The Reptile-Brain, the Atheist, and the Jew.

[John D. Brey]

Definition of tautology;

1. the saying of the same thing twice over in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g. they arrived one after the other in succession ).
   • a phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words.
     plural noun: tautologies
2. LOGIC
   a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form.

Source: Oxford languages.

Are you using the word "tautology" in one of the above two senses or are you using another definition?

I'm using the second definition: a statement that's true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form. A simple example is the phrase "survival of the fittest," since it's necessarily true that if survival is the quality of being fit, i.e., the "fit" survive, then the statement is necessarily true by the very semantics of the expression.

A tautology is a statement that's true by the way it's stated without the statement having a testable, or refutable, element that's subject to validation or rejection.

The statement that only the fittest survive can't be refuted since survival is proof, within the statement, of fitness, and the only example of the fitness, in the statement, is that the organism survived.

So what if some great thinker said something contrary to the evidence?

Then he would have to provide argumentation or evidence that trumps the old or existing evidence.

The problem with a tautology is that it makes assumptions that may or may not be true, and then states them in a manner that appears to be refutable, logical and undeniable, when in fact, the statement presents its premise in the guise of an undeniable, and thus irrefutable truth (which is thus not subject to refutation or argumentation).

Take for instance the phrase "natural selection." As pointed out in Tautological Oxymorons, this phase is purely tautological since it calls the "selection" it describes "natural," only by the agnostic or atheistic neo-Darwinistic disbelief in a "supernatural" form of selection pressure. But if "natural" selection merely means a form of "selection" that's not from a supernatural selector (say God) then for the agnostic or atheistic neo-Darwinist, all "selection" is natural, so that calling something "natural selection" is as flawed as saying "survival of the fittest." In both cases, the statement can't be denied, refuted, or argued, since the truth of the premise is part and parcel of the tautological semantics its wrapped in.

What does (I assume it is a rather wordy book you are referring to) "Tautological Oxymorons" have to say specifically about evolution as presented by the up to date Theory of evolution (which you seem to lable neo-Darwinism for some odd reason)?

Evolution isn't the issue. And for what it's worth, I happen to believe in evolution.

The issue is, and it's part of the topic of this thread, the fact that if you strip Dawkins and Hawkins of their tautologies, i.e., statements that confuse refutable premises with irrefutable ones, then they can say that evolution takes place, and I would agree, but they can't say (except in undeciphered tautologies) how evolution occurs. In truth they haven't a clue under the sun how it takes place, only that it takes place.

Once a person swallows a tautology like "natural selection," or "survival of the fittest," then it's clear that they're subject to the admittedly difficult to decipher confusion of thought that's based on believing ones premise, and then assuming that that belief is itself proof of the viability of the belief. If you believe there's no supernatural selector (and fwiw that's the criterion of atheism), then all selection is natural, so that calling something "natural" selection (as though it distinguishes from some other viable kind of selection) is a sham.

But if an atheist calls the selection that lead to viable change in evolution "natural" only to distinguish the fact that he's an atheist, and not a theist (i.e., he doesn't believe there's a supernatural selector, or a supernatural selection mechanism), then when he's with only atheists he could call it just "selection."

But that wouldn't work. If someone asked what causes the change in the design of organisms and he said "selection," that would be immediately perceived as a meaningless tautology. But by adding "natural," as in "natural selection," it sounds like he has some refutable, comprehensive, theory, when he's actually using the word "natural" in a tautological manner that seems to suggest of a non-tautological, or comprehensive theory.



John

 

[atanu]

I don't deny that Eastern thought also recognized the fallacious nature of the world of the reptile-brain's presentation of reality. The topic came up earlier in the thread.

Nevertheless, whereas Eastern religions withdrew into mystical contemplation that appears to have had little impact on the evolution of mankind, Judeo-Christianity could be said to have taken their distrust of the reptile-brain to the bank by not only questioning the honesty and faithfulness of the reptile-brain, and then retiring into self-ingratiating, subjective, contemplation, but by putting the lie to the reptile-brain's world in such a way that modern technology grew out of the Judeo-Christian dissection of the false world of the reptile-brain.

