigned. The conservative government of Harold Macmillan followed suit not long after.

Profumo never sought to excuse his behavior. He removed himself from the public eye, and for the next 40 years, until his death in 2006 at the age of 91, he worked in a charitable settlement, Toynbee Place, helping the poor in London's East End. This disgraced public official became a dedicated social worker who washed dishes and cleaned toilets, who visited prisons and worked to house the poor. When he died many considered him a saint.

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Faith and Values: Reflections on spirituality, true humility

MUMBAI: Abidali Lakhani is caught in a quandary. A member of the Khoja Shia Asna Ashari Jamaat, a branch of Shia Islam, 77-year-old Lakhani wants to donate his body after death but is finding stiff resistance from his family and the top Shia clerics.

Surrounded by books on history and spirituality and newspaper clippings on Muslim issues, Lakhani, a former advertising executive and a regular contributor on Islamic affairs to a Gujarati daily, lives alone off a leafy lane in Bandra (West). He has been contemplating donating his body for quite some time. He wants the hospital he will donate the body to, to decide whether it will use it only for scientific research or whether it also wants to donate the cornea, skin, bones and heart valves. Other solid organs such as lungs, heart, kidney, liver, pancreas and intestine cannot be donated after death but can be retrieved from a brain-dead person.

"When I turned 72 in 2002, I brought a donation form from J J Hospital. It demanded consent from immediate survivors. Since my wife had passed away by then, I asked my three daughters to give their consent. They flatly refused, saying it was not permissible in Islam," says Lakhani. "Yes, we oppose it as we think it is not proper for a Muslim to donate his body after death," says Lakhani's youngest daughter Shabnam.

Undeterred, Lakhani took matters in his hand and started approaching senior Shia clerics. When the maulanas (religious scholars) in Mumbai "disappointed" him with their refusals, Lakhani wrote to Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Najaf (Iraq)-based top Shia cleric who commands immense respect among Shias across the world. "Can I donate my body after my death?" asked Lakhani. Sistani, who grabbed global headlines recently after he sent a letter to Iraq's embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party against his re-nomination as PM, sent a one-line reply. In Persian it reads: Wasiyat e mazkoor mahalle ishkaal ast (the above-mentioned will is erroneous).

Leading clerics, both Shias and Sunnis, with the exception of Delhi-based Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, are against organ donation or donation of the body by a Muslim. "Islam demands respect to a dead body. Certain organs can be donated, but not the whole body as every departed Muslim must get a namaaz-e-janaza (funeral prayer) and a burial," says Mumbai-based senior Shia cleric and principal of a Shia religious school Maulana Ahmed Ali Abidi.

Maulana Roohe Zafar, another Shia cleric, refers to a book by Ayatollah Sistani and underlines that a Muslim can donate a part of his/her body only to another Muslim if the recipient's life can be saved with that donated part. "In no circumstances can a Muslim donate his entire body, whether before or after death," declares Benares-based top cleric Mufti Abdul Batin Noamani. "Our belief is that every dead Muslim will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement in the same condition as on the day of his death. That's why there is so much emphasis on respect to the dead," explains Noamani.

A human chain was formed on D N Road, Mumbai on the eve of World Organ Donation Day.(TOI Photo)

However, Lakhani is not convinced. He quotes senior moderate Islamic scholar Maulana Wahidudin Khan who famously said: "Organ donation is the noblest form of charity." "There is no problem if this gentleman wants to donate his body. It will be considered an act of charity," Khan told TOI. Khan's is a minority voice and he admits his own limitations: "Lakhani is a Shia and his daughters will not heed me (a Sunni scholar)."

While his daughters and top Shia clerics quote scriptures against donation of the body, Lakhani wants to take a scientific approach. "We take advantage of scientific research. So why can't the clerics see the reason that my body after death can help doctors and researchers? I have lived my life and have no complaints against anyone. I want to do my bit to the development of medical science with my dead body, which will in any way get wasted whether I am buried or burnt," he says.

A way out can be conversion, but he is reluctant. "How can I convert and leave my daughters horrified and repent eternally?" he asks.

