Religion, easy as ... (workbook #a)

Think about it, aren't the Abrahamic religions all about self-centeredness - ours as well as God’s? Worse is their contempt and disregard for the sovereignty of our Earth’s biosphere, her other inhabitants and the reality of our Evolutionary origins. 

August 30th, 2020, an update on my 

Hoffman Playing Basketball in Zero-gravity project

I’ve one last assignment before I can put the bow on my Hoffman Playing Basketball in Zero-gravity project.  But it’s a challenging topic, easy to avoid and procrastinate, plus I’ve had a very busy summer, still do. 

On the other hand, time and experience has been clarifying these fundamental questions most others have also pondered, so of course I want to enunciate and share my perspective, while I'm still around. 

I want my final installment to Hoffman's project to be a sharp essay, so have decided to go slow, share the introduction, and basically conduct a personal workshop and hopefully by doing it online, it'll push me to completing the final details in style.   

It would be wonderful if some others would chime in, and in fact, I have a thread started over at CFI's CenterForInquiryForum and invite you to share any comments or general thoughts over there.

This isn’t for everyone, but if concepts such as Earth Centrism, Evolution, deep time and Earth as a physical geo-biological entity, resonates, you may find this fascinating.  

Introduction

I’ll wager that if you took some time to think about it, you’d acknowledge that on a fundamental level the Abrahamic religions are all about self-centeredness - ours as well as God’s.

These religions were founded on the basis of self-interest, they were focused on selected kernels of knowledge, born of an aggressive insecurity, and supported by a passionate sense of self-important certitude. Usually with empire building in mind while reeking with hostility towards outsiders, other teachers and learning.  They did achieve results.

All the while pretty much ignoring the sovereignty of our Earth’s biosphere, her other inhabitants and the reality of our Evolutionary origins.

Consider, within the Abrahamic tradition our planet’s life support system and her inhabitants never rise above something to exploit until we suck it dry, then we move on to the next bonanza.

Whereas for me, Earth, her creatures and biosphere, her Evolution, these are my touchstones with physical reality. I feel time flowing through me as I travel through my days. I live within a mindscape that’s filled with an awareness of time in its entire spectrum, from microseconds, to my heart beat, to the days, seasons, years and decades, on to the eons of Evolution.

 

It’s Not A “Body-Mind Problem” - It’s An “Ego-God Problem.”

(updated January 1, 2022)

Among the lessons I’ve taken away from my Hoffman adventure is that as I’ve followed the philosophical roots of “dualism” back through Descartes (1600s) and on past Anselm (1000s), one thing has become clear. the entire philosophical edifice of this Mind-Body “Problem” was formed from within that Abrahamic God-fearing mindset that gave us the three major religions, with their self-serving patriarchal mentality, heaven and hell, along with branding dualism’s hard boundaries and need for a sense of certitude into our imagination and onto our expectations.

The Abrahamic worldview perceives people as isolated objects, not only from this planet, but each other, even from ourselves.  The creatures we live with and the landscapes we exist within are treated with contempt and wanton waste.

Regarding the “Mind-Body Problem.”  

Dr. Solms makes a wonderful analogy that highlights the error being made:

Question:  Was it lightning or thunder that killed the man?

It’s a meaningless question.

Lightning and thunder are simply different aspects of the same phenomena.

Our Mind and consciousness is the interior reflection of our living body (both its interior housekeeping and external interaction with the environment).  We simply cannot have one without the other.

We are embedded within an interconnected web of life and are the direct products of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution.

Why isn’t that reflected in modern philosophical discourse? 

Learning to appreciate the deep-time pageant of Evolution puts an entirely different richer light upon our interior existence.  An awareness that encompasses the whole of time and this planet that created us.

It also gives us a deep appreciation for the continuity of life.  Life is good, life is precious, but death is no enemy, painful though it may be.  Death is part of the cycle that brings forth new life.  Revel in the pageant you are blessed enough to be witnessing.  While you can. 

As for God?  

Who is “God,” but a creation of our unique complex human minds dealing with our day to days?   

Where did God come from?  

