I’m not “rejecting” it, so much as, expecting us to be able to soberly recognize it!*
I’m trying to shine a spotlight on how it has limited our thinking and behaving and created some of the very negative self-destructive spirals we have married ourselves to.
Recognition. Openly examining how our hubris and willingness to accept lies has been humanity’s enemy one, always has been.
Write, it’s not like there isn’t a foundation for that dualistic self-centered outlook,
but it’s foolish not to examine the limitations of that outlook,
or to refuse to examine how it has become the ‘western’ default for all our assessments
and led to some very stupid and ultimately self-destructive choices, and outcomes.
It what leads to assumptions becoming assertions even when the full spectrum of evidence doesn’t justify it.
It’s the difference between thinking self-centered is all there is - and accepting that others (creatures and landscapes and entire communities) exist in my world, are part of it, and must be understood, respected, cooperated with, and what the hell, why not loved.
Now, that would produce a healthy human society.
It’s about how the basic Abrahamic mindset (*ME first, dualism imposed on everything, artificial divisions & categorizing, tendency towards hubris and Ego worship that beats all else.*) creates a polarizing lens through which all the information most absorb, gets filtered.
It begins with
a deep down recognition of how the universe of our human thoughts,
is something apart from the physical reality that creates this Earth and our body and brain, out of which conscious introspective minds are created.
One of the beauties of such an insight is that it leads to a fundamental choice, do I create this world I see, am I the most important thing in creation? Or, am I one of countless creatures who are simultaneously inhabiting this Earth?
If you choose the latter, the inevitable conclusion that follows is that - this universe, solar system, Earth, the landscape I reside within,
all have been following one specific, and only one, internally consistent path through time, or I would not be here to observe it in the first place. End of that discussion and all variations of it.
Seems to me a choice every young child has to make at some point, then we forget about it.
This in turn creates a sort of benchmark to help keep us (not just regular mortals), but also the genius’s with the super egos, in check. Too often I’ve listened, where it seems people are actually talking and thinking as though they were defining our reality.
That’s mind-bending to me, the thought that provocative takes precedence over fundamental critical thinking and respect for physical reality.
Or discussing consciousness and thought, and even self-reflection - as though they are were utterly and totally unique to humans because they were the result of a “freak” amazing fluke. Aren’t amazing flukes at the right time and place the hallmark of Evolution?
Our brain is part of another continuum, or should we say a “punctuated” continuum.
After all, it was rather small subtle shifts that triggered our obviously “superior” intellect. Plus we haven’t even begun to understand the likes of octopus, or other examples of superior “animal” brains with their suites of amazing abilities. Who knows what all lies within their mindscapes?
It’s not like storytelling and writing is all there is to living, which is why I find our high and mighty attitudes distasteful and stupefying.
Write: “if you examine the “diverse” evidence I cite you’ll see that all of it makes perfect logical sense to the exclusion of much more complicated and lofty “flights of fancy”.
True enough for the evidence. It’s some of your conclusions I need to call you on, and I’ve said so often.
Where is the complicated flight of fancy in explicitly recognizing the distinction between the universe of thoughts your mind exists within, and the physical reality of your body and the world that surrounds you ?
I’m curious Write, what is your relationship with your body? Have you ever sensed your body was something separate, something that carried your conscious mind around and that you two weren’t always in sync?
What’s “complicated and lofty” about
the simple straightforward proposition that God is created from within the human mind and experience?
Or that life and we ourselves were created by Earth’s processes and we will meld back into her?
Or the notion of having a visceral awareness and appreciation for being an element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution unfolding one day at a time?
Or spending a little time thinking about and better understanding the relation one possess with the knowledge one acquires?
Or explicitly acknowledging our universe unfolded down one path and only one very specific path?
Or recognizing and personally coming to terms with the divide between the world of our thoughts, and the reality unfolding around us?