Immanuel Kant, and Bishop Berkeley, are well-known to have been pioneers in this respect. They taught all who read them to realize that the world of the reptile brain is a filthy lie. But not a lie that should cause one to retire under a Bodhi tree to contemplate infinity in a grain of sand with an austere look, and an emaciated frame, but to take the knowledge that the reptile-brain lies through its fangs to the bank by creating the tools that will free the human spirit from its biological and terrestrial prison.
John

That is your perspective and it is biased, from my perspective. Eastern religions, in their core scriptures do not depend on no myth, but on direct examination of the nature of self. Furthermore, Hinduism, especially is not all about asceticism.

You lack information. Thank you for your response.

Best.

 

[Samael_Khan]

Christianity was tempted by the same error that lives and abides in the Eastern denial of the flesh. That temptation as it presented itself to Christianity was called "Gnosticism." Gnosticism was an early attempt to bushwhack Christianity into the same error as Buddhism: the complete demonization of the flesh. Christianity overcame Gnosticism and for that reason became the seedbed for the modern technological revolution that is transforming the terrestrial and biological world into something far more permanent and spiritual than flesh and blood.

Eastern religion fell prey to Gnosticism and atheism. Eastern religion is neither theistic, nor willing and able to endure the flesh for the purpose of erecting the new body required by the spirit.

Well, that just proves my point. So therefore the Dawkins "imitation" can be said to taken from religion in general because a wide variety of religions advocate the denial of the flesh.

Richard Dawkins "meme" which is supposedly his rendition of the soul, can then be borrowed from many religions as well. Belief in God isn't necessary, but belief in a soul is.

In the concept of the trinity, the body evolves until the soul emanates, or emerges, once the cerebral cortex is developed. Then, when the cerebral cortex comes online, the individual achieves self-consciousness, i.e., the soul, which immediately allows god-consciousness as a product of self-consciousness.

Never seen this in the bible. Did you come up with this idea yourself?

Where Richard Dawkins, Jeff Hawkins, and Daniel Dennett (to name just a few famous atheist thinkers) come into the picture is when they use the self-consciousness derived through the cerebral cortex, to deny god-consciousness, for the sake of elevating the reptile-brain, and its world, to a form of conceptualism devoid of God: NeoDarwinism.

The early reptile-brain, the mammalian brain without the cerebral cortex, doesn't really have a conscious understanding of God, life, death, or the universe. Privileging the reptile or mammal brain over God, these atheist know of life, and death, through the cerebral cortex, but deny God.

Well, the existence of a cerebral cortex doesn't give them reason to believe in God/s. Even if they went the spiritual root with that knowledge, they can come up with so many more possibilities besides god.

They use the very organ given as the greatest gift of the spirit of God, through which he can be known and conceived (can literally enter into the flesh), but chalk its existence up to the processes in the flawed animal understanding that supposes the world is a real "environment" able to cause the so-called natural selection of the mutations in biology that arrive at something like the cerebral cortex. Only those who reject God at the point of god-consciousness could possibly believe something as banal as the idea that environments even exist apart from living organisms, and that they somehow select the right mutations to arrive at the cerebral cortex.

What we have meant to say is that all our empirical experience is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things which we experience are not in themselves what we experience them as being, nor their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us, and that if the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish. As appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What objects may be in themselves, and apart from all this receptivity of our sensibility, remains completely unknown to us. We know nothing but our mode of perceiving them - a mode which is peculiar to us, and not necessarily shared in by every being, though, certainly, by every human being. With this alone have we any concern.

Immanuel Kant.​

John

It has more to do with their methadology than anything else. based on the evidence that they have at the moment, nothing is providing them with solid evidence that that organ was given to them by God in the first place.

 

[John D. Brey]

That is your perspective and it is biased, from my perspective. Eastern religions, in their core scriptures do not depend on no myth, but on direct examination of the nature of self. Furthermore, Hinduism, especially is not all about asceticism.

You lack information. Thank you for your response.

While it's true I lack information, nevertheless I try to couch my statements in the information I don't lack.

