Humanity is one way that God gets a galactic cluster to sprout a Milky Way that contains a solar system that spins a tiny watery globe into an evolution of carbon based materials that over time swim, crawl and take flight until a two legged upright walking hominid becomes mindful of itself and surrounding world to the point it can pray it's way through adversity and terror without any conclusive evidence that God actually exists. Humanity is the altar-making Ape.

Hello Dissident!

Dissident Heart wrote:Humanity is one way that God gets a galactic cluster to sprout a Milky Way that contains a solar system that spins a tiny watery globe into an evolution of carbon based materials that over time swim, crawl and take flight until a two legged upright walking hominid becomes mindful of itself and surrounding world to the point it can pray it's way through adversity and terror without any conclusive evidence that God actually exists. Humanity is the altar-making Ape.

I really like this.

Good to see you, Dissident.

Dissident Heart wrote:Humanity is one way that God gets a galactic cluster to sprout a Milky Way that contains a solar system that spins a tiny watery globe into an evolution of carbon based materials that over time swim, crawl and take flight until a two legged upright walking hominid becomes mindful of itself and surrounding world to the point it can pray it's way through adversity and terror without any conclusive evidence that God actually exists. Humanity is the altar-making Ape.

Yes, that is a sublime expansion on the old idea that humanity is made in the image of God. To my understanding this idea means that science is the reflection of natural order as concept. There is poetic divinity in good representation.

Lately I have been pondering the idea that theology can be understood as the question of whether God is endogenous or exogenous to the universe. Endogeneity, presence within time, suggests pantheism, which makes sense in terms of God as the laws of physics, which are the only things that are omnipotent, omnipresent and eternal. Exogeneity, meaning eternality, outside time, suggests the theology known as panentheism, the idea that God is outside the natural universe as a supernatural creator, that natural order is imposed by divine intent.

Pantheism matches far better than panentheism to the available evidence, imho.

Dissident Heart wrote:Humanity is one way that God gets a galactic cluster to sprout a Milky Way that contains a solar system that spins a tiny watery globe into an evolution of carbon based materials that over time swim, crawl and take flight until a two legged upright walking hominid becomes mindful of itself and surrounding world to the point it can pray it's way through adversity and terror without any conclusive evidence that God actually exists. Humanity is the altar-making Ape.

No argument on this.

But is it good for us and a part of our evolutionary programming.

Freud and Jung would think it is as a part of our desire to be the fittest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_complex

Further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1PDxeUynA

If all we are doing is looking for our best archetype, do you see anything wrong with that?

I recognize that religions have not done what they were supposed to do and further the seeking after a God or best ideal.

That does not mean I do not support that notion that that is not a worthy quest. It is and believer or not, we all do it.

I just do not like the way we have been seeking that ideal.

So seek on my friend but remember that if you think you have found an ideal, then you are idol worshiping whatever you found.

Regards
DL

Mr. Tulip said Endogeneity, presence within time, suggests pantheism, which makes sense in terms of God as the laws of physics, which are the only things that are omnipotent, omnipresent and eternal.

I like that, makes me head spin a few random thunks.
- If endogeneity is true, why would apes make altars to the laws of physics? Because they mistake conformity to the law with the Divine? Or they mistake any perceived non-conforming "illegal infractions" as Divine?
- Are those laws eternal? Our understanding of them certainly is not. Experts say quantum mechanics are completely mysterious.
- Experts say the laws of physics broke down at and prior to the big bang. So the eternal laws of physics did not exist for what may be an eternity?
- Altar making apes might agree with your definition, except they add one characteristic: omniscience. They believe there is an Intelligence inherent in the Universe. However some believe the Universe has a Kelvin level of interest in ape adoration: absolute zero. Perhaps this is another way of expressing the dichotomy you describe as pantheism vs. panentheism?
- Altar making apes hate being called apes because they perceive themselves as being created by an exogenous Being, outside of natural creation (if natural creation even exists in their mind).

Interestingly, results of a major international study was just published... the fact that this ape has some instinctive inclination toward various altar building activities has been postulated by many in the past, but nice to see a study confirming it...
Also, it seems that, unsurprisingly, where there is social interaction that can lower or even eliminate the ancestral beneficial effect of that instinctive inclination, then the altar building is much less prevalent...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... study.html

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

The article says that religion is less likely to thrive in urban populations where there is a stronger social support network. But I also suspect that some of us are just naturally more predisposed to believe in gods and the afterlife than others unrelated to our social support networks.

LanDroid wrote:

Mr. Tulip said Endogeneity, presence within time, suggests pantheism, which makes sense in terms of God as the laws of physics, which are the only things that are omnipotent, omnipresent and eternal.

I like that, makes me head spin a few random thunks.

Yes, divine endogeneity is a way of using concepts from economics and biology to quantify what theology has traditionally termed the economy of salvation, put on to a materialist scientific framework, seeing the elements and resources necessary for salvation as consisting solely of our powers of observation and understanding using evidence and reason.

LanDroid wrote: - If endogeneity is true, why would apes make altars to the laws of physics?

We have such altars, although people prefer not to call them that. Universities, colliders, telescopes, space probes, are altars to the belief in human capacity for understanding natural reality.

LanDroid wrote: Because they mistake conformity to the law with the Divine?

'Interpret' would be a better word than 'mistake', although we continue to labor under the false viral meme that says the sacred does not exist simply because popular superstitions are so easily debunked.

LanDroid wrote: Or they mistake any perceived non-conforming "illegal infractions" as Divine?