Being an Element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution

edited November 5, 2021

Although I’m a family man, with my share of friends, along with being community-minded, there’s a part of me that rarely fully connects with people, leaving me with an impression of being on the outside looking in and trying to make sense of the self-destructive direction people are driving our future towards.

Over the decades I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to understand what makes my fundamental outlook and instincts so foreign to the general mindset.  It’s only recently, with the hindsight of 65 (now 66) years, and coming off of this “Hoffman Playing Basketball in Zero-gravity Project” with all it’s side trips and then discovering the light at the end of the tunnel and Dr. Mark Solms enunciating the substance of Neuropsychology.  

A body of work which convincingly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” (and all the distracting intellectual mischief that gave birth to).   Neuropsychology brings us face to face with the reality that our consciousness is basically the inside reflection of our body/brain interacting with its environment.  

Now there’s something worth chewing on, if your looking for intellectual challenge, or simply want to understand how things work.  

Back to my struggle to make sense out of myself.  So, a year ago I was able to enunciate what made me so different.  Basically, I possessed a visceral awareness of, and appreciation for, being an element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution.  

What was it that opened that potential up for me?

How was it that the Abrahamic Mindset always felt foreign to me, if not plain wrong, (even if it wins all the battles).

I think I also finally nailed that one.  It goes back to my early childhood, even before starting kindergarten at John J. Audubon Elementary school in Chicago.  I’d been playing in the pool of warming sunlight streaming through the window onto our living room carpet, lighting up dust motes like fireflies.  I remember focusing on watching the dust motes floating around and then rushing after my mom, when she’d pass by.  I was already fascinated by the night sky full of sparkles and these motes seemed like little universes to me.  

Who knows, except I really was fascinated by the scene.

Then I hear myself asking mom: “What is god?"

I like to think she took a few beats before answering:  “A speck of dust that wanted to be more”.

I must have been primed because it really blew my mind in a way that literally permeated by entire being.  After the initial shock wore off, it didn’t provide any sort of insight, it was simply the suggestion, the question, the challenge.  God as a speck that simply wanted to be more.  It was beautiful and awesome to this little boy and I carried that conception with me for the rest of my life.

It’s take over 60 years for me to fully appreciate it’s impact and now to understand the why of, what happened that set me on my singular path.

I believe what happened was that, that notion of a little speck of dust wanting to be more, wound up filling and satisfying that little niche' of my brain, the "god" niche' where our human longing for the ultimate answers originates.  

So when the Abrahamic self-serving image of an egotistical God was presented to me, there was no place for it to take hold in my brain or heart, so I was free of its shackles and free to find my own way through what life served up for me.

This sense of self and spiritual solidity emerged out of a lifetime of curiosity and learning about myself (though that's another story) Earth, deep-time, her amazing evolutionary story and the development of life and creatures and ourselves.  Appreciating why we can’t understand an organism, without also understanding it’s environment - all of that offers insights we can apply to our day to days.  (How does endlessly pondering outside sources of consciousness inform one’s actual living life?)

Especially realizing how the components of my own physical body had their origins eons ago.  The visceral awareness that for the most part mammals have the same skeleton and parts I do, except that are in different proportions - that's amazingly deep for a meat eater.  Even before that, if you consider how Earth herself had to go through intense processing before promising molecular tricks and biological solutions to life’s challenges would have the material resources at hand to allow them to be put to the test and prosper.

It’s a long, amazingly complex story that keeps evolving as more evidence gets collected and processed into shared scientific knowledge.  Folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complexity flowing down the cascade of time.  Considering I’ve been paying attention to it since my grade school days, it’s inevitable that I’ve achieved some insights along the way.

In the end, the thought of being an intelligent self-aware element of creation, one who is capable of savoring the pageant of Earth’s amazing Evolution is more than comforting.  It provides me with a spiritual foundation and solidity in the face of challenges, inevitable failings and my coming death, that possess a depth of peace and security no Holy Book, or fast-talking pick-pocket preachers can get close to offering.  It's good news worth passing around to the few who are honestly curious.   ✌️

     

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regarding Deep-time