Caitlin, If you are not a Buddhist you could fool anybody into believing that. This is emptiness and bodhicitta through the lens of nuclear brinksmanship and climate collapse. We are a species who has failed to evolve fast enough -- our big brains can invent tools and technology but we can't imagine how to use them to good purpose. Buddhist philosophy is a blueprint for leveling up the mind so we can see things as they really are, and how they should be. But we are barreling towards a hellish end so fast that we may not have time to evolve. If there aren't enough of us to choose peace and open heartedness over ruinous delusion, it's been a real pleasure reading your astute and generous work in these dark and darkening times. Here's hoping truth and courage prevail.
We’ve been bred for conflict by natural selection. Those who succeeded at conflict survived or were favoured to. It’s time to accept this reality and start on how to deal with it. Otherwise we’re doomed in the long run. Step one would have been to globally forbid the development of WMDs. The US, after the collapse of the USSR, was well placed to lead on Draconian disarmament. Instead of earning the eternal respect and gratitude of the world, it took advantage of the situation and indulged in an orgy of arms development, arms sales, exploitation, invasions, theft, and murders. What a shame.
"We have been bred for conflict by natural selection" and its associated belief in genetic determinism is refuted by modern biology, especially neurobiology. It is a shining example of how science has been co-opted by the despotic hard right separatists that Caitlin challenges so eloquently. See 'The Biological Mind' by Justin Garson for more enlightened contemporary thinking.
You seem to need black and white. Actually I am a neuroscientist, now retired. After 45 years at it, it became clear how complex even the simplest human behaviour is. I did not mention genetic determinism , indeed I made it clear it could be supervened. Just that opportunities have been lost. I find your post offensively doctrinaire, if you don’t mind me saying. Are you trying to drive down the price of straw?
You posited a theory of human behavior that was genetic in origin and driven by a competitive model of natural selection. That's a totally discredited project known as "Social Darwinism".
Huh? Your reading comprehension is dodgy at best. You're conflating several things and are so far off what I said, I hope you don’t mind my leaving it at that.
Thank you for offering a more full explanation, George. I like your emphasis on the possibility that what is sometimes called genetic determinism can be supervened.
But it can't be overcome by not facing the problem squarely. As far as we know, for millennia humans lived in small groups in settings often involving combat. Those who were better at combat tended to survive. Hence, through evolution, the obvious human tendency toward aggressive violence which dominates our culture and our history (not just the West -- almost all of it). To deal with the problem we must recognize and acknowledge the depth of the problem.
Combat depends on cooperation and collaboration. Can you imagine each soldier doing whatever the fuck they wanted in a battle? Any tribe that did such a thing were likely the first to disappear. Soldiers who cooperated and organized (the Roman Legion anyone?) survived and were the most effective for centuries on end. Still true today.
Certainly. One of the paradoxes of warfare. Indeed, the most noble and unselfish emotions of the people are drafted into the service of death and destruction.
Yes, it is a cultural choice. Cultural evolution either supports real favorable evolution or not. Supporting conflict and the less evolutionarily positive forces of our primate behavior and evolution leads to death, devolution, and insanity.
Actually cooperation and collaboration has scientifically been established as more valuable to "survival" than competition and murdering the weak. But the Nazis and today's corporatists use"The Fittest Survive" ideology for their Elitist propaganda and genocidal control of the masses effectively.
And I would add, it seems easy to confuse competition with conflict. The right cultural decisions can defuse and channel competition through wise choices. Conflict is something education and self awareness can help us to manage.
Again this is a key point because we do have something called choice! All of history and genetic structure can be overcome by simple choice. Just stop smoking, drinking and you can see choice in action against some of the most difficult habits to break.
Generalizations are fraught because there are so many variables, many of which change over time. Certainly cooperation can triumph but it depends on the context, I think.
The natural history of animal species is easier as there can be fewer variables. There is plenty of deletion of the weak. Indeed colour variation can be fatal., cf. albinism.
You’d like John Kenneth Galbraith’s quote about the modern conservative. Lemme find it.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Cooperation, collaboration - has proven in "natural history" to be the strongest trait of all time. Human civilization is all about cooperation and collaboration, and even keeping the weak alive, since they too can add to the strength of the collective.
Social darwinism, the Nazis is all about the idea that one is stronger if you do it all on your own, that you don't have to depend on anyone else to keep strong and achieve valuable survival traits. It's a myth - often perpetrated by the Elites in power, to keep the public divided and fighting amongst themselves, while they plunder and exploit for their own self-aggrandizement and often sociopathic rationales.
Can you imagine waging a war where every soldier did whatever the fuck they want? Why the US marines use to have a motto: Strength, In Unity. Because real power is in Unity. Not the Horatio Alger myth that you too can do it all on your own. That's one of the biggest lies of our time - perpetrated by assholes who refuse to cooperate with anyone that doesn't serve their own narcissistic interests, and are usually the most selfish pricks on the planet.
Unfortunately our closest living relative on planet earth is the chimpanzee. We share a common ancestry with them, and as we now know chimps are very territorial, aggressive and establish a hierarchy which they can fight for tooth and nail. They can be particularly aggressive to other groups. Genetically we are more closely, not by much, to the bonobos who love to kiss, but as life would have it we share a common ancestor with the chimps.
Yes we share an evolutionary heritage, but modern science has shown robustly that genes do not determine behaviour as such. Genetic determinism remains well-established in the public mind, because it is the most established hard-right propaganda that serves to maintain the toxic status quo that Caitlin challenges.
You’re repeating yourself. Genetic influence, not determinism is what people believe, at least at an individual level, except for those who are childless or have not studied it. On a population level however “determinism” seems more apt. But separation from the influence of environment, is usually impossible. Rare experiments of nature cf. MZ twins separated at birth serve to distinguish to a degree. See gene-environment interaction and epigenetics.
We are not bred for conflict by natural selection. This is a vast misunderstanding of biological evolution. It has been mandated by a choice we have allowed through cultural evolution. Culture either supports life or death. Conflict, when adapted by cultures, leads to devolution.
Scroll it back on the evolutionary tree. Conflict has roots in competition for food and for mating. Those good at it procreate and survive at the expense of their congeners. We’re nothing special in that respect imo.
I see this as more nuanced than the idea of conflict being inherent in natural selection and competition for resources. And I think the perspective that Caitlin expresses is capturing this nuance. In the short term, the greedy algorithm always works - hence the competition for resources is clearly in effect, short term (or you could say, in human observational timescales) in many aspects of nature.
But it is less clear to me that this is fundamental when you look at the 'iterated game' of nature and evolution over the long term. Over the long term, nature seems to find ways of mutually beneficial coexistence and avoidance of the destructive short term greed that people are so good at. One way of thinking of this is Caitlin's idea that all life / consciousness is really "one" - and therefore the processes that are best for that "one existence" imply an intrinsic preference towards cooperation among all participants, developed over the long haul. This idea is reflected in many spiritual models of the world (karma, dao, etc) that suggest that the greedy, appropriative, controlling, destructive approaches to life will never win out in the end.
I found the work of Alan Watts very enlightening in this regard, it is well worth a listen. Here is an example:
But we don't live in our actual physical bodies as if we experience life in the All-Is-One model. We experience it pretty much as individuals -- it is a limitation of our nervous system -- even though we are biologically interdependent. That's the way we evolved, for some reason -- I would guess as a constraint of information processing. We can fantasize about group mind, but very few of us actually experience it outside of the low bandwidth of language and gesture.
It's true that we don't ordinarily seem to experience existence beyond our body. I think it can feel that way under the influence of certain chemicals or intense meditative states, but the practical impact of that feeling is limited.
However, that feeling can spark the idea of this "better way" of modeling the universe: the belief that the universe is at basis a force preferring cooperation, balance, and "good", because we all have skin in all the games, not just our own. The impact of this idea of existence is not a physical one-ness, but a mindset providing a basis for preferring peace, cooperation, and self-determination in the iterated game of life.
In that sense, 'living as if we experience life as all one" would be not about the experience of group mind, but rather trying to live in balance with nature and other species, trying not to unnecessarily interfere with the course of nature, and working with other humans to reduce conflict and create good through cooperation.
And the key thing that I think Caitlin is suggesting: rejecting those in power who would enslave us and pit us against one another.
Indeed it is. Cf. The greed for our neighbours goods vs the altruism we bestow on our clans and families. This dichotomy is at the heart of conflict. Leadership is needed to mesh them because it didn’t seem to come naturally most of the time,
Evolution, in a step by step process since the first life, manifested the factors that enhanced survival. Of course we are not special - we are alive. My point is that we as humans have an additional layer of evolutionary survival choices supported or endangered by our cultures.
We should have. It will be better answered when our tenancy is longer. It seems like it’s a double-edged sword. Whereas other species haven’t had the capacity to engender existential risk for their own and all other species, we have done created it.