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Shia man wanting to donate body stumped by family and clerics

Although I largely disagree with the author, I appreciate his willingness not to see science as the end of it all, to open the door for farther realities, and to tackle the difficulties involved. In the process, however, I find a too unquestioning commitment to the latest contentions of science. He correspondingly cites many recent thinkers, regrettably mainly philosophers, evidently because he is himself one.

He also speaks amply of historical figures and their deeds, although I was early in the book discouraged by careless inaccuracies. He writes (pp.12-13): "The Egyptians...knew that a 3, 4, 5 triangle is right-angled. It was Pythagoras or someone in his group who generalized it to all right-angled triangles (the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides)..." But the "it" only speaks a right-angled triangle, not mentioning squares. Worse, the author then describes Euclid's fifth postulate (he also oddly applies "postulate" to "common notion") as stating that "parallel lines never meet". This is the definition of parallel lines; the postulate states that certain lines meet.

Notwithstanding such weaknesses, the author takes us through numbers of progressions in scientific, philosophical and spiritual thought, the progressions in my view not always constituting progress. Here I will concentrate on alluded to recent views and arguments the author concurs with and I find decidedly faulty.

The author cites (pp.138-9) philosophers Paul and Patricia Churchland as making "some very good points" about us being "hung up on folk psychology. We think that what we believe today must be the absolute bedrock of inquiry. Our sense of consciousness must be untouched. However, they argue that that is not the way things go in science".

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Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age ...

Whether soft connective tissue or screeching dissonance, modern cinema seems set on exploring the relationship between science and spirituality.

That exploration is at the heart of the biggest box office hit of all time, Avatar, it fueled the recent Scarlett Johansson hit Lucy, and it rises again this week with the release of the more subtly fascinating I Origins, in which the quest for clear fact becomes a search for more.

The film, written and directed by Mike Cahill (Another Earth), is essentially broken into two parts. In the first, Ian (Michael Pitt), a molecular biologist whose lifelong fascination with eyes drives his work, meets and falls in love with Sofi (Astrid Bergs-Frisbey), an eccentric French model. Meanwhile Ian and his lab partner, Karen (Brit Marling), are on the verge of a major scientific discovery.

Jump ahead some years and Ian and Karen are married and have a child. One day they get a call from a doctor saying their child may have autism; can they bring him in for some tests? They do, but soon realize the tests are bogus. These doctors are looking for something in their child, but it isnt autism.

Its the eyes, of course. Every person is supposed to have a unique iris pattern, like a fingerprint. But their childs pattern matches someone elses. This opens up all sorts of spiritual possibilities and sends Ian first to a remote dairy farm, and then on to India.

If this sounds jumbled, its not, its just that key plot points must be reserved. Cahill spends the entire film bringing a sense of wonder to the desperately rational Ian, and if the film takes on a glow toward the end, that glow feels well-earned.

The tie between the science and spirituality has been made.

GRADE: B+

Rated R for some sexuality/nudity, and language

Running time: 107 minutes

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Review: 'I Origins' finds the balance between science and spirit

Normally when discussing a movie, you dont get to have a conversation about how science can potentially explain religion and the impact that has on the world. But not every movie discussion is with director Mike Cahill about his new movie, I Origins. The film is now in theaters and if you like intellectual sci-fi, you should check it out. Its an engaging, mysterious love story that evolves over the course of its run time to be about the entire nature of life itself. Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire), Brit Marling (The East), Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) and Astrid Bergs-Frisbey (Pirates of the Caribbean 4) star in the film.

This is Cahills second feature. Much as in his first one, Another Earth, Cahill takes a mind-blowing sci-fi conceit and filters it through a human story. This time its about a scientist who, while doing research about iris recognition,falls in love with a girl because of her eyes. But its about much more than that.

In person, Cahill is engaging, eloquent and easy to talk to. He has big ideas about his films, not just their content but their presentation and marketing too. In our interview with him (which weve highlighted twice already) we talk a little about the spoiler-filled marketing for the film before getting deep into a conversation about the implications of the films scientific and religious philosophy, how the magnificent end credits scene leads into a potential sequel, the real science that went into writing. and finally the new Hollywood model of taking filmmakers like Cahill, and giving them massive blockbusters.