For instance, I tried to imply that Eastern thought, though it, like Judeo-Christian thought, devalues the body, and the world delivered up through the biological senses (to some degree), nevertheless, unlike Judeo-Christian thought, it didn't directly engage the falsely fabricated perception of the world like Judeo-Christian thought did, and does.

In Immanuel Kant, and Bishop Berkeley, we have two Christian men who, rather than retiring into contemplation of infinity, and such, reasoned, intently, and intensely, what it means that our body lies to us about the nature of reality.

One thing that has always struck me forcefully about this doctrine of Kant’s is that it legitimates important components of a belief which he had held since long before he began to philosophize, namely Christian belief . . .what he did unmistakably (and un-remarked on to an extent that has never ceased to astonish me), is produce rational justifications for many aspects of the religious beliefs in which he grew up.

Let me put it this way. We know for a fact that long before Kant started to philosophize he was dedicated, simply as a Christian, to the belief that the empirical world of time and space and material objects, within which everything is evanescent and everything perishes, is something that exists only for us mortals in our present life; that "outside" this world there is another, so to say infinitely more "important," realm of existence which is timeless and spaceless, and in which the beings are not material objects.

Now it is as if he then said to himself: "How can these things be so? What can be the nature of time and space and material objects if they obtain only in the world of human beings? Could it be, given that they characterize only the world of experience and nothing else, that they are characteristics, or preconditions, of experience, and nothing else?" In other words, Kant's philosophy is a fully worked out analysis of what needs to be the case for what he believed already to be true.

Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher (p.249,250).
​

Isaac Newton said himself that his science was the result of bible study, and his working out his theology in natural science. Albert Einstein said he trusted no man's judgment as thoroughly as Newtons, and that Immanuel Kant made an impression on him without which he would never have become the scientist he, Einstein, became. Einstein's friend and fellow scientist, John Archibald Wheeler, asked, in all seriousness, what quantum mechanics tells us that Bishop Berkeley didn't hypothesize three hundred years earlier.

I point this out because modern science, which is the Christian response to the unfaithfulness of the body's organs of perception, is clearly, undeniably, leading to the development of a clearer, more faithful, vision of reality; one that's allowing us to place machines on Mars, do heart transplantation, genetic engineering, AI, and in the next few decades will find the pesky little devil that causes aging so that we can return to biological immortality. Beyond that is everlasting life (life no longer subject to death from inside or outside the cell), heaven, and the Kingdom of God.

​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

Well, that just proves my point. So therefore the Dawkins "imitation" can be said to taken from religion in general because a wide variety of religions advocate the denial of the flesh.

Richard Dawkins "meme" which is supposedly his rendition of the soul, can then be borrowed from many religions as well. Belief in God isn't necessary, but belief in a soul is.

Right. It's his statement that "we" can rebel against the gene-machine (the biological body), and the meme-machine (the soul, the meme-generator), that requires a third entity labeled by his "we."

In Christian thought the third entity isn't Dawkins and Hawkins' rebelliousness, but "spirit" or divinity. In Christian thought the soul is the consciousness, and self-consciousness (in which god-consciousness comes pre-packaged), that mediates between the reptile-brain, the animalistic urges, and perceptions of the world, versus the spiritual realities that are invisible to the reptile-brain, the animalistic and atheistic apparatus for perception.

But, I suppose, if at the time of its release the soul is tainted and impure, because it has always associated with the body and cared for it and loved it, and has been so beguiled by the body and its passions and pleasures that nothing seems real to it but those physical things which can be touched and seen and eaten and drunk and used for sexual enjoyment, and if it is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid what is invisible and hidden from our eyes, but intelligible and comprehensible by philosophy -- if the soul is in this state, do you think that it will escape independent and uncontaminated . . . It is indeed no trifling task, but very difficult to realize that there is in every soul an organ or instrument of knowledge that is purified and kindled afresh by such studies when it has been destroyed and blinded by our ordinary pursuits, a faculty whose preservation outweighs ten thousand eyes, for by it only is reality beheld.