I think you’re right. I am holding out less and less hope. A world leader could still right the ship, but a lot of goodwill would be needed and that doesn’t come overnight.
Oh I 100% agree this is currently a test. Bur human consciousness an experiment? Only if consciousness in life itself is an experiment. Maybe, just maybe, we will not continue to fail so epically!
I agree with your premise but unfortunately there is no wherewithal, none, to enable the solution you suggest, as worthy as it is.Those few families and their fold who control the means of survival for 7 billion who are largely backward, illiterate, unaware, and mostly without means to uplift, in my view is as planned by those with extreme means stay their condition for singular purpose of self enrichment. Again, unfortunately it is likely to stay that way until the imbalance is resolved naturally or more likely unnaturally.
I think the situation is primed for a great international leader but with one major default. If a key country is actually in the control of their military and their partners in crime, the arm manufacturers, there is by definition no good faith and therefore productive negotiation is fraught. I think you’re right, it might take a nuclear war to enable, as horrific and existentially dangerous that would be. But if by chance a Xi Biden type pairing clicked, they could also drive it. But the nuclear club is poised to rapidly inflate membership, so it will have to be soon.
Having had a chair at an ancient university and having made ISI’s most cited authors in science in my early 30s I would suggest there have been observers and granting agencies not sharing your take.
Dialogue is not fostered by broad sweeping generalizations like “ you have evolutionary biology misunderstood”. Nor by your other dismissive but entirely subjective commentary.
But I’ll reply any way. Cooperation and conflict have always coexisted. You’ve misunderstood what I meant about Draconian. It referred to a timely institution of absolute rules but by agreement and consensus. The notion of disarming mad dog aggressive countries would have had lots of appeal. If the US as one of those and the most wantonly out of control had led I think it would have flown. But that’s just speculation. What isn’t, is the complete failure to try, in favour of exploitation and domination. But maybe you think the 800 American military bases in 70 countries are a great thing.
But "evolutionary misunderstanding" is where we find ourselves currently. Real, grounded, education (re-education) for ourselves and the kids is fundamentally important.
Certainly, we, as products of this planet are all interconnected. But that view is one one layer of reality and has its limitations. We are also individuals with individual perceptions, intellect and will, and it is important to differentiate among people, agendas and choices. Those who wish to divide and enslave us would have us believe it's all for our own good. This has nothing to do with natural selection, but quite unnatural, deliberate selection based on a vision of reality where people are unequal in value and can be used like objects for the benefit of certain classes. Sartre made the very profound observation that we create ourselves with every choice we make, or are forced to make by a class based society. That is the very soul and premise of all wars: elites start them, but don't suffer the consequences. In fact, for elites wars are a great source of economic gain.
I'm late to reading this and scrolled the comments looking for someone who had said what I wanted to. I agree with your point. It is possible to be part of a greater whole and still be an individual.
I normally applaud and very much agree with your writings. But I think you've got this one wrong, big time. If you hold, as I certainly do and I believe many people do, that there is a God or a higher being, a spirit, a force, a light if you will, and that this God (let us call the force this name to make it simpler) has no religion, but just IS, then this frees you to view religions as what they are always have been: community. For as long as their have been people, there have been religions, as a way for people to organise and create community, and add vast amounts of color to their lives. Without digressing into trying to imagine a world lacking in religion and how colorless it would be, try instead to imagine how it would be if we could reach a state wherein everyone simply respected everyone else's religions (or lack thereof) and we thus reveled in the beauty of the special days and markers that those religions give us? No indeed, pointing at religions as one of the factors getting us into trouble these days is as useless as it is painful; in many ways, the keepers of the old religions and their ways are the only people holding on to our history and much that is sacred, and holding back the tidal wave of the binary computer world that teeters at the edge of swallowing us all into the ether of its non denominational cyber vastness.
I agree. Also, I used to work with members of the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, a few of whom lived permanently on Sky City with no electricity or running water. I subsequently moved to Pennsylvania Dutch country where I now live among the Amish and old-order Mennonites. The unselfconscious ease with which both groups negotiate an off-the-grid lifestyle gives new meaning to "the meek shall inherit the earth" in my opinion. They're the only ones who will know how to adapt to and survive the coming environmental collapse.
I don’t accept that religion creates community. It segments communities into those in and those not in. It reiterates the dualistic differentiation that is at the root of all Christian sects. Religion is ideology, false ideology Marx would argue, because it is all predicated, not on what is in our real world, but what is in our muddled minds.
Perhaps this is your experience of it. But I can guarantee you that for many, many people, this does not hold true and that it provides the fulcrum in fact for family and community (myself included). It could be that this is one marker or divider between the more developed and aetheist world and the world of more traditional societies. I'm not sure. But one thing I *do* know is that anything Marx said about religion is irrelevant insofar as religion existed far before his time, and will continue to exist far beyond our time, and because his words led to one of the most miserable components of the Bolshevik revolution itself, which was the closure of churches and places of worship in Communist countries. So to look to Marx for his viewpoint on religion is a bit akin to looking to a vegetarian for their view on backyard grilling.
It isn't my experience, it's the history of the human species. You don't have to guarantee that loads of people identify with a deity. I'm not arguing otherwise. Religion is the institutionalization of ideation as truth. Many people are convinced that if enough people believe something then it must be true. This is nonsense. If we look at educated cultures that do not promote proselytizing or indoctrination before a certain age (because indoctrination of children has been construed as a form of child abuse), religion is not the political force or social controlling agent that it is in most capitalist societies.
Nothing wrong with religious belief if it doesn't hold other religions in disregard. I don't get this article, and it goes against a basic understanding of psychological development, the development of self.
Everything is waves of energy in constant motion vibrating at different frequencies. We are interconnected fields of energy that appear as solid on this three dimensional planet. There is no separation except in our minds. Altered states of consciousness, in my experience, usually involve a sense of expansion and connection... and self realization which is a strange term because it seems more a sense of no self and being a part of all that is. It is a deep peace, a sense of well being, of being completely loved and supported. You realize your body is like the shell of a turtle. Your mind is a tool and when it is quiet deep inspiration bubbles up into your awareness. It is like tapping into a font of intelligence and wisdom. You don't want to leave that state of being and, depending on life circumstances, some don't and others do.
Carol I've had religious experiences and often profound, and I know all is not what it appears to be, but basically I reside in this material world where there is joy, and pain. I don't need to deny the evil that's here, nor let the good go unrecognized, and both are part of the material world I reside in.
Religion is the worst thing to ever happen. I consider it one of our greatest failings. When we look at how religion operates, it takes on the same characteristics and patterns as a lie not truth. Truth has a different pattern and the system being used there operates differently than a lie. There is no way around it. The equivalent of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, etc ... even constructing a lie to hide a love affair shares the same pattern and operates within the exact same system. To be fair, even atheism shares the same pattern. The real answer is we don’t know. There are several variables that go into thinking we do ‘know’.
There is zero objective based evidence either way when tryin to prove a creator or lack of one. So, the next time you see someone arguing over different religions or atheism, observe the patterns, walk away, treat yourself to one of your favorite foods and return to see who has turned more gray.
We are aloud to not know. It’s ok to say, ‘I don’t know’. That’s truth. What is so terrible to not knowing and just enjoying the mystery?
Atheism (or Materialism) is just another religion. Probably one of the worst because at its core is nihilism and the denial of any kind of hope in a future for the individual. All that is ahead of one is obliteration of the Self. Nothing that anyone who loves life could possibly look forward to.
I think there does need to be a respect for all spirital/religious beliefs - which many of today's Skeptic Atheists - are as arrogant as the fundamentalists they piss upon with their intellectual superiority bullshit. I can tell you one thing, we sure as hell don't know (yet) how reality even exists or how life even begins. We don't have a clue what consciousness actually is - or how it comes into being. So when an Atheist Skeptic comes along and pisses all over your spiritual beliefs - tell them they can go to hell.
I agree and better to be open minded. I've had experiences which science cannot just explain away, and sometimes they try by saying you imagined it. Science can get very dogmatic.
Yes that is my own belief "faith" or however you would like to define it. And I could be wrong as well. Sure.
I think what is more important is tolerance. Tolerance for people's religious/spiritual beliefs. Which is severely lacking with today's rationalists/skeptics who think themselves enlightened just like the fanatical fundamentalists of old.
Tolerance is joystick in the hands of the Capitalists for their exploitation of all others. Skeptics/Rationalists are armchair ego massagers not worthy of one's time of day. Time is too short for that.
One does have to wake up each morning and conduct oneself with some set of beliefs. And willing to make decisions based on those beliefs. On the other hand, a lack of tolerance is drinking the poison of one's own unconscious projections without sufficient self realization.
