personal ramblings about religion and where to find answers

Religion and Secularism
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I keep hoping for conversations of substance, and every once in a while someone comes through, so I’m taking the liberty of sharing these rough notes for a project I’m working on, hoping someone takes a nibble. It’s a tad long and disjointed, still trying to figure out where I want to go with it, or better, how I want to get there. Suffering from a little writers block, so looking for some fresh ideas and perspectives, hell for that matter some well placed insults might do, you know, rattle me out of this low energy rut.

My lighthearted working title is: "Religion, easy as pie" - not sure how well that will hold up, but anything is better than 'Considering religions' origins'.

 

 

“Humanity is the most exquisite example of god’s need and desire to know itself.”

 

It’s a thought that goes back to the ‘90s during a time I was getting caught up on the latest in physics and astronomy - the evolution of energy into matter. Which of course led to elements forming, by and by, it led to stars and planet formation and everything in-between and since.

Science shows us that we ourselves are truly star dust, really try to think about it, it’s about as mystical an image as one can hope for, but it’s also solid scientific fact. Times arrow moves in one direction, change happens, dust happened and time marched on.

Change and Deep Time led to Evolution, by and by, our Solar System and Earth came along.

This Earth was at the right place and at the right time, because for this planet Earth the conditions were just right for a dance between life and geology like non other.

With time Earth evolved an atmosphere that filtered out the worst of the sun’s energetic radiation allowing an atmosphere that filtered the suns most destructive rays from hitting Earth, while a nurturing global heat and moisture distribution engine to get established and fine tune itself.

By and by, it produced the stage upon which life was given an environment and resources to have the evolutionary freedom to experiment and prosper. Our Earth’s climate regime was key to nurtured humanity’s rise from an equal among mammals, to masters of the universe. Although that’s part of a different story, this story about the birth of the religions we humans hold within our heads and hearts. But, consider that we cannot understand an organism without also understanding its environment, this background is necessary for appreciating who we are.

Then Earth clicked into climate optimum around ten thousand yearsthat enabled and nurtured agriculture, animal husbandry, a human population explosion and waves of human advancement in knowledge and abilities. With continued developing, thanks to the fairly stable and predictable weather patterns, humanity created society, disciplined science, then industry, electronics, technology all woven together to create the modern era.

All of that, begat us, a society hell bent on consuming itself to death.

 

Circling back around to my opening sentence and thinking philosophically, my divergence from the standard mindset started with a supposition: Okay, let us assume “God” is a real entity. What would, what could an all knowing “God” actually know? A simplistic “everything” doesn’t satisfy at all, what is everything?

"Everything” is our Universe, matter, all we can see and can’t see. But, how could “God” know anything about that without it existing? From there i’st was a short jump to making a sensible assumption that “God” could only know its creation, through that creation?

Here I decided to turn poetic in order to squeeze the notion of god into something graspable. “God” as an ultimate striving to understand what is possible and evolution creates the ‘senses’ with which “God” could observe and experience that creation.

Somewhere in there I found grounding in a realization: I am a product of that evolution ageless evolution and at the same time the eyes of the universe.

That is, I was blessed to be born a curious human, able to observe and learn and ponder like no other creature ever. I am the eyes of the universe in a very real sense. Why not, it’s poetry, art, passion, appreciation for being alive and living this fantastical pageant. How else could “God” experience the full magnificence of what it created, but through our eyes and unfolding lives?

Religion is about dreams and goals and standards, all that unfolds within the realm of our Human Mindscape. Religion comes from within us, not from outside intervention. Take responsibility for yourself. It’s true, science also comes from within the human mind. The difference is that science has all those rules and standards, in order to cut out ego and self-delusion as much as possible. A global, trans-generational community of competitive, skeptical, informed experts always looking over each other’s shoulders, and striving to gather yet more information and accuracy. Honestly studying our physical reality is the limits of science’s domain.

To better take responsibility for our selves, we need to better understand ourselves and how we got here. You’ll not find answers in the stars, answers are to be found within your own body, being, mind, looking inside. and back into time. Doing that will take you on an evolutionary trip to the beginning and a better appreciation for how you got here, and why it might matter. Even if you are but one spark in the fireworks.

 


So many distraction, every time I think I’ve sliced out some free time, something comes along to steal it away. Heck has just been developing the backstory, before the main event were I’m more focused on “religion creation” itself, while consider the evolution of the mammalian brain which brought forth these desires to “know” “God”. Guess I’ll save that for later. ??‍♂️

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Religion comes from within us, not from outside intervention. Take responsibility for yourself.
It sums ut nicely the whole for me, and justly.

Know thyself, complets it.

As long as humanity does not know itself it will be limited in its progress.

 

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Had a chance to work on this a little more. It feels like it’s making a bit more sense, it’s certainly not as painful feeling as the above was. Now I need to peel off for another project.

 

On a fundamental level the Abrahamic religions are all about self-centeredness, ours’ and God’s. Declaring a Faith on the basis of selected kernels of knowledge, supported by certitude, with hostility towards learning and other teachers. All the while pretty much ignoring the independent validity of Earth’s biosphere and her other inhabitants.

Think about that, within the Abrahamic tradition our planet’s life support system never rises above a thing for us to exploit until it’s sucked dry. Whereas to me Earth and her evolution is my touch stone with physical reality. It transcends all the thoughts that flow from our human minds.