Science is meant to be constantly searching for anomalies as a path to progress, but the psychological nature of paradigm shift is that the weight of anomalies has to be immense to force a tectonic quake in thought and a realignment of the disciplinary continental plates. My view is that the pressure building up for the next scientific paradigm shift is around the nature of religion, to enable a breakthrough to see that true religion must be purely natural and rational.

LanDroid wrote: - Are those laws eternal? Our understanding of them certainly is not. Experts say quantum mechanics are completely mysterious.

My view is that there are three types of eternity, matching to the three subjects taught in Plato's Academy, logic, physics and ethics.

Logic: the laws of mathematics last forever, outside time. The ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle is always equal to pi

Physics: the laws of physics last forever within time. The universe appears to be permanently consistent.

Ethics: Human values touch on enduring truths which hold unchanged forever on historical time scales.

I previously discussed this at http://www.booktalk.org/post125196.html#p125196

LanDroid wrote: - Experts say the laws of physics broke down at and prior to the big bang. So the eternal laws of physics did not exist for what may be an eternity?

We must distinguish between the laws of physics and our understanding of them. The concept “the laws of physics” rests on the axiomatic belief that the universe obeys coherent natural order. That is why science says in principle there must be a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, a consistent explanation of how everything obeys a set of laws. However, human knowledge does not yet have such a TOE, due to inability to explain origins and inability to reconcile observations at big and small scales (GR/QM).

LanDroid wrote: - Altar making apes might agree with your definition, except they add one characteristic: omniscience. They believe there is an Intelligence inherent in the Universe.

It is a factual observation (if we accept the prior assumption that the universe is self-consistent) that the laws of physics are omnipotent, omnipresent and permanent, within the known framework of the universe. But it makes no scientific sense to see patterns of order as knowing anything, having intentions, making decisions, or exhibiting personal identity.

At best, these patterns create the enabling conditions for everything that occurs within them, and cannot be said to have the consciousness required for knowledge. It may be fun to anthropomorphise nature into a personal God, but comforting myths rest more on emotional sentiment than reason and evidence.

The instinctive basis for such myths is that they provide a simple story of belonging and trust, which is helpful for corporate human identity. So there is an adaptive benefit for humans to invent explanatory fantasies, as it enables social selection rather than leaving evolution to the selfish gene alone.

A myth believed by a lot of people becomes the basis for stability and growth of an empire.

LanDroid wrote: However some believe the Universe has a Kelvin level of interest in ape adoration: absolute zero.

The Bible idea that man is made in the image of God can be interpreted to mean that the universe achieves self-awareness in the evolution of consciousness. On this model, our brains are like the sun thinking, if we consider the earth as like an extended organ of the sun and us as natural products of the earth.

If such solar thought has potential to enable all affected matter to transform into a higher nature, governed by biological intelligence, then it may make sense to imagine such an inherent purpose in matter, which is wired to enable the emergence of intelligence (that is if intelligence is not so intrinsically unstable as to go extinct as soon as it evolves, geologically speaking).

This means the scientific theories of evolution and motion and relativity are conceptual reflections of natural intuitions, human images of a divine natural reality.

See also https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-bl ... 7ed624986d “Why Physicists Are Saying Consciousness Is A State Of Matter, Like a Solid, A Liquid Or A Gas: A new way of thinking about consciousness is sweeping through science like wildfire. Now physicists are using it to formulate the problem of consciousness in concrete mathematical terms for the first time.”

LanDroid wrote: Perhaps this is another way of expressing the dichotomy you describe as pantheism vs. panentheism?

Pantheism is the idea that divinity is natural, while panentheism is the idea that divinity is supernatural. The idea that the universe cares about us does definitely look supernatural, although we have not teased out the extent to which the natural universe is anthropic, displaying characteristics that enable the evolution of intelligence.

LanDroid wrote: - Altar making apes hate being called apes because they perceive themselves as being created by an exogenous Being, outside of natural creation (if natural creation even exists in their mind).

The issue around exploring human continuity with primate biology includes the relation between instinct and intelligence. Instinctively, we collectively prefer beliefs that both make us feel comfortable and that work socially. That includes a personal God who cares about us. But intelligently, there is no evidence for the existence of such an entity.

As David Hume the great founder of logical positivism explained, such social beliefs are far better explained as resulting from biology and psychology of human nature than from the actual existence of such an imaginary entity.

geo wrote:But I also suspect that some of us are just naturally more predisposed to believe in gods and the afterlife than others unrelated to our social support networks.

Indeed, not to plug my own musings on this , but a concrete example was the social/political paradigm shifts in Eastern Europe at the end of the '80s. One could witness, as in a lab experiment of some scale, how within a few years the desperate need to grasp what is happening around them made people react in very different ways: those with a stronger inclination toward the belief in supernatural turned absolutely indiscriminately toward the occult and various faiths/cults... The answers were, for them, in the "beyondness of things", whatever those may be. People changed within months from one cult or faith to another, the less supernaturally inclined (so-to-speak) ended up as members in at paranormal and UFO clubs. It was a chase for meaning, for something, doesn't matter what, to tell them some easily digestible answers to all the very different and bizarre things that were taking shape in their daily lives.

So the context and environment was the same, this was in urban environments, with same "starting" point at macroscopic level... but the reactions were rapidly differentiating those with a stronger leaning toward supernatural explanations from the ones who approached it via the tools/methods/coping mechanisms mentioned in the study, too.