Religion as a Side Effect of Evolution

[David Quinn]

Yours is the only religious platform I am aware of that could even dream of combining the Mountain Taoists, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Weininger and Ramakrishna! The irony is lost upon you of course.

Exactly.
How ridiculous to expect words of wisdom from such dissimilar sources.
You idiot, Quinn!

Yeah, I know. I don't know what came over me.

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[Gretchen]

To Alex:

Man is a social creature and wants to be understood and understand. In solitude, a man is not affected or influenced by the opinions of others, and yet, he is alone. It is the ultimate conundrum.


David wrote:

Or perhaps, in your intellectual honesty, you reflect his own irrationality back at him and he doesn't like what he sees.

He did what he thought was right. We all make errors in judgement out of love for another.

Gretchen wrote:
So one has to be curious enough to question, but once they know the truth, destroy the curiosity?

David wrote:
I notice that you use the word "they", even though you use "one" in the earlier part of the sentence. Is this a freudian slip or just a typo? Does it mean you can't really envisage yourself one day knowing the truth?

The “they” was a slip of proper writing skills, but in answer to your question, I can’t answer the question. In my own vernacular, truth means the opposite of a lie. At work, I deal with people neither of which see the truth – only what they want to see…the “good” people lie and the “bad” people lie. In office politics, I see one become happy at the expense of another. In life, good deeds are dashed and bad deeds are heralded. Truth is hard to find, but it seems that wisdom grows if one is aware of the difference. In that regard, I think this may be what you were trying to say.

Thank you for your time.

Gretchen

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Gretchen,

In my own vernacular, truth means the opposite of a lie.

I think you are confusing truth with sincerity. Some sarcasm is truthful when taken literally, but it is still a lie.


David,

Perhaps if eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism were to take over at the expense of the more primitive religions, such as Christianity and Islam, we would be in a position to start eliminating religion without risking the elimination of visible avenues to wisdom.

If that's the condition of the world, and I got the sudden impression that you're telling the truth, then I should take a few steps back and convert people to Taoism.

[Alex Jacob]

David: "Banality is what occurs when a mundane man thinks he is profound and clever."

This is arrogance speaking, I think. It is almost standard fare that 'priests' tend to attack those who question them, or who comment about them, in terms such as yours. I only hope, for your sake, that you decend to walk on the earth---the mundane and the banal earth. In my case it is the only place I know where to walk, and the concerns I have are for real people, living in real time, with real human (banal, mundane) problems and concerns, and who very, very shortly will also surrender everything in death. I hope that even if I did achieve anything 'profound' or 'clever' I would never lose sight of my location. I don't believe there is any great man who HAS lost sight of his 'location'.

The attitude of the priest, the assumptions of the priest: we constantly have to be on the watch with this type of person. That is your type, David.

David: "Why do you imagine people would be interested in your assertions when they are so indirect and generic?"

Why would anyone ever express anything? To anyone? Yours is of course not a question but a statement. Why would you bother to repeat what you always say in regard to any ideas I present? I have gotten quite a number of PMs over the months from people who seem to have benefited from ideas I have presented---is that a good enough reason? However, that is not why I express myself. I only do it because I want to, beacuase it pleases me. Is this the answer you were looking for?

"It takes genius to unite such disparate sources of genius. Or madness. Or sanity. Meanwhile, the mundane will always be scratching their heads."

Again, you are arrogant my friend. You are possessed by it. You may be a very bright fellow with some very interesting perspectives---I would never take this away from you---but it is hard to be sure you are a genius, and you are certainly not 'mad' in the sense you imply, and the question of 'sanity' is very much up in the air. Yet, all these assumptions operate in you and so many who gravitate, like moths, to your preaching.

Then a 'genius' could unite Andy Warhol, Richard Nixon, Genghis Kahn, and Dan Rowden. Just take your pick of any group of tendentious persons or ideas and let loose your 'genius'.

I don't profess to 'understand' in any absolute or ultimate sense what Kierkegaard or Nietzsche 'mean'. I tend to think it could be many different things, and it certainly is for those very many who come into contact with their ideas. It takes a 'religious bridge', though, to unite them as you do, and to include Ramakrishna, a radically different manifestation. It is not 'madness' this bridge, not is it 'sanity', it is more a careless and reckless, a lopsided, religiosity. You seem to beat ideas into the form you want them to represent, irregardless of their actual content.
_________________________________________________________

Hi Gretchen,

I didn't understand what you wrote or in what way it related to what I wrote.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

I would never lose sight of my location. I don't believe there is any great man who HAS lost sight of his 'location'.

I'm sitting in a chair typing on a laptop. Very shortly I will surrender this all to death. Which of these statements shows awareness of location?

The attitude of the priest, the assumptions of the priest: we constantly have to be on the watch with this type of person. That is your type, David.