Plato --- Phaedo 81 b, Republic 527.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

In the concept of the trinity, the body evolves until the soul emanates, or emerges, once the cerebral cortex is developed. Then, when the cerebral cortex comes online, the individual achieves self-consciousness, i.e., the soul, which immediately allows god-consciousness as a product of self-consciousness.​

Never seen this in the bible. Did you come up with this idea yourself?

It's taught clearly, if allegorically (mythologically), throughout the scripture. Some of us here discussed it in some depth in the thread on, Sex and the Origins of Death, edited into an essay.



John

 

[Samael_Khan]

It's taught clearly, if allegorically (mythologically), throughout the scripture. Some of us here discussed it in some depth in the thread on, Sex and the Origins of Death, edited into an essay.



John

Ok, so it is an allegorical thing. Will check out the link.

 

[John D. Brey]

Well, the existence of a cerebral cortex doesn't give them reason to believe in God/s. Even if they went the spiritual root with that knowledge, they can come up with so many more possibilities besides god.

I disagree. It's a whole other thread, and a whole darn ball of yarn, but I believe an argument can be unwound, with some evidence, that self-consciousness and god-consciousness come packaged together. The very nature of self-consciousness, in contrast to the consciousness of the reptile, or merely mammal brain, is of such a degree as to bring every human being of a particular intellectual maturity to the self-evident knowledge that there is a God, even if they chose to deny that knowledge for the sake of the elevation of the Self to the place of God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

Romans 1:18-22.​

John

 

[Samael_Khan]

I disagree. It's a whole other thread, and a whole darn ball of yarn, but I believe an argument can be unwound, with some evidence, that self-consciousness and god-consciousness come packaged together. The very nature of self-consciousness, in contrast to the consciousness of the reptile, or merely mammal brain, is of such a degree as to bring every human being of a particular intellectual maturity to the self-evident knowledge that there is a God, even if they chose to deny that knowledge for the sake of the elevation of the Self to the place of God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

Romans 1:18-22.​

John

That is not based on evidence that a God actually exists though.

I think what you could provide evidence for is the psychological disposition of humans and worship, that it is human nature to worship, which is why religion, spirituality and ritual is a universal construct. Humans come up with different ideas of god/s and it is a vague definition in any case.

 

[John D. Brey]

It has more to do with their methadology than anything else. based on the evidence that they have at the moment, nothing is providing them with solid evidence that that organ was given to them by God in the first place.

I believe the difference between the self-consciousness every individual experiences because of the cerebral cortex being online, versus the experience associated with only the reptile, or animal brain, is greater in extent than the difference between God and man such that that experience, i.e., human self-consciousness, is itself inextricably linked with god-consciousness.

Because part and parcel of this greatest of all possible gifts is freewill, some persons first use of that stupendous and glorious freewill is to use it to sever the self-consciousness from god-consciousness in order to not only be created in God's image, but to take full ownership of that fact by eliminating the self-consciousness' binary in god-consciousness.



John

 

[Samael_Khan]

I believe the difference between the self-consciousness every individual experiences because of the cerebral cortex being online, versus the experience associated with only the reptile, or animal brain, is greater in extent than the difference between God and man such that that experience, i.e., human self-consciousness, is itself inextricably linked with god-consciousness.

Because part and parcel of this greatest of all possible gifts is freewill, some persons first use of that stupendous and glorious freewill is to use it to sever the self-consciousness from god-consciousness in order to not only be created in God's image, but to take full ownership of that fact by eliminating the self-consciousness' binary in god-consciousness.



John

I think that freewill has nothing to do with it. You either believe or you don't. Whatever severs the self-consciousness from God-consciousness in your concept, is the result of a fundamental change in world view caused by experience that cannot be controlled.

 

[John D. Brey]

That is not based on evidence that a God actually exists though.

I think what you could provide evidence for is the psychological disposition of humans and worship, that it is human nature to worship, which is why religion, spirituality and ritual is a universal construct. Humans come up with different ideas of god/s and it is a vague definition in any case.