Everything has it's downside, and religion has that, but to many religion has brought comfort, and of course religious wars, and prejudices. I was not raised in a religious faith, and joined the Unitarian Universalist faith which didn't last long. However since I've been a child I've had spiritual experiences which tells me there is more then meets the eye, and things happen that can't be explained away with science, and that is my field of study. Religions often provide comfort, so let people have it. There seems to be good and bad in just about everything. Chocolate cake with lots of icing isn't the best choice either, but sometimes you just need it.
The old Nazi belief of "Might Makes Right" and competition and only the fit should survive - which corporate globalists push upon us all daily with their corporate propaganda and militarisms and Ayn Randisms. When it is the opposite of how the species can thrive and survive: collaboration and joining together.
As George Orwell once wrote, "It's frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence."
Psychologically speaking we do have a sense of self, and sometimes the self is bad, but mostly it's good, especially if that self has been treated well as it develops itself.
Oh! This makes so much sense. I've often said that we debate the reality of God but assume the reality of money. But clearly that doesn't go far enough. The belief in our separation is dogma, never to be questioned. It's an unspoken article of faith. It's not 'believing' in Oneness that's needed, it's questioning our devotion to separation.
Yes. The wisdom behind the US Constitution we have recently shredded is the concept of the individual in a world where we are all granted unalienable rights from the moment we are conceived. But it takes an entire planetary culture to recognize it. Nation states will never rise above the inherent conflicts.
I believe and maybe it is just me ( a personal bias) but I do believe, sheltered in the biological wisdom of our mother's body, that we are granted these from conception.
It is rigid and dangerous to compare a living breathing human being to a potential human being, a collection of cells, and give that group of cells the same rights as a woman. People are legislating their rigid belief systems and hurting women, especially poor women.
Is "potential human being" a human being? If not, then why not - because it can be aborted or the process interrupted in some other abnormal way?
This is something I wrote elsewhere for some other discussion, see if you disagree:
"Let's define "natural" as something that occurs in nature, and in this context "normal" as that which, if left alone, progresses to a certain outcome, naturally.
A sperm or an egg left by themselves progress nowhere and that is normal and natural.
A fertilized egg is another story altogether. If left alone in its natural state it normally progresses to become a person. If that progress is interrupted, either naturally or unnaturally, that is abnormal as the interruption destroys this new entity and regardless of whether it can feel or has consciousness or what not, it will never change the fact that a potential human being is no more."
When we study embryology intensively we find extremely high levels of organization in a fertilized egg. Every part of the “clump of cells” involved in an elegant, elaborate process. Yet another elaborate and elegant process unfolds between the developing human embryo and the body of the mother. This magnificent process is something all humans need to be educated about. To fail to understand this is to fail to understand our lives.
Thanks, KW. I look at the US Constitution as shredding the newborn State Constitutions that protected the rights of individuals to provide for themselves through ownership of property and the means of commerce. The US Constitution took away their ability to protect their sovereignty using bills of credit for local exchange. It's all been a predictable (and predicted) consolidation of power over others since then. Here's an episode I posted on it, which you might have already read, since I know and am so grateful you read my ideas! :
Yes, agree State's Rights are a fundamentally important part of the Constitution. Not sure I understand the technicalities so well but that is what is great about the Constitution.
With much love and respect for you, KW, I think the opposite. The Constitution was written to destroy the rights of the States and leapfrog over them to a consolidated government directly over all the people. That's what made handing money creation to the bankers so much easier--the States were forbidden to issue any form of credit for internal trade. So the bankers were given all of our labor for free, while the States were left with responsibility to provide for people's needs with no proactive way to do it. They had to tax the earnings people made from serving the merchant-bankers, instead of simply paying them in the State-generated currency backed by the housing, so they never had to work for the wealthy in the first place.
If that is true then it is my deficient understanding of the Constitution. Some of our founding ancestors were very worried about the merchant-bankers. Such arguments between those siding with Jefferson and those siding with Madison.
Yes! You're exactly right. Those who won were Madison and Hamilton, who had plotted the overthrow of the Articles of Confederation in forcing the Convention from a meeting of merchant-bankers in Annapolis. Everything they did was illegal according to the Articles, which is a fairly uninspired document meant to leave the power to the States. The State Constitutions are where the Bill of Rights is sourced from, but it's a pale shadow written by Madison simply to squash those who wouldn't ratify the Constitution without it. The promise to ratify was made to get their agreement, then he wrote a toothless version to keep them from challenging slavery (which couldn't be changed for a number of years) and forbidding the States to issue their own currencies. We've all been taught a deficient understanding of what happened, you're not alone.
The Constitution that you revere was written to divide the colonies from the world at large. It’s a document that reinforces the nation-state that you lament. It isn’t an ode to the individual, but a declaration that property makes the individual. It addresses “the pursuit of happiness...”. , which is in sync with its allegiance to property. Amass wealth, accumulate stuff, monetize everything that you can...bliss!
It is possible to see the positive aspects of the Constitution without being starry eyed about the Nation State. Quite obviously the beginnings of the US were a process. We are still in a process. The "pursuit of happiness" can be looked at in many different ways. Nation states all over the "civilized" world have blown the whole notion. Either we can start over or we cannot.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Keep the Sabbath day holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's spouse.
You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.
Which of these promote nastiness? Zero.
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE: Look for places of unity with people of good will, and don't trash what they hold dear, like their religions or families.
When you trash what people hold dear, you unwittingly make allies with the people who are demolishing love and connection between family members and communities, and you are inadvertently supporting the large corporations that don't care about us, and only see as consumers to exploit. Remember: people like the WEF want you fat, sick, isolated, emasculated, de-feminized, and depressed. They want to extract as much economic value as possible from you, and then they want to kill you. This is the spineless, brainless, gutless soy globalism that will annihilate us all, even as the ruling classes like Biden and Schwab propagandize and weaken us.
The first three are about belief, not morals. I once asked my Sunday school teacher how he could say one shouldn't work on Sunday when he would go out to eat after church and make others work. Yes, my questioning began at about the age of 13. Honor your parents unless they abuse you. Don't kill except prisoners and for the state...
I appreciate your sentiment. But fact is IT IS CLEAR THAT IN CHRISTIANDOM THERE ARE VIRTUALLY NO STAKE HOLDERS TO THOSE VALUES. So making that point is pointless because preaching to it would be like singing to a deaf-mute; I fully agree with you about the consequences.
“WE ARE IN THE CAVE OF DREAM. WE ARE IN A BATTLE OF AN UNDERGROUND WAR AGAINST FRAGMENTATION. ART IS WAR AGAINST FRAGMENTATION. THE BATTLE IS ON ALL REALITIES. THE CONTROLLERS HAVE ALWAYS TRIED TO FRAGMENT US. FRAGMENT US FROM EACH OTHER. IMPRISON US IN ISLANDS OF SEX, COLOR, RELIGION, POLITICS, CLASSES, LABELS, ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC. THEY FRAGMENT OUR INNER WORLDS, THEY BLOW OUR INDIVIDUAL REALITIES APART, AND PLAY THE PIECES AGAINST ONE ANOTHER. THEY ARE US, OR A PART OF US.”
“THEY ARE THE CONTROLLERS, THE POLITICIANS, THE SEXISTS, THE WOMEN’S LIBBERS, THE PORNOGRAPHERS, THE CENSORS, THE MORALISTS, THE CHURCH, THE MEDIA, THE BUSINESSMEN, EDUCATORS, THE VICTIMS AND THE POWERFUL.”
“THEY ARE US. THEY HAVE DIVIDED US FROM OUR POWER, FROM OUR BEAUTY, FROM OUR LUST OF LIFE AND PLEASURE. THEY HAVE DIVIDED US FROM MOST OF REALITY…DYING FROM LIVING…SEX FROM LIVING, SEX FROM PLEASURE. WE ARE KEPT IN BOXES OF FEAR, OF MISTRUST. WE ARE KEPT WAITING…KEPT WAITING TO DO WHAT WE WANT…WAITING FOR ENOUGH MONEY, ENOUGH SCHOOLING, FOR EVERYTHING TO BE RIGHT. WE ARE KEPT WAITING AND PROTECTING AND HIDING AND SUFFERING.”
God is getting impatient with the little experiment on the Blue Planet! Either sufficient numbers of the semi-conscious life form get an “aha “ moment and realize it / them/ we all grow out of Cosmic Awareness or we hit the wall of extinction as have so many other species before us.
Just a thought... Some think human civilizations have risen and fallen many times over the past hundreds of thousands of years and the flood was the last fall. So She apparently keeps giving humans the chance to get it right collectively.
It would be great in if we wake up in time this time around.
Or the Bible is being misinterpreted and we should take it more literally.
Yes, though, I was just reading a bit about existential crisis and the "Social Construct of Reality". People are in the habit of being disconnected and have no idea of connection anymore.
