@anadybella
Kindly, anyone tells me about the origin of religion.
Tim once again manages a succinct serious valid response.
If you were interested in a longer version, might I offer a few thoughts of my own:
… In the years and decades since I’ve kept learning more about Earth’s amazing evolution and geophysics and also the scientific process itself.
A process that’s basically a set of rules for gathering and assessing our observations in an honest, open and disciplined manner that all who’ve made the effort to learn can access and trust.
Recently it occurred to me Gould was missing a much more fundamental divide that is crying out for recognition.
Specifically, the Magisteria of Physical Reality vs the Magisteria of our Human Mindscape.
Then while struggling to find and weave the words to explain myself, it became clear - Earth herself was not only central to my conception of reality, but supreme.
After all, heaven and hell had evaporated long ago and human hubris filled me with contempt rather than any shock or awe.
The Earth Centrist’s perspective acknowledges that Earth and her physical processes and the pageant of Evolution are the fundamental timeless touchstones of reality.
Part of Earth’s physical reality is that we humans were created by Earth out of her processes.
Science shows us that we belong to the mammalian branch of Earth’s animal kingdom. Yet, it’s undeniable that something quite unique happened about six million years ago when certain apes took a wild improbable evolutionary turn.
By and by, besides the marvel of our two hands, we developed two feet and legs that could stand tall or run for hours and a growing brain that learned rapidly.
During this period our brain physically morphed in some significant ways that enabled it to host a profound leap in cognitive information processing, storage and retrieval ability.
On the outside hominids learned to make tools, hunt, fish, and select plants, plus they mastered fire for cooking and better living.
On the inside our brains were growing and benefiting from the new super nourishment while human curiosity and adventures started filling and stretching our mindscapes with experiences and knowledge beyond anything the “natural” physical Earth ever knew.
By mindscape I mean the product of all the brain can perceive and process, which of course evolutionarily speaking was dependent on our brain’s hardware keeping up with the ever increasing volume of information and thoughts.
While the human mind and spirit are ineffable mysteries, they are also of tremendous consequence and real-world physical power.
They drove our growing ability to study and manipulate our world; to communicate and record our experiences;
and to formulate explanations for a world full of mysteries, threats and wonders.
People learned to think and gossip and paint pictures upon the canvas of cave walls, and even better, upon the canvas of each other’s imaginations. We’ve been adding to our brain’s awareness and complexity ever since.
Of course, while all this was going on our extraordinary human mind was also beginning to wonder about the ‘Why’ of the world it observed and the difficult, fragile, short lives we were allotted.
In seeking answers to unknowable questions it seems to me inevitable that Gods would inhabit our mindscape. I suspect inspired by buried memories of being coddled within mom’s protective loving bosom those first couple years of life.
No doubt these “Gods” enabled further successes, though not through super-natural interventions, but rather through their ability to form, conform, reform and transform the mindscapes of the masses of people beginning to congregate.
Thus, combining pragmatic civil societal needs with universally felt, but keenly personal questions, fears, and dreams. …
After the middle ages - tribal stories - accepted ancient doctrines - and religious “truths” were no longer enough to satisfy our mindscape’s growing desire for ever more understanding and power over the Earth.
The human brain took another tremendous leap forward in awareness with the Intellectual Enlightenment and the birth of serious disciplined scientific study.
Science’s success was dazzling in its ability to learn about, control and manipulate Earth’s physical resources and to transform entire environments.
Science was so successful that today most people believe we are the masters of our world and too many have fallen into the hubristic trap of believing our ever fertile mindscape is reality itself.
Which brings me back to Gould’s magisterium and his missing key.
The missing key is appreciating the fundamental “Magisteria of Physical Reality,” - and recognizing that both science and religion are products of the “Magisteria of Our Human Mindscape.”
Science seeks to objectively learn about our physical world, but we should still recognize all our understanding is embedded within and constrained by our brain’s mindscape.
Religion is all about the human mindscape itself, with its wonderful struggles, fears, spiritual undercurrents, needs and stories we create to give our live’s meaning and make it worth living, or at least bearable.
What’s the point? I think it’s about better appreciating our ‘frame of reference’ - and especially recognizing that we aren’t the center of creation.
This is important today because some have convinced themselves that they actually have a personal Almighty God in their back pockets, when in fact our Gods are as transient as governments and the human species itself.
Religions, heaven, hell, science, political beliefs, even God, they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.
That is not to say they are the same thing, they are not! Science is dedicated to honestly and objectively understanding physical reality while religion is concerned with the human imagination and our soul and spirit and our struggles through short life. They are different, but both are necessary human inventions.
Still, both are destined to be swept away by the hands of time, while Earth and life will continue its dance.
Here we are, 2019 history and sober assessment of physical facts is out of fashion and self-destructive fantasy thinking in the service of ruthless avarice is in.
Now it literally threatening to topple USA’s government Of The People, By The People, and For The People, in favor of a Me First, profits are more important than reality, oligarch run machine.
All the while the actual physical creation outside of our conceited petty minds keeps on unfolding, following well understood geophysical rules regardless.
Ignore at our own peril.
… Confronting Science Contrarians: Bringing it back to Earth Centrism