/Film: I have been avoiding all spoilers and trailer since Sundance and Im so glad I did.

Mike Cahill: It was weird cause we Searchlight was, I was very involved in the process. Theyre very inclusive with all the marketing material. Theyre very, very cool like that. And my wife designed the poster basically, which is kind of badass. I mean, we have a really bold poster. But when we first put together the trailer and I was like, You know, this gives away so much of the film. Maybe we shouldnt give so much of the film away. And we had these long debates. And then we started testing it in different ways. And we sort of did our due diligence. We made a trailer that didnt give anything away. And it didnt really inspire one to wanna go see the movie. So I was like Gosh, I dont know how you guys do this job. Its so hard.

Yeah, I know, totally. I was talking to Nicholas Stoller about Neighbors and he said you dont wanna spoil the jokes, but research says people laugh harder the second time.

Oh thats brilliant.

But I guess if it gets them in the theater, thats really what matters. Okay, theres some super spoiler stuff I wanna talk about, but to start it off

Thats cool. On the topic of spoilers.Its fine. Im totally down with it. I actually I find that viewing it on a second time is better anyway, you know.

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/Film Interview: I Origins Director Mike Cahill Talks Post Credit Ramifications, Follow Ups and Religious Philosophy

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 28, 2014

Keyframe-Cinema has added DMT: The Spirit Molecule to its catalog of Transformational culture films. Created by Keyframe-Entertainment, Keyframe-Cinema is an online service that allows Transformational filmmakers to share their work with fans, film buffs, and festivals. The platform is designed to facilitate the community film screening process, and also automates the licensing and delivery of media to film screeners. Keyframe-Cinema aims to display a variety of Transformational films, including documenting the evolution of Electronic Music Culture by unearthing, gathering and sharing films through community screenings.

Created by Mitch Schultz, DMT: The Spirit Molecule is a documentary film that uses Dr. Rick Strassmans research to investigate dimethyltryptamine (DMT). DMT is an endogenous psychoactive compound, which exists in humans as well as in numerous species of plants and animals. The film condenses over 80 hours of interview footage with cutting-edge computer-generated imagery to capture critical elements of the DMT experience.

The story revolves around Strassman's research, and the experiences of the human test subjects, and draws on a variety of experts to voice unique thoughts and experiences with DMT from within their respective fields. The experts include research scientists, doctors, religious leaders, writers, artists, anthropologists, psychologists, physicists, psychonauts, et al. As Strassmans story unfolds, these contributors weigh in on his remarkable theories, indigenous use of DMT, the history and future of psychedelics and psychedelic research, and the current news about DMT; including a recent Supreme Court case allowing the use of ayahuasca in the United States within the religious ceremonies of the UDV, a hybrid of indigenousness beliefs with that of Christianity. Other areas of exploration include possible roles for endogenous DMT production, DMTs role in near-death and birth experiences, alien abduction experiences, and the uncanny likeness to ancient religious texts describing prophets with DMT-like experiences. The contributors offer a comprehensive collection of information, opinions, and speculation to help understand the nature of the DMT experience, and its role in human society and evolution.

To better navigate the expansive realms of Strassmans DMT universe, popular actor, comedian, and social satirist, Joe Rogan, serves as tour guide. His own personal experiences with DMT, and a fascination that borders on reverence, have motivated him to be a central component of the project. In stylized scenes reminiscent of Rod Sterlings famous Twilight Zone bookends, Rogan shepherds the audience through the great unknowns of the DMT space.

The film also features guest speakers such as Alex Grey, Eric Davis, Daniel Pinchbeck, as well as footage from Terence McKenna. DMT: The Spirit Molecule has met with wide acclaim and recognition, coming in at as the #1 most-streamed documentary on Netflix at time of release and ranking at #3 on the Documentary & Independent lists on iTunes. The film has also gathered a vast network of supporters, consisting of a 3,000,000 direct Partner network reach, over 400,000 Facebook page likes, as well as over 3,000,000 Youtube views.