The transition from the reptile-brain, or the animal brain (and their kind of consciousness), to human self-consciousness, is non-existent experientially. One day there were biped animals, and the next self-conscious human beings.

In the very least, we have no recollection of the transition from mammal thought, to human thought.

In a similar sense, we have no recollection, or evidence, for why we believe in God. We believe in God just as we believe in death, love, mathematics, and any other thing that came pre-packaged in the power of the cerebral cortex. Belief in God is irreducibly complex. It can't be dissected by science. The belief that it can kills the patient: God (crucifies him through disbelief in his revelation of himself).

Noam Chomsky is famous for saying something similar about human grammar, i.e., our ability to communicate on the human level. He says there's no transition from animal communication to human communication. He says they function on utterly different principles and that human communication is irreducibly complex in that there's no possible transition between animal communication and human communication. According to him, you need a certain complexity of grammar to make human grammar work, but you can't get that complexity of grammar without using human grammar.

When his audience said that saying that, implies human grammar descended from heaven, he asked them if they were theists? Most said no. So he said then why do you agree with the Judeo-Christians who believe that unlike mere animals, mankind should be able to undress every mystery, know the answer to every puzzle?

He said that he was himself no theist such that he was comfortable with the fact that according to his knowledge human grammar couldn't evolve, or come from simpler forms of communication. As an atheist he's comfortable believing there are mysteries the reptile seat of the atheist soul can't plumb.



John

 

[Samael_Khan]

The transition from the reptile-brain, or the animal brain (and their kind of consciousness), to human self-consciousness, is non-existent experientially. One day there were biped animals, and the next self-conscious human beings.

In the very least, we have no recollection of the transition from mammal thought, to human thought.

In a similar sense, we have no recollection, or evidence, for why we believe in God. We believe in God just as we believe in death, love, mathematics, and any other thing that came pre-packaged in the power of the cerebral cortex. Belief in God is irreducibly complex. It can't be dissected by science. The belief that it can kills the patient: God (crucifies him through disbelief in his revelation of himself).

Noam Chomsky is famous for saying something similar about human grammar, i.e., our ability to communicate on the human level. He says there's no transition from animal communication to human communication. He says they function on utterly different principles and that human communication is irreducibly complex in that there's no possible transition between animal communication and human communication. According to him, you need a certain complexity of grammar to make human grammar work, but you can't get that complexity of grammar without using human grammar.

When his audience said that saying that, implies human grammar descended from heaven, he asked them if they were theists? Most said no. So he said then why do you agree with the Judeo-Christians who believe that unlike mere animals, mankind should be able to undress every mystery, know the answer to every puzzle?

He said that he was himself no theist such that he was comfortable with the fact that according to his knowledge human grammar couldn't evolve, or come from simpler forms of communication. As an atheist he's comfortable believing there are mysteries the reptile seat of the atheist soul can't plumb.



John

Well, much like there is "God of the gaps", there is "evolution of the gaps", and it could be possible that neither of them is the cause.

The development of the human thought process of spiritual beings can be tracked through our ancestors, from totemism to monotheism. Based on what we have evidence of, there certainly is an evolution of the concept of gods. The monotheistic God is a later development.

What we cannot account for is the concept of a soul, and humans believed in the soul as far back as human history goes. And that belief in the soul and the spiritual realm is the key in human thought. I suspect that the concept of the soul occurred when we became able to express concepts of the self.

The belief in the soul starts the process of believing in spiritual beings, because we project the concept onto other things. Starting off with believing that objects contain spirits, then that all things have spirits and then evolving to the higher thought in religion, creating complex narratives and concepts of gods, to the point where we reach monotheism and the concept of the spiritual principle of the universe. And this evolution of religion accompanies the evolution of civilisations, as we can see today that the more primitive of humanity is animistic, whereas the most complex societies have complex religions and rituals.