Most people seem to think, “God” comes down on us from out there in the heavens, beyond our Earth and daily realities. Western philosophy was born out of such a heritage and never broke those ego-centric blinders. On the other hand, I’ve come to understand God comes from within us, she/he is an element of our mindscape.

As I’ve progressed in a life long enthusiasm for learning about our human body and Earth and Evolution, an alternative perspective on “God” has developed in my thoughts. A perspective that appreciates we humans were born out of a long tradition of Life’s striving to improve. The product of Earth’s evolution and deep-time.

Why, we happened remains a mystery, what we do know is that evidence reflects a pageant of evolution relentlessly striving towards improving its creatures. Manipulatory controls, moving, grasping - while simultaneously improving the sensing, information processing, along with command & control needed to successfully operate life’s increasingly complex bodies. Of course, along the way many species found their niche and no further improvement was needed so a speciation plateaued and Earth’s pyramid of interconnected webs of life are the result.

As my understanding has evolved into a deep appreciation for the Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide, I’ve recognized that our sense of “God” comes from within ourselves, not some outside supernatural agency.

On a personal note, recognizing this divide helped me validate “God” with the recognition that our god’s come from within our own mindscapes, products of our own creation, in search of something beyond our grasp. I’ve come to accept that notions of “God’ are a necessary component of how humans deal with an overwhelming world.

With that background and 66 years worth of living and learning under my belt, I want to try my hand at early questions: Why am I here? We live, we die, we’re gone. What’s the point of it all? Back in the day, I licked all those concerns with a simple concept that stands firm:

“Your life means as much or as little as you yourself want it to.”

Still now that I have a deeper understanding of the God/religion question, an old notion has come back to mind. It’s a different sort of perspective on the God, human relationship that starts with a mind experiment.

If a God there be, what would, what could, that “God” actually know about the universe? God doesn’t have any senses with which to experience its own being. What’s a god without physical stuff to be a god of?

To me it made sense that God could only know its creation through the experience of the inhabitants of that creation. Starting right at the ‘big bang’ along side energy and the evolving complexity of interactions in a growing cosmos. Through the stuff of matter, “God” was finally be able to sense something of itself.

Blossoming through all the different stages of the cosmos from energy coalescing into matter, then atoms, molecules, dust, rocks, galaxies, stars, planets, exploding stars, more planets, and so on. Then our miraculous Earth with geology, then joined by biology and life. With creatures constantly striving for every greater grasping/manipulatory abilities, plus the sensing and processes to do the best they could with the new hardware. Then time and folds within folds of cumulative harmonic change and improvements, relentlessly moving towards ever more awareness of the Earth, then came us.

Think of it, with us humans “God” finally had a creature that could reflect back on the Cosmos of its Creation with genuine introspection. What a trip that must have been to watch. (Infinity mirrors comes to mind)

Think of it next time you’re down, you are the eyes of the universe. Or simply be grateful that you can appreciate the reality you are embedded within better than any creature that has every existed. You are the witness for your own life. Let it matter.


The beauty of this story and perspective is that it doesn’t demand a rejection of physical reality or any aspect of science. What is it? Another psychological teddy bear for our mind. Like a beautiful love song that, of course we know isn’t true, yet we choose to identify with it and latch our emotions onto it for a moment, because it feels good.

The important part is that it belongs within the panorama of my Mindscape, which I can recognize as being different from this Physical Reality my body is embedded within and that I’m also trying to make more sense out of.

 

:v:

 

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thanks Morgan

 

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Nice. Slices of time are hard to find. Bring this to top again if you don’t hear from me.

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Alrighty then, I’ve done a bunch of edits on that, but think I’ll save it for an new thread. Now I want to add part 2 - more fun stuff:

What about my soul?

What about I, me, myself, my afterlife? If no heaven, what about reincarnation?

I’ve come to see those concerns as a reflection of the intensity of our human ego-centric outlook on everything, it’s the reason religions were needed to begin with, power and controlling masses of people by learning how to channel our fears and desires.

Around the time my unborn daughter was letting it be known she was done being cooped up within her mom, my thoughts were ranging far and wide and deep into time. One evening after feeling her kicking, a cosmic giggle of sorts hit me, as vision of the soul that inhabits our bodies. It occurred to me that at the moment of death, since energy can’t be created nor destroyed only transformed, what happens when our biological functions physical shut down one by one, and the life sustaining biological spark of life leaves our body?

What would that experience look like to the dissipating “soul” being reabsorbed into the energy of Earth’s living biosphere? Energy melding with energy? Brilliant white seems as good a guess as any.

Yes, I understand there are medical physiological explanations for those observations. Fair enough, This is a poetic vision, a mythologizing, the beauty is that it remains firmly within the bounds of what’s know about the physical reality we are embedded within - it also respects the Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide and appreciates that this is a vision of our imagination. Something removed from realm of science and Earth studies.

This myth naturally extends itself when considering the fantastic light show that accompanies a egg’s fertilization. Micrographs of the moment reveal a surge of electrical energy engulfing the egg after the first sperm penetrates and makes itself impenetrable to the millions of other sperm trying to do the same.

Imagine an egg as a trinity union: egg, sperm, spark of energy moving forward in time. That original spark of energy infuses the growing child, then the aging adult, all the while absorbing the energy of our day by days as we live them. When we die, that soul is a reflection of our lies as it’s reabsorbed back into Earth’s biosphere.

Perhaps, a sliver of it will someday meet an egg and sperm in that one instant of need, and it all starts again. Not circles, think spirals.

needs more work, but might as well hang it out there.

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I think you got something hear. I like the grandchild start.