How to make friends & influence people: Look for places of unity with people of good will, and don't trash what they hold dear, like their religions or families. Otherwise, you come across as one who separates, and does not love people.
There is such a dark side to the institution of religion: judgmentalism, the crusades, colonialism, burning heretics and witches, jihad, the caste system, and especially war.
Yet many find themselves through religion. Mystics emerged in all religious traditions. Earlier, shamans discovered how to communicate with the other side.
Because you have knowings, or know some things, does not mean that there are not a myriad of things to learn. It is an incredibly marvelous mysterious Universe. Seek and you will find.
Scientism has become the darkside to today's rationalism and materialism. It's interesting how its flipped completely the other way now. And I agree, there is quite a bit of shadow and dark ignorance and hell to religious beliefs and doctrines throughout human history. But today's intellectual materialists frequently throw out the baby with the bath water, and defend their own religion of Materialism just as devoutly and blindly as the religions they make a point of castigating every chance they get. Blind to their own dogmatisms. The blind leading the blind.
The reason you will find is because you are not separate. You are never alone. Your divine spark, your soul, consciousness, is always with you and waiting for you to connect. It is you.
I live my life believing that is at the core of it all, and not what the nihilists would have us believe, or as Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote (paraphrasing) - the skeptic believes life is a collection of chinese boxes, each box layered within the other - and when you open each box until you reach the final box, all you find will be emptiness.
Life is short as it is. So it will all be over soon enough for each of us. But we each ought to have the freedom to choose how we will live it, spiritually and morally. And not have some materialist "know-it-all" insist what is truth or not truth, and how stupid we are in holding some kind of faith that life is more than just an empty chinese box.
I have a number of problems along with the somewhat racist implications of the now debunked theory of evolution or as Darwin put it: 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life' (that last bit of the title is the bit evolutionists are prone to forget, understandably). And problems with the how, when and where of this popular but moribund idea, moribund from a scientific point of view not a popular one.
The reason? Even the more modern iterations of this unscientific theory (like punctuated equilibrium) are completely unsupported by known science. The ever-loud assertion of its 'truth' by the media (a media that in recent years we have come to view as highly specious in its assertions) and some prominent and popular biologists that fly in the face of this obvious and uncomfortable evidence (for them anyway, as their very prestigious and prominent careers depend on it) does not make it true.
One example; There are as yet no computer models of how evolution could take place...no matter what data you input, the models cannot be made. Why? A bit like if we input a question like 'How does a human turn into Spiderman when bitten by a radioactive spider?' with all its concomitant 'data', the computer has always said no. It cannot happen, will never happen, could never happen. It's a fiction. Spiderman; great story but in reality, just an entertaining idea.
Here are just a couple of quotes from the 1966 Wistar conference in Philadelphia chaired by Sir Peter Medawar (Nobel prize winning biologist).
'It was the development of tremendously powerful digital computers that sparked the controversy. At last mathematicians were able to work out the probability of evolution ever having occurred. They discovered that, mathematically, life would neither have begun nor evolved by random action.
For four days the Wistar convention continued, during which a key lecture was delivered by M.P. Schutzenberger, a computer scientist, who explained that computers are large enough now to totally work out the mathematical probabilities of evolutionary theory—and they demonstrate that it is really fiction'.
Murray Eden [a physical chemist at MIT] showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that the genes of E. coli contain over a trillion (1012) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. He also reported on his extensive investigations into genetic data on hemoglobin (red blood cells)'.
Man-made religion is one thing (and rightly should be rejected on moral and scientific grounds) but if observable science indicates there is a creator/scientist of the highest order responsible for the Universe, Earth, life on it and the breath-taking order, design and purpose we observe in the Universe and even in the degraded nature on our own miraculous planet, it may indicate that this creator scientist's purpose includes us and our wonderfully unique planet and has also logically provided guidance and preserved written revelation as to that purpose for all of us regardless of the time period in which we live ((A uniquely preserved ancient record, for example), If we but honestly seek for such information.
This would take the effort of objective investigation, the humility do so and also a love of truth no matter what the cost to our presently perceived world view. It may be that all our anxieties about our future may in fact then be redirected to something far more fruitful based on reality and not some unscientific and bleak fantasy.
Yes, I agree. There are a lot of holes in the now aging Darwinian evolutionary theory. That is not to say, there isn't some kind of evolution and adaptation taking place. But I suspect there is far more going on than the simplistic reductionisms that are often pushed by Darwin Evolutionists who treat Darwin like he was some kind of God and his scientific theory as if it were a type of religion.
The theory of Evolution is not a theory about how the molecules of the E.coli bacterium could come together by chance, although in an infinite universe I suppose it would have happened infinitely many times.
Wood is right about the computer model simulations. I was actually involved in such a simulation many moons ago. There are huge Darwinian evolutionary explanation gaps where how some complex feature of life became a reality defies logical explanation, not to mention there being any kind of scientific evidence or logical progression from one organic feature to a much more complex organic feature.
Biogenesis which Darwin didn't even attempt to touch, is a huge unknown in science and in evolutionary knowledge. After a century and a half of biology - scientists are not even close to understanding how life even is produced, or gets started. Despite innumerable attempts in scientific laboratories to produce life. It has not been done. Nor has consciousness (i.e. conscious awareness) ever been replicated by computer scientists.
What I dislike about Darwinian evolutionists is how sure they are about themselves, and the way they treat Darwinian evolutionary theory as if it's some kind of religion, with the same fanatical dogmatism that ignores some of the problems with the theory that Wood here and others often point out.
One can't compute the probability of events when one has no idea of the size of the denominator, that is, the domain in which the event is said to be possible. (That would be something like the volume of the universe.) Or in fact of the exact definition of the event. That is our ignorance, not a refutation of Darwinian Evolution.
The main reason the theory is so firmly believed in is the lack of counterexamples. This makes it better attested than Newtonian celestial mechanics, which is pretty good going -- the precession of Mercury required Relativistic correction.
We do know the size of the denominator based on what we know so far. Just throwing a few more billion years at it or trillions more atomic reactions will not change the fact that inanimate matter does not create life.
When all experimental evidence refutes the proposed theory we must reject it and search out or propose something more plausible to which we can apply the scientific method. Science has disproved evolution and now it's time to move on from it because, as with anything in life, believing in falsehoods hinders our species.
It's a simple and obvious fact that you do not know how much time there is, or how much space there is, or all the stuff there is in them, and therefore you do not know the denominator; and asserting otherwise does not being to advance your argument.
You are right of course but we work with what we have, we don't even know what time is. Our knowledge can only be based on what we know otherwise the pursuit of knowledge would be meaningless. Based on current knowledge we can dismiss stories of the Earth being flat and being held up by giant turtles suspended in a cosmic sea. The universe is theorized to be either 13.8 billion years or as young as 11.4 billion years. But either way it makes no difference, time is irrelevant when something cannot happen.
Alchemists never found a way of turning base metals into gold. Because it is impossible. No matter how much time they were given no amount of primitive chemistry and incantation would achieve their goal. But alchemists did not have knowledge of atomic reactions or even atoms. If they did they would have abandoned the pursuit of alchemy immediately. Alchemy was abandoned because we now understand atomic structures and our knowledge is based on sound information through scientific methods. Turning base metals into gold cannot work, never. Just as life can only come from life. Information can only come from intelligent life. Billions of years of randomness will not change that reality.
Sure, if you can believe a tornado can go through a junkyard and produce a jumbo jet, then you are susceptible to almost any dogma. But that is not what science ought to be about.
Caitlin, If you are not a Buddhist you could fool anybody into believing that. This is emptiness and bodhicitta through the lens of nuclear brinksmanship and climate collapse. We are a species who has failed to evolve fast enough -- our big brains can invent tools and technology but we can't imagine how to use them to good purpose. Buddhist philosophy is a blueprint for leveling up the mind so we can see things as they really are, and how they should be. But we are barreling towards a hellish end so fast that we may not have time to evolve. If there aren't enough of us to choose peace and open heartedness over ruinous delusion, it's been a real pleasure reading your astute and generous work in these dark and darkening times. Here's hoping truth and courage prevail.
Yes.
Shantideva Prayer
By Shantideva
May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector of those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need
For as long as space endures,
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I, too, abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
Shantideva was an 8th century Indian Buddhist monk. There are many forms of this prayer, attributed to him.
About the Author
Shantideva
Shantideva was an 8th century Indian Buddhist monk.
For more information contact worshipweb@uua.org.
We’ve been bred for conflict by natural selection. Those who succeeded at conflict survived or were favoured to. It’s time to accept this reality and start on how to deal with it. Otherwise we’re doomed in the long run. Step one would have been to globally forbid the development of WMDs. The US, after the collapse of the USSR, was well placed to lead on Draconian disarmament. Instead of earning the eternal respect and gratitude of the world, it took advantage of the situation and indulged in an orgy of arms development, arms sales, exploitation, invasions, theft, and murders. What a shame.