 

[danieldemol]

...Take for instance the phrase "natural selection." As pointed out in Tautological Oxymorons, this phase is purely tautological since it calls the "selection" it describes "natural," only by the agnostic or atheistic neo-Darwinistic disbelief in a "supernatural" form of selection pressure. But if "natural" selection merely means a form of "selection" that's not from a supernatural selector (say God) then for the agnostic or atheistic neo-Darwinist, all "selection" is natural, so that calling something "natural selection" is as flawed as saying "survival of the fittest." In both cases, the statement can't be denied, refuted, or argued, since the truth of the premise is part and parcel of the tautological semantics its wrapped in.

Are you aware that Charles Darwin himself used the term "natural selection"? It seems to me as though you are trying to put forward a difference between Darwin and the so-called "neo-Darwinist" that doesn't exist.

Evolution isn't the issue. And for what it's worth, I happen to believe in evolution.

You appear to believe in a sort of evolution with God as the selector as opposed to natural environments being the selector. That appears to be contrary to the current "Theory of Evolution".

The issue is, and it's part of the topic of this thread, the fact that if you strip Dawkins and Hawkins of their tautologies, i.e., statements that confuse refutable premises with irrefutable ones, then they can say that evolution takes place, and I would agree, but they can't say (except in undeciphered tautologies) how evolution occurs. In truth they haven't a clue under the sun how it takes place, only that it takes place.

I disagree, I think Dawkins has a very clear understanding of how evolution occurs, but in case you don't like Dawkins due to his atheism here it is from another source;

"Individuals in a population are naturally variable, meaning that they are all different in some ways. This variation means that some individuals have traits better suited to the environment than others. Individuals with adaptive traits—traits that give them some advantage—are more likely to survive and reproduce. These individuals then pass the adaptive traits on to their offspring. Over time, these advantageous traits become more common in the population."
Source: Natural Selection

Once a person swallows a tautology like "natural selection," or "survival of the fittest," then it's clear that they're subject to the admittedly difficult to decipher confusion of thought that's based on believing ones premise, and then assuming that that belief is itself proof of the viability of the belief.

I disagree, there is no need to assume that belief is proof. Numerous observations have been made of individual organisms suitable to changes in their environment statistically surviving in the new environment, whilst no one has ever observed God taking a population of individuals not suited to their environment statistically surviving via an observed God intervention. Both the observations of those suited to their environment statistically surviving, and the lack of observation of God intervention constitute evidence of the value of the Theory of Evolution.

If you believe there's no supernatural selector (and fwiw that's the criterion of atheism)

I disagree, one could believe in God/(s) but believe the God/(s) play other roles than selection and one would not be an atheist. The criterion of atheism is disbelief in God/(s), calling someone an atheist because they don't believe God plays the role of selector is no different to calling someone an atheist because they believe God plays a different role than gravity in keeping the planets in orbit.

But I suspect the reason you keep bringing atheism into this is an attempt to imply "it can't be true - atheist believe it". However atheists believe in many truths such as the roughly spherical nature of earth or the sun centred nature of our solar system. So "atheists believe it" does not equal "it is not true".

Also calling selection "natural" selection does distinguish it from another viable kind of selection - "artificial" or "manmade" selection - which I suspect is the reason Darwin used the term in the first place.

In my opinion.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I hadn't read, The Social Conquest of the Earth. But I just ordered it and am looking forward to reading it next week.



John

Further to this, please note that Wilson died yesterday, at the age of 92.

 

[F1fan]

Birth defects, and cancers, are problems associated with the genes. Life is transitioning (by means of evolution) through the sticky, but relatively short (a few billions years) gene-phase of the process of deification of life. In the gene-phase there are many things that cause pain, tears, and death. But:

God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Revelation 20:4.​

Of course God doesn't wipe away tears, but causes them by creating a universe that includes cancers and defects.
​

Because:

This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

1 Corinthians 15:53–55.​

John

What exists is what God created. So you acknowledge that God created the universe in such a way that some genes cause cancers in children and birth defects?

 

[F1fan]

The transition from the reptile-brain, or the animal brain (and their kind of consciousness), to human self-consciousness, is non-existent experientially. One day there were biped animals, and the next self-conscious human beings.