That the films featured on Keyframe-Cinema share an ecosystem of supporters is highlighted by communal collaborators involved in related cultural projects. As such, another Transformational film which features Alex Grey, Eric Davis, Daniel Pinchbeck and footage from Terence McKenna is Electronic Awakening, also available for screening via Keyframe-Cinema. Produced and Directed by A.C Johner, Electronic Awakening investigates the spirituality of Electronic Dance Music culture. Additional film in the catalog includes AYA: Awakenings, a narrative documentary that dives into the world and visions of ayahuasca plant medicine and shamanism, adapted from the cult book Aya: a Shamanic Odyssey by Rak Razam.

Given the ongoing changes of the film industry, Keyframe-Cinema provides a platform that not only facilitates film screenings but also provides community engagement. As Director Christopher Nolan mentions in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, "The cinema of the future will depend not just on grander presentation, but on the emergence of filmmakers inventive enough to command the focused attention of a crowd for hours." As such, Keyframe-Cinemas intention of providing the tools to create events that go beyond a typical film experience, for example by having the Director present their work, the Producer Skyping in or having a Q & A panel discussion, enhances the viewing and participation experience.

Keyframe-Cinema encourages filmmakers to tap into their existing fan bases to produce community screenings that viewers can enjoy together and interact thereafter. To learn more and view Keyframe-Cinemas current film catalog, visit: http://keyframe-cinema.com/films/.

About DMT: The Spirit Molecule DMT: The Spirit Molecule investigates dimethyltryptamine (DMT), an endogenous psychoactive compound, which exists in humans as well as in numerous species of plants and animals. The feature-length documentary traces Dr. Rick Strassman's government sanctioned human DMT research and its many trials, tribulations, achievements, and inconceivable realizations. This includes looking deeper into the intense psychedelic experience that DMT causes when consumed, and examining DMTs scientific, spiritual, and cultural relevance. Ultimately, The Spirit Molecule explores the connections between cutting-edge neuroscience, quantum physics, and human spirituality.

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Keyframe-Entertainment Adds DMT: The Spirit Molecule to its Automated Community Film Screening Platform, Keyframe ...

The "I Origins" star dissects scientists, spirituality, and software.

Actor Michael Pitt is best known for playing a gangster on "Boardwalk Empire," a murderous psychopath in "Funny Games," and a drugged-out grunge rocker in "Last Days." With "I Origins," he demonstrates range with his credible portrayal of Dr. Ian Gray, a molecular biologist studying the evolution of the eye, who makes a discovery that challenges all his deep-held scientific theories and spiritual beliefs.

Weird scientist: Michael Pitt plays Dr. Ian Gray in I Origins.

This role seems like a definite departure from your previous work. What drew you to playing a scientist? Maybe that. One of the things I was really interested in was that people have never seen me play a character like this. That's interesting for me, and I hope that's interesting for my fans.

What interests you about scientists? Their quest for unlocking the mysteries of the universe. That's a very noble thing to be passionate about, and I draw a parallel between scientists and artists.

Do actors function in the same way? I think any good actor is trying to understand and break apart and contemplate the human condition, so I think that can be similar.

In the movie, you play a molecular biologist, who is obsessed with eyes. When you meet someone for the first time, do their eyes stand out to you? Absolutely. But I would be really curious to hear that someone doesn't notice the eyes, or the eyes don't speak to them. There's an intuitive sense that people gain about another person, and I think it usually comes -- at least for me -- when you look into their eyes.

She blinded him with science: Dr. Ian Gray fixates on Sofi's eyes in I Origins.

You filmed part of the movie in India. Had you been there before? No.

How did India treat you? It was an amazing experience, going to India. It's India. I would have loved to stay even longer than we did. We would shoot in this very low-income area. It wasn't that uncommon to see the kids playing in mounds of garbage. Then we'd go back to the hotel that was this billion-dollar estate. Having that intense experience and the big contrast between those two worlds was just amazing. Also, working with the young actors was amazing.

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Star Apps: Michael Pitt