"We have been bred for conflict by natural selection" and its associated belief in genetic determinism is refuted by modern biology, especially neurobiology. It is a shining example of how science has been co-opted by the despotic hard right separatists that Caitlin challenges so eloquently. See 'The Biological Mind' by Justin Garson for more enlightened contemporary thinking.
You seem to need black and white. Actually I am a neuroscientist, now retired. After 45 years at it, it became clear how complex even the simplest human behaviour is. I did not mention genetic determinism , indeed I made it clear it could be supervened. Just that opportunities have been lost. I find your post offensively doctrinaire, if you don’t mind me saying. Are you trying to drive down the price of straw?
You posited a theory of human behavior that was genetic in origin and driven by a competitive model of natural selection. That's a totally discredited project known as "Social Darwinism".
Own it.
Huh? Your reading comprehension is dodgy at best. You're conflating several things and are so far off what I said, I hope you don’t mind my leaving it at that.
Two people read what you wrote and came to a different conclusion than the one you believed was clear. Maybe the issue is your post and not them.
Thanks for the input. I’ve gone back and looked and find what I said ( to me) irreducible. I thought the subsequent thread clarified.
Thank you for offering a more full explanation, George. I like your emphasis on the possibility that what is sometimes called genetic determinism can be supervened.
But it can't be overcome by not facing the problem squarely. As far as we know, for millennia humans lived in small groups in settings often involving combat. Those who were better at combat tended to survive. Hence, through evolution, the obvious human tendency toward aggressive violence which dominates our culture and our history (not just the West -- almost all of it). To deal with the problem we must recognize and acknowledge the depth of the problem.
Combat depends on cooperation and collaboration. Can you imagine each soldier doing whatever the fuck they wanted in a battle? Any tribe that did such a thing were likely the first to disappear. Soldiers who cooperated and organized (the Roman Legion anyone?) survived and were the most effective for centuries on end. Still true today.
Certainly. One of the paradoxes of warfare. Indeed, the most noble and unselfish emotions of the people are drafted into the service of death and destruction.
Pay grade? I said I was retired.
Yes, it is a cultural choice. Cultural evolution either supports real favorable evolution or not. Supporting conflict and the less evolutionarily positive forces of our primate behavior and evolution leads to death, devolution, and insanity.
Actually cooperation and collaboration has scientifically been established as more valuable to "survival" than competition and murdering the weak. But the Nazis and today's corporatists use"The Fittest Survive" ideology for their Elitist propaganda and genocidal control of the masses effectively.
Strength in Unity - an old US Marine motto.
And I would add, it seems easy to confuse competition with conflict. The right cultural decisions can defuse and channel competition through wise choices. Conflict is something education and self awareness can help us to manage.
Again this is a key point because we do have something called choice! All of history and genetic structure can be overcome by simple choice. Just stop smoking, drinking and you can see choice in action against some of the most difficult habits to break.
Generalizations are fraught because there are so many variables, many of which change over time. Certainly cooperation can triumph but it depends on the context, I think.
The natural history of animal species is easier as there can be fewer variables. There is plenty of deletion of the weak. Indeed colour variation can be fatal., cf. albinism.
You’d like John Kenneth Galbraith’s quote about the modern conservative. Lemme find it.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Cooperation, collaboration - has proven in "natural history" to be the strongest trait of all time. Human civilization is all about cooperation and collaboration, and even keeping the weak alive, since they too can add to the strength of the collective.
Social darwinism, the Nazis is all about the idea that one is stronger if you do it all on your own, that you don't have to depend on anyone else to keep strong and achieve valuable survival traits. It's a myth - often perpetrated by the Elites in power, to keep the public divided and fighting amongst themselves, while they plunder and exploit for their own self-aggrandizement and often sociopathic rationales.
Can you imagine waging a war where every soldier did whatever the fuck they want? Why the US marines use to have a motto: Strength, In Unity. Because real power is in Unity. Not the Horatio Alger myth that you too can do it all on your own. That's one of the biggest lies of our time - perpetrated by assholes who refuse to cooperate with anyone that doesn't serve their own narcissistic interests, and are usually the most selfish pricks on the planet.
Right on the money!
Unfortunately our closest living relative on planet earth is the chimpanzee. We share a common ancestry with them, and as we now know chimps are very territorial, aggressive and establish a hierarchy which they can fight for tooth and nail. They can be particularly aggressive to other groups. Genetically we are more closely, not by much, to the bonobos who love to kiss, but as life would have it we share a common ancestor with the chimps.
Yes we share an evolutionary heritage, but modern science has shown robustly that genes do not determine behaviour as such. Genetic determinism remains well-established in the public mind, because it is the most established hard-right propaganda that serves to maintain the toxic status quo that Caitlin challenges.
You’re repeating yourself. Genetic influence, not determinism is what people believe, at least at an individual level, except for those who are childless or have not studied it. On a population level however “determinism” seems more apt. But separation from the influence of environment, is usually impossible. Rare experiments of nature cf. MZ twins separated at birth serve to distinguish to a degree. See gene-environment interaction and epigenetics.
Yes, precisely. Well said.
The bonobos also like to smear feces and reingest it.
Perhaps trapped in a zoo or some other unnatural environment animals will eat things they normally wouldn't in their natural environment.
True enough.
We are not bred for conflict by natural selection. This is a vast misunderstanding of biological evolution. It has been mandated by a choice we have allowed through cultural evolution. Culture either supports life or death. Conflict, when adapted by cultures, leads to devolution.
Scroll it back on the evolutionary tree. Conflict has roots in competition for food and for mating. Those good at it procreate and survive at the expense of their congeners. We’re nothing special in that respect imo.
I see this as more nuanced than the idea of conflict being inherent in natural selection and competition for resources. And I think the perspective that Caitlin expresses is capturing this nuance. In the short term, the greedy algorithm always works - hence the competition for resources is clearly in effect, short term (or you could say, in human observational timescales) in many aspects of nature.
But it is less clear to me that this is fundamental when you look at the 'iterated game' of nature and evolution over the long term. Over the long term, nature seems to find ways of mutually beneficial coexistence and avoidance of the destructive short term greed that people are so good at. One way of thinking of this is Caitlin's idea that all life / consciousness is really "one" - and therefore the processes that are best for that "one existence" imply an intrinsic preference towards cooperation among all participants, developed over the long haul. This idea is reflected in many spiritual models of the world (karma, dao, etc) that suggest that the greedy, appropriative, controlling, destructive approaches to life will never win out in the end.
I found the work of Alan Watts very enlightening in this regard, it is well worth a listen. Here is an example:
https://soundcloud.com/beherenownetwork/alan-watts-being-in-the-way-podcast-ep-8-man-and-nature
But we don't live in our actual physical bodies as if we experience life in the All-Is-One model. We experience it pretty much as individuals -- it is a limitation of our nervous system -- even though we are biologically interdependent. That's the way we evolved, for some reason -- I would guess as a constraint of information processing. We can fantasize about group mind, but very few of us actually experience it outside of the low bandwidth of language and gesture.
It's true that we don't ordinarily seem to experience existence beyond our body. I think it can feel that way under the influence of certain chemicals or intense meditative states, but the practical impact of that feeling is limited.
However, that feeling can spark the idea of this "better way" of modeling the universe: the belief that the universe is at basis a force preferring cooperation, balance, and "good", because we all have skin in all the games, not just our own. The impact of this idea of existence is not a physical one-ness, but a mindset providing a basis for preferring peace, cooperation, and self-determination in the iterated game of life.
In that sense, 'living as if we experience life as all one" would be not about the experience of group mind, but rather trying to live in balance with nature and other species, trying not to unnecessarily interfere with the course of nature, and working with other humans to reduce conflict and create good through cooperation.
And the key thing that I think Caitlin is suggesting: rejecting those in power who would enslave us and pit us against one another.
Good reminder. Love Alan Watts.
Indeed it is. Cf. The greed for our neighbours goods vs the altruism we bestow on our clans and families. This dichotomy is at the heart of conflict. Leadership is needed to mesh them because it didn’t seem to come naturally most of the time,
Evolution, in a step by step process since the first life, manifested the factors that enhanced survival. Of course we are not special - we are alive. My point is that we as humans have an additional layer of evolutionary survival choices supported or endangered by our cultures.
We should have. It will be better answered when our tenancy is longer. It seems like it’s a double-edged sword. Whereas other species haven’t had the capacity to engender existential risk for their own and all other species, we have done created it.
It seems like a test. Maybe human consciousness was some kind of experiment? One that appears we will be failing fairly soon at.