John

The human brain doesn't transition. Humans still have the primitive, fight or flight emotion center despite the neocortex evolving. We don't need the emotion center given our capacity for abstract thinking, but evolution doesn't work that way. Our brain evolved to believe inn tribal norms, like religion and ritual. This is why so many humans still hold on to ancient and traditional beliefs. These beliefs feel good and offset anxiety.

The irony for humans is that since we are so good at creating a secure environment for ourselves and no longer fear death in competition for resources, but we do fear the death of ego. Given ego is an illusion of the self it is hardly objective enough itself to assess itself. There has to be a maturing of reasoning and understanding to be what Krishnamurti called "the observer and the observed". Being absorbed in belief, and how the ego thrives on belief, will prevent a clarity of understanding.

 

[John D. Brey]

I think that freewill has nothing to do with it. You either believe or you don't. Whatever severs the self-consciousness from God-consciousness in your concept, is the result of a fundamental change in world view caused by experience that cannot be controlled.

I would say that if a person believes empirical knowledge is the arbiter of truth, they're predisposed, and likely to disbelieve God since he isn't empirically available to the senses as God.

And yet the belief that empirical knowledge is the soundest truth is wrongheaded since as even Jeff Hawkins acknowledges (parroting Kant), our empirical world is created in our head and does not really exist outside our head as anything other than a bloomin buzzin confusion.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The development of the human thought process of spiritual beings can be tracked through our ancestors, from totemism to monotheism. Based on what we have evidence of, there certainly is an evolution of the concept of gods. The monotheistic God is a later development.

The concept of God is evolving as we speak. But the belief in God, if its more than a cultural phenomenon, leads to the evolution of the idea, rather than the idea itself being a product of evolution.

What we cannot account for is the concept of a soul, and humans believed in the soul as far back as human history goes. And that belief in the soul and the spiritual realm is the key in human thought. I suspect that the concept of the soul occurred when we became able to express concepts of the self.

What I've been trying to point out is that its probably fair to say the reptile-brain, the animal brain, has no concept of a soul, or God, since the reptile-brain, the animal brain, doesn't appear to conceptualize like that.

It's when the human animal realized it could conceptualize like that that it immediately intuited the concept of soul, God, and good, and evil.

The atheist appears to be a human being, with the accoutrements of god-consciousness, but who for some inexplicable reason retains, consciously or not, the worldview of the reptile-brain (lack of god-consciousness) even after gaining the self-consciousness associated with the cerebral cortex which comes pre-packaged (at least for most of humanity) with god-consciousness.

The atheist appears to retain the reptile-brain as the seat of his conscious authority rather than actualizing the god-consciousness that's in all other cases a natural result of self-consciousness.

The belief in the soul starts the process of believing in spiritual beings, because we project the concept onto other things. Starting off with believing that objects contain spirits, then that all things have spirits and then evolving to the higher thought in religion, creating complex narratives and concepts of gods, to the point where we reach monotheism and the concept of the spiritual principle of the universe. And this evolution of religion accompanies the evolution of civilisations, as we can see today that the more primitive of humanity is animistic, whereas the most complex societies have complex religions and rituals.

The story of Adam and Eve is at least four-thousand years old, and probably much older than that. It's pretty clearly allegory for the original biological immortality of living organism prior to the coming online of the sexual reproduction that leads more rapidly to the development and deployment of the cerebral cortex.

The story of Adam and Eve sees them lose their biological immortality in exchange for freewill couched in self-conscious knowledge of good and evil. When they think for themselves, they're kicked out of the garden of immortality to pass through the phase of evolution that leads not just back to biological immortality, which the original living organisms already had, but to conscious knowledge of God, which, that knowledge, according to the same revelation that got so much right in the story of Adam and Eve, leads (conscious knowledge of God does) to everlasting life: life that isn't just biologically immortal (free of senescence and disease, programmed death) but life that could endure the rock of Gibraltar falling on it without so much as a scratch.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Further to this, please note that Wilson died yesterday, at the age of 92.

Thank you for sharing that. So sad. May he rest in peace. I suspect he and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are standing at the pearly gate debating God's existence while they await the doorman.

I'm supposed to be receiving his book from Amazon today. Odd timing.




John