I think you’re right. I am holding out less and less hope. A world leader could still right the ship, but a lot of goodwill would be needed and that doesn’t come overnight.
Oh I 100% agree this is currently a test. Bur human consciousness an experiment? Only if consciousness in life itself is an experiment. Maybe, just maybe, we will not continue to fail so epically!
I agree with your premise but unfortunately there is no wherewithal, none, to enable the solution you suggest, as worthy as it is.Those few families and their fold who control the means of survival for 7 billion who are largely backward, illiterate, unaware, and mostly without means to uplift, in my view is as planned by those with extreme means stay their condition for singular purpose of self enrichment. Again, unfortunately it is likely to stay that way until the imbalance is resolved naturally or more likely unnaturally.
I think the situation is primed for a great international leader but with one major default. If a key country is actually in the control of their military and their partners in crime, the arm manufacturers, there is by definition no good faith and therefore productive negotiation is fraught. I think you’re right, it might take a nuclear war to enable, as horrific and existentially dangerous that would be. But if by chance a Xi Biden type pairing clicked, they could also drive it. But the nuclear club is poised to rapidly inflate membership, so it will have to be soon.
Having had a chair at an ancient university and having made ISI’s most cited authors in science in my early 30s I would suggest there have been observers and granting agencies not sharing your take.
Dialogue is not fostered by broad sweeping generalizations like “ you have evolutionary biology misunderstood”. Nor by your other dismissive but entirely subjective commentary.
But I’ll reply any way. Cooperation and conflict have always coexisted. You’ve misunderstood what I meant about Draconian. It referred to a timely institution of absolute rules but by agreement and consensus. The notion of disarming mad dog aggressive countries would have had lots of appeal. If the US as one of those and the most wantonly out of control had led I think it would have flown. But that’s just speculation. What isn’t, is the complete failure to try, in favour of exploitation and domination. But maybe you think the 800 American military bases in 70 countries are a great thing.
But "evolutionary misunderstanding" is where we find ourselves currently. Real, grounded, education (re-education) for ourselves and the kids is fundamentally important.
Certainly, we, as products of this planet are all interconnected. But that view is one one layer of reality and has its limitations. We are also individuals with individual perceptions, intellect and will, and it is important to differentiate among people, agendas and choices. Those who wish to divide and enslave us would have us believe it's all for our own good. This has nothing to do with natural selection, but quite unnatural, deliberate selection based on a vision of reality where people are unequal in value and can be used like objects for the benefit of certain classes. Sartre made the very profound observation that we create ourselves with every choice we make, or are forced to make by a class based society. That is the very soul and premise of all wars: elites start them, but don't suffer the consequences. In fact, for elites wars are a great source of economic gain.
I'm late to reading this and scrolled the comments looking for someone who had said what I wanted to. I agree with your point. It is possible to be part of a greater whole and still be an individual.
Well said!
I normally applaud and very much agree with your writings. But I think you've got this one wrong, big time. If you hold, as I certainly do and I believe many people do, that there is a God or a higher being, a spirit, a force, a light if you will, and that this God (let us call the force this name to make it simpler) has no religion, but just IS, then this frees you to view religions as what they are always have been: community. For as long as their have been people, there have been religions, as a way for people to organise and create community, and add vast amounts of color to their lives. Without digressing into trying to imagine a world lacking in religion and how colorless it would be, try instead to imagine how it would be if we could reach a state wherein everyone simply respected everyone else's religions (or lack thereof) and we thus reveled in the beauty of the special days and markers that those religions give us? No indeed, pointing at religions as one of the factors getting us into trouble these days is as useless as it is painful; in many ways, the keepers of the old religions and their ways are the only people holding on to our history and much that is sacred, and holding back the tidal wave of the binary computer world that teeters at the edge of swallowing us all into the ether of its non denominational cyber vastness.
I agree. Also, I used to work with members of the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, a few of whom lived permanently on Sky City with no electricity or running water. I subsequently moved to Pennsylvania Dutch country where I now live among the Amish and old-order Mennonites. The unselfconscious ease with which both groups negotiate an off-the-grid lifestyle gives new meaning to "the meek shall inherit the earth" in my opinion. They're the only ones who will know how to adapt to and survive the coming environmental collapse.
I don’t accept that religion creates community. It segments communities into those in and those not in. It reiterates the dualistic differentiation that is at the root of all Christian sects. Religion is ideology, false ideology Marx would argue, because it is all predicated, not on what is in our real world, but what is in our muddled minds.
Perhaps this is your experience of it. But I can guarantee you that for many, many people, this does not hold true and that it provides the fulcrum in fact for family and community (myself included). It could be that this is one marker or divider between the more developed and aetheist world and the world of more traditional societies. I'm not sure. But one thing I *do* know is that anything Marx said about religion is irrelevant insofar as religion existed far before his time, and will continue to exist far beyond our time, and because his words led to one of the most miserable components of the Bolshevik revolution itself, which was the closure of churches and places of worship in Communist countries. So to look to Marx for his viewpoint on religion is a bit akin to looking to a vegetarian for their view on backyard grilling.
It isn't my experience, it's the history of the human species. You don't have to guarantee that loads of people identify with a deity. I'm not arguing otherwise. Religion is the institutionalization of ideation as truth. Many people are convinced that if enough people believe something then it must be true. This is nonsense. If we look at educated cultures that do not promote proselytizing or indoctrination before a certain age (because indoctrination of children has been construed as a form of child abuse), religion is not the political force or social controlling agent that it is in most capitalist societies.
Nothing wrong with religious belief if it doesn't hold other religions in disregard. I don't get this article, and it goes against a basic understanding of psychological development, the development of self.
Everything is waves of energy in constant motion vibrating at different frequencies. We are interconnected fields of energy that appear as solid on this three dimensional planet. There is no separation except in our minds. Altered states of consciousness, in my experience, usually involve a sense of expansion and connection... and self realization which is a strange term because it seems more a sense of no self and being a part of all that is. It is a deep peace, a sense of well being, of being completely loved and supported. You realize your body is like the shell of a turtle. Your mind is a tool and when it is quiet deep inspiration bubbles up into your awareness. It is like tapping into a font of intelligence and wisdom. You don't want to leave that state of being and, depending on life circumstances, some don't and others do.
Carol I've had religious experiences and often profound, and I know all is not what it appears to be, but basically I reside in this material world where there is joy, and pain. I don't need to deny the evil that's here, nor let the good go unrecognized, and both are part of the material world I reside in.
In the world but not of the world.
True, and do often feel that way.
Well said. We are all electromagnetic beings in an electromagnetic universe. Consciousness is the real evolutionary force field.
Religion is the worst thing to ever happen. I consider it one of our greatest failings. When we look at how religion operates, it takes on the same characteristics and patterns as a lie not truth. Truth has a different pattern and the system being used there operates differently than a lie. There is no way around it. The equivalent of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, etc ... even constructing a lie to hide a love affair shares the same pattern and operates within the exact same system. To be fair, even atheism shares the same pattern. The real answer is we don’t know. There are several variables that go into thinking we do ‘know’.
There is zero objective based evidence either way when tryin to prove a creator or lack of one. So, the next time you see someone arguing over different religions or atheism, observe the patterns, walk away, treat yourself to one of your favorite foods and return to see who has turned more gray.
We are aloud to not know. It’s ok to say, ‘I don’t know’. That’s truth. What is so terrible to not knowing and just enjoying the mystery?
Atheism (or Materialism) is just another religion. Probably one of the worst because at its core is nihilism and the denial of any kind of hope in a future for the individual. All that is ahead of one is obliteration of the Self. Nothing that anyone who loves life could possibly look forward to.
I think there does need to be a respect for all spirital/religious beliefs - which many of today's Skeptic Atheists - are as arrogant as the fundamentalists they piss upon with their intellectual superiority bullshit. I can tell you one thing, we sure as hell don't know (yet) how reality even exists or how life even begins. We don't have a clue what consciousness actually is - or how it comes into being. So when an Atheist Skeptic comes along and pisses all over your spiritual beliefs - tell them they can go to hell.
I agree and better to be open minded. I've had experiences which science cannot just explain away, and sometimes they try by saying you imagined it. Science can get very dogmatic.
"We don't have a fucking clue what consciousness actually is..."
Certainly, yours is a clear case that you don't. - No offense.
Yes that is my own belief "faith" or however you would like to define it. And I could be wrong as well. Sure.
I think what is more important is tolerance. Tolerance for people's religious/spiritual beliefs. Which is severely lacking with today's rationalists/skeptics who think themselves enlightened just like the fanatical fundamentalists of old.
Tolerance is joystick in the hands of the Capitalists for their exploitation of all others. Skeptics/Rationalists are armchair ego massagers not worthy of one's time of day. Time is too short for that.
One does have to wake up each morning and conduct oneself with some set of beliefs. And willing to make decisions based on those beliefs. On the other hand, a lack of tolerance is drinking the poison of one's own unconscious projections without sufficient self realization.
So, as I’ve tried to illustrate that the pattern is consistent with a lie how or why should I tolerate being lied to? Do you enjoy being lied to?
Who determines who or what is being lied to? Certainly Atheists/Materialists don't have a corner on "the truth". Nor do Christians or Hindus.
On some subjects, tolerance is rational and acceptable; intolerance is cruel and controlling.
Everything has it's downside, and religion has that, but to many religion has brought comfort, and of course religious wars, and prejudices. I was not raised in a religious faith, and joined the Unitarian Universalist faith which didn't last long. However since I've been a child I've had spiritual experiences which tells me there is more then meets the eye, and things happen that can't be explained away with science, and that is my field of study. Religions often provide comfort, so let people have it. There seems to be good and bad in just about everything. Chocolate cake with lots of icing isn't the best choice either, but sometimes you just need it.
The old Nazi belief of "Might Makes Right" and competition and only the fit should survive - which corporate globalists push upon us all daily with their corporate propaganda and militarisms and Ayn Randisms. When it is the opposite of how the species can thrive and survive: collaboration and joining together.
As George Orwell once wrote, "It's frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence."
And ain't that the truth!
Psychologically speaking we do have a sense of self, and sometimes the self is bad, but mostly it's good, especially if that self has been treated well as it develops itself.
Oh! This makes so much sense. I've often said that we debate the reality of God but assume the reality of money. But clearly that doesn't go far enough. The belief in our separation is dogma, never to be questioned. It's an unspoken article of faith. It's not 'believing' in Oneness that's needed, it's questioning our devotion to separation.
Yes. The wisdom behind the US Constitution we have recently shredded is the concept of the individual in a world where we are all granted unalienable rights from the moment we are conceived. But it takes an entire planetary culture to recognize it. Nation states will never rise above the inherent conflicts.
From the moment we are born... NOT at conception.
I believe and maybe it is just me ( a personal bias) but I do believe, sheltered in the biological wisdom of our mother's body, that we are granted these from conception.
It is rigid and dangerous to compare a living breathing human being to a potential human being, a collection of cells, and give that group of cells the same rights as a woman. People are legislating their rigid belief systems and hurting women, especially poor women.
Is "potential human being" a human being? If not, then why not - because it can be aborted or the process interrupted in some other abnormal way?
This is something I wrote elsewhere for some other discussion, see if you disagree:
"Let's define "natural" as something that occurs in nature, and in this context "normal" as that which, if left alone, progresses to a certain outcome, naturally.
A sperm or an egg left by themselves progress nowhere and that is normal and natural.
A fertilized egg is another story altogether. If left alone in its natural state it normally progresses to become a person. If that progress is interrupted, either naturally or unnaturally, that is abnormal as the interruption destroys this new entity and regardless of whether it can feel or has consciousness or what not, it will never change the fact that a potential human being is no more."
When we study embryology intensively we find extremely high levels of organization in a fertilized egg. Every part of the “clump of cells” involved in an elegant, elaborate process. Yet another elaborate and elegant process unfolds between the developing human embryo and the body of the mother. This magnificent process is something all humans need to be educated about. To fail to understand this is to fail to understand our lives.
Really? Your argument is leave natural and normal alone?
How interesting.
Thanks, KW. I look at the US Constitution as shredding the newborn State Constitutions that protected the rights of individuals to provide for themselves through ownership of property and the means of commerce. The US Constitution took away their ability to protect their sovereignty using bills of credit for local exchange. It's all been a predictable (and predicted) consolidation of power over others since then. Here's an episode I posted on it, which you might have already read, since I know and am so grateful you read my ideas! :
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-constitutional-convention-coup
Yes, agree State's Rights are a fundamentally important part of the Constitution. Not sure I understand the technicalities so well but that is what is great about the Constitution.
With much love and respect for you, KW, I think the opposite. The Constitution was written to destroy the rights of the States and leapfrog over them to a consolidated government directly over all the people. That's what made handing money creation to the bankers so much easier--the States were forbidden to issue any form of credit for internal trade. So the bankers were given all of our labor for free, while the States were left with responsibility to provide for people's needs with no proactive way to do it. They had to tax the earnings people made from serving the merchant-bankers, instead of simply paying them in the State-generated currency backed by the housing, so they never had to work for the wealthy in the first place.
If that is true then it is my deficient understanding of the Constitution. Some of our founding ancestors were very worried about the merchant-bankers. Such arguments between those siding with Jefferson and those siding with Madison.
Yes! You're exactly right. Those who won were Madison and Hamilton, who had plotted the overthrow of the Articles of Confederation in forcing the Convention from a meeting of merchant-bankers in Annapolis. Everything they did was illegal according to the Articles, which is a fairly uninspired document meant to leave the power to the States. The State Constitutions are where the Bill of Rights is sourced from, but it's a pale shadow written by Madison simply to squash those who wouldn't ratify the Constitution without it. The promise to ratify was made to get their agreement, then he wrote a toothless version to keep them from challenging slavery (which couldn't be changed for a number of years) and forbidding the States to issue their own currencies. We've all been taught a deficient understanding of what happened, you're not alone.
The Constitution that you revere was written to divide the colonies from the world at large. It’s a document that reinforces the nation-state that you lament. It isn’t an ode to the individual, but a declaration that property makes the individual. It addresses “the pursuit of happiness...”. , which is in sync with its allegiance to property. Amass wealth, accumulate stuff, monetize everything that you can...bliss!
It is possible to see the positive aspects of the Constitution without being starry eyed about the Nation State. Quite obviously the beginnings of the US were a process. We are still in a process. The "pursuit of happiness" can be looked at in many different ways. Nation states all over the "civilized" world have blown the whole notion. Either we can start over or we cannot.
Which of these are unhelpful?
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Keep the Sabbath day holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's spouse.
You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.
Which of these promote nastiness? Zero.
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE: Look for places of unity with people of good will, and don't trash what they hold dear, like their religions or families.
When you trash what people hold dear, you unwittingly make allies with the people who are demolishing love and connection between family members and communities, and you are inadvertently supporting the large corporations that don't care about us, and only see as consumers to exploit. Remember: people like the WEF want you fat, sick, isolated, emasculated, de-feminized, and depressed. They want to extract as much economic value as possible from you, and then they want to kill you. This is the spineless, brainless, gutless soy globalism that will annihilate us all, even as the ruling classes like Biden and Schwab propagandize and weaken us.
Let's see...
The first three are about belief, not morals. I once asked my Sunday school teacher how he could say one shouldn't work on Sunday when he would go out to eat after church and make others work. Yes, my questioning began at about the age of 13. Honor your parents unless they abuse you. Don't kill except prisoners and for the state...
"....Which of these are unhelpful?...."
I appreciate your sentiment. But fact is IT IS CLEAR THAT IN CHRISTIANDOM THERE ARE VIRTUALLY NO STAKE HOLDERS TO THOSE VALUES. So making that point is pointless because preaching to it would be like singing to a deaf-mute; I fully agree with you about the consequences.
Excerpt from “Gestures Intro”
From Frank Moore’s performance, Journey to Lila:
“WE ARE IN THE CAVE OF DREAM. WE ARE IN A BATTLE OF AN UNDERGROUND WAR AGAINST FRAGMENTATION. ART IS WAR AGAINST FRAGMENTATION. THE BATTLE IS ON ALL REALITIES. THE CONTROLLERS HAVE ALWAYS TRIED TO FRAGMENT US. FRAGMENT US FROM EACH OTHER. IMPRISON US IN ISLANDS OF SEX, COLOR, RELIGION, POLITICS, CLASSES, LABELS, ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC. THEY FRAGMENT OUR INNER WORLDS, THEY BLOW OUR INDIVIDUAL REALITIES APART, AND PLAY THE PIECES AGAINST ONE ANOTHER. THEY ARE US, OR A PART OF US.”
“THEY ARE THE CONTROLLERS, THE POLITICIANS, THE SEXISTS, THE WOMEN’S LIBBERS, THE PORNOGRAPHERS, THE CENSORS, THE MORALISTS, THE CHURCH, THE MEDIA, THE BUSINESSMEN, EDUCATORS, THE VICTIMS AND THE POWERFUL.”
“THEY ARE US. THEY HAVE DIVIDED US FROM OUR POWER, FROM OUR BEAUTY, FROM OUR LUST OF LIFE AND PLEASURE. THEY HAVE DIVIDED US FROM MOST OF REALITY…DYING FROM LIVING…SEX FROM LIVING, SEX FROM PLEASURE. WE ARE KEPT IN BOXES OF FEAR, OF MISTRUST. WE ARE KEPT WAITING…KEPT WAITING TO DO WHAT WE WANT…WAITING FOR ENOUGH MONEY, ENOUGH SCHOOLING, FOR EVERYTHING TO BE RIGHT. WE ARE KEPT WAITING AND PROTECTING AND HIDING AND SUFFERING.”
“TIME TO DO BATTLE WITH THE BOXES.”
“OUR TOOLS ARE MAGIC, OUR BODIES, AND DREAMS.”
http://eroplay.org/excerpt-from-gestures-intro/
Excellent, thanks.
God is getting impatient with the little experiment on the Blue Planet! Either sufficient numbers of the semi-conscious life form get an “aha “ moment and realize it / them/ we all grow out of Cosmic Awareness or we hit the wall of extinction as have so many other species before us.
Just a thought... Some think human civilizations have risen and fallen many times over the past hundreds of thousands of years and the flood was the last fall. So She apparently keeps giving humans the chance to get it right collectively.
It would be great in if we wake up in time this time around.
Or the Bible is being misinterpreted and we should take it more literally.
Yes, though, I was just reading a bit about existential crisis and the "Social Construct of Reality". People are in the habit of being disconnected and have no idea of connection anymore.
https://vk.com/wall468804996_37002. 👍👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏
I wouldn't disagree with your conclusion as a US person who doesn't watch much of other nation's TV.
How to make friends & influence people: Look for places of unity with people of good will, and don't trash what they hold dear, like their religions or families. Otherwise, you come across as one who separates, and does not love people.
There is such a dark side to the institution of religion: judgmentalism, the crusades, colonialism, burning heretics and witches, jihad, the caste system, and especially war.
Yet many find themselves through religion. Mystics emerged in all religious traditions. Earlier, shamans discovered how to communicate with the other side.
Because you have knowings, or know some things, does not mean that there are not a myriad of things to learn. It is an incredibly marvelous mysterious Universe. Seek and you will find.
Scientism has become the darkside to today's rationalism and materialism. It's interesting how its flipped completely the other way now. And I agree, there is quite a bit of shadow and dark ignorance and hell to religious beliefs and doctrines throughout human history. But today's intellectual materialists frequently throw out the baby with the bath water, and defend their own religion of Materialism just as devoutly and blindly as the religions they make a point of castigating every chance they get. Blind to their own dogmatisms. The blind leading the blind.
The reason you will find is because you are not separate. You are never alone. Your divine spark, your soul, consciousness, is always with you and waiting for you to connect. It is you.
I live my life believing that is at the core of it all, and not what the nihilists would have us believe, or as Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote (paraphrasing) - the skeptic believes life is a collection of chinese boxes, each box layered within the other - and when you open each box until you reach the final box, all you find will be emptiness.
Life is short as it is. So it will all be over soon enough for each of us. But we each ought to have the freedom to choose how we will live it, spiritually and morally. And not have some materialist "know-it-all" insist what is truth or not truth, and how stupid we are in holding some kind of faith that life is more than just an empty chinese box.
I have a number of problems along with the somewhat racist implications of the now debunked theory of evolution or as Darwin put it: 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life' (that last bit of the title is the bit evolutionists are prone to forget, understandably). And problems with the how, when and where of this popular but moribund idea, moribund from a scientific point of view not a popular one.
The reason? Even the more modern iterations of this unscientific theory (like punctuated equilibrium) are completely unsupported by known science. The ever-loud assertion of its 'truth' by the media (a media that in recent years we have come to view as highly specious in its assertions) and some prominent and popular biologists that fly in the face of this obvious and uncomfortable evidence (for them anyway, as their very prestigious and prominent careers depend on it) does not make it true.
One example; There are as yet no computer models of how evolution could take place...no matter what data you input, the models cannot be made. Why? A bit like if we input a question like 'How does a human turn into Spiderman when bitten by a radioactive spider?' with all its concomitant 'data', the computer has always said no. It cannot happen, will never happen, could never happen. It's a fiction. Spiderman; great story but in reality, just an entertaining idea.
Here are just a couple of quotes from the 1966 Wistar conference in Philadelphia chaired by Sir Peter Medawar (Nobel prize winning biologist).
'It was the development of tremendously powerful digital computers that sparked the controversy. At last mathematicians were able to work out the probability of evolution ever having occurred. They discovered that, mathematically, life would neither have begun nor evolved by random action.
For four days the Wistar convention continued, during which a key lecture was delivered by M.P. Schutzenberger, a computer scientist, who explained that computers are large enough now to totally work out the mathematical probabilities of evolutionary theory—and they demonstrate that it is really fiction'.
Murray Eden [a physical chemist at MIT] showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that the genes of E. coli contain over a trillion (1012) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. He also reported on his extensive investigations into genetic data on hemoglobin (red blood cells)'.
Man-made religion is one thing (and rightly should be rejected on moral and scientific grounds) but if observable science indicates there is a creator/scientist of the highest order responsible for the Universe, Earth, life on it and the breath-taking order, design and purpose we observe in the Universe and even in the degraded nature on our own miraculous planet, it may indicate that this creator scientist's purpose includes us and our wonderfully unique planet and has also logically provided guidance and preserved written revelation as to that purpose for all of us regardless of the time period in which we live ((A uniquely preserved ancient record, for example), If we but honestly seek for such information.
This would take the effort of objective investigation, the humility do so and also a love of truth no matter what the cost to our presently perceived world view. It may be that all our anxieties about our future may in fact then be redirected to something far more fruitful based on reality and not some unscientific and bleak fantasy.
Yes, I agree. There are a lot of holes in the now aging Darwinian evolutionary theory. That is not to say, there isn't some kind of evolution and adaptation taking place. But I suspect there is far more going on than the simplistic reductionisms that are often pushed by Darwin Evolutionists who treat Darwin like he was some kind of God and his scientific theory as if it were a type of religion.
The theory of Evolution is not a theory about how the molecules of the E.coli bacterium could come together by chance, although in an infinite universe I suppose it would have happened infinitely many times.
Wood is right about the computer model simulations. I was actually involved in such a simulation many moons ago. There are huge Darwinian evolutionary explanation gaps where how some complex feature of life became a reality defies logical explanation, not to mention there being any kind of scientific evidence or logical progression from one organic feature to a much more complex organic feature.
Biogenesis which Darwin didn't even attempt to touch, is a huge unknown in science and in evolutionary knowledge. After a century and a half of biology - scientists are not even close to understanding how life even is produced, or gets started. Despite innumerable attempts in scientific laboratories to produce life. It has not been done. Nor has consciousness (i.e. conscious awareness) ever been replicated by computer scientists.
What I dislike about Darwinian evolutionists is how sure they are about themselves, and the way they treat Darwinian evolutionary theory as if it's some kind of religion, with the same fanatical dogmatism that ignores some of the problems with the theory that Wood here and others often point out.
One can't compute the probability of events when one has no idea of the size of the denominator, that is, the domain in which the event is said to be possible. (That would be something like the volume of the universe.) Or in fact of the exact definition of the event. That is our ignorance, not a refutation of Darwinian Evolution.
The main reason the theory is so firmly believed in is the lack of counterexamples. This makes it better attested than Newtonian celestial mechanics, which is pretty good going -- the precession of Mercury required Relativistic correction.
We do know the size of the denominator based on what we know so far. Just throwing a few more billion years at it or trillions more atomic reactions will not change the fact that inanimate matter does not create life.
When all experimental evidence refutes the proposed theory we must reject it and search out or propose something more plausible to which we can apply the scientific method. Science has disproved evolution and now it's time to move on from it because, as with anything in life, believing in falsehoods hinders our species.
It's a simple and obvious fact that you do not know how much time there is, or how much space there is, or all the stuff there is in them, and therefore you do not know the denominator; and asserting otherwise does not being to advance your argument.
You are right of course but we work with what we have, we don't even know what time is. Our knowledge can only be based on what we know otherwise the pursuit of knowledge would be meaningless. Based on current knowledge we can dismiss stories of the Earth being flat and being held up by giant turtles suspended in a cosmic sea. The universe is theorized to be either 13.8 billion years or as young as 11.4 billion years. But either way it makes no difference, time is irrelevant when something cannot happen.
Alchemists never found a way of turning base metals into gold. Because it is impossible. No matter how much time they were given no amount of primitive chemistry and incantation would achieve their goal. But alchemists did not have knowledge of atomic reactions or even atoms. If they did they would have abandoned the pursuit of alchemy immediately. Alchemy was abandoned because we now understand atomic structures and our knowledge is based on sound information through scientific methods. Turning base metals into gold cannot work, never. Just as life can only come from life. Information can only come from intelligent life. Billions of years of randomness will not change that reality.
Science is about admitting what we don't know.
Sure, if you can believe a tornado can go through a junkyard and produce a jumbo jet, then you are susceptible to almost any dogma. But that is not what science ought to be about.