Here's an argument. Decide for yourself whether or not to agree with it. That's the attitude of a priest? If so, we need more priests, damnit.

Again, you are arrogant my friend. You are possessed by it. You may be a very bright fellow with some very interesting perspectives---I would never take this away from you---but it is hard to be sure you are a genius

Okay, say again what you think you have the power to take away from someone, and I'll tell you if you are arrogant or not.

Just take your pick of any group of tendentious persons or ideas and let loose your 'genius'.

If I were a genius, I don't think I'd take orders from you. You sound like a dick.

the question of 'sanity' is very much up in the air
...It is not 'madness' this bridge, not is it 'sanity', it is more a careless and reckless, a lopsided, religiosity.

If you find the question of sanity up in the air, you are not in a position to decide who is or is not sane. First define sanity, then decide whether or not David is so.

[Gretchen]

Gretchen,
Some sarcasm is truthful when taken literally, but it is still a lie.

Do you mind explaining your statement a bit further? An example, perhaps?

[Foreigner]

In no sense are my concerns or comments 'mundane'.

As it pertains to you and the ideas you present I assert yours are just as 'religious' and just as laden with religious assumptions---both conscious and unconscious---as any existing religious platform.

Religious assumptions! I had no idea! David is this true? I feel terribly misled. Please post these assumptions immediately, whatever you're aware of that is!

Any rational person, any sincere person making their way through the world of ideas and the possibilities offered by spiritual life---a turning from the madness of the world toward interior, spiritual life---must interrogate any source of information pointing to a Promised Land (as you are). The problem as I see things, with your position, is you do not ever seem capable of seeing what lies under your own exterior. That is to say, the unconscious content, all that you won't and can't talk about.

David, once again i implore you to reveal whatever personal you are hiding, for if you dont Alex, who knows what it is, will no doubt share with the group, that would be quite an embarrassment.

The Freudian reference a few posts back was interesting, I thought. What is repressed and shunted downward, distressingly enough, seems to have a way of forcing itself to the foreground, as anyone with two eyes sees when they look squarely at the content of this forum. It is not so much what is asserted, it is what is denied.

Well my eyes are as good as any- ive no choice but to request a complete list of these revealing denials! For my sake and for the sake of all impressionable readers herewith!

Now, the problem is that the 'sources of information' (and we know this from involvement in religions) are never able to see themselves objectively, and there is much (we have all found out) that they deliberately do not reveal. It often takes an outside third-party to shed light upon the problematic issues.

And im sure i speak for everybody when i say Thank God there's at least 1 objective individual capable of doing so at this critical time. Thank You, Alex!

Yours is the only religious platform I am aware of that could even dream of combining the Mountain Taoists, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Weininger and Ramakrishna! The irony is lost upon you of course.

Exactly.
How ridiculous to expect words of wisdom from such dissimilar sources.
You idiot, Quinn!

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[Format edited for Foriegner's benefit. If you look at this post in edit mode, Foriegner, you can see how it is done. DQ]

Well i can pretty much imagine it without looking thats not the problem so much as how to get it to look like that most easily without having to do a shitload of pasting.
Do the details come with instructions? tips?

[Robert]

L'étranger:

1. There are two ways to reply to a post:
a: Click on the "post reply" button. This will give you an entire topic review at the bottom of the page.
b: Click on "quote" to reply to a specific message, quoting the message and the poster's user name. You can then delete the parts of the message you don't want to quote.
- As an extension to b: if you only want to quote a specific part of someone else's post in your response, when posting your reply first select the text that interests you, then click on the "quote" button. The selected text with the all the proper quote tags are then placed into your response box. You can do this as many times as you like, and is useful for larger posts where you may want to respond to various individual points successively without having to delete or modify the parts of the poster's text you don't want.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Gretchen,
Some sarcasm is truthful when taken literally, but it is still a lie.

Do you mind explaining your statement a bit further? It sort of reminds me of a discussion long ago here where we discussed if lying was ever acceptable. Someone stated something to the effect that if one was a sage and he was trying to teach at a beginner level...in order to help the beginner understand, he could teach something that was close to the truth, but not. Others were not in agreement.

Good eyesight. Implicit in the claim is that sincerity can produce falsehoods. Your example works, although I was aiming in a slightly different direction. Someone who does not know what is true does not technically lie when he speaks falsely. There's no conscious deception. Lying is a talent, not a truth value.

Toward what you were arguing, strategy is part of wisdom. Since lying is a strategy, as is seeing through deceptions, there's every reason to lie to beginners. Puts hair on their chests.

[David Quinn]

I don't profess to 'understand' in any absolute or ultimate sense what Kierkegaard or Nietzsche 'mean'. I tend to think it could be many different things, and it certainly is for those very many who come into contact with their ideas. It takes a 'religious bridge', though, to unite them as you do, and to include Ramakrishna, a radically different manifestation. It is not 'madness' this bridge, not is it 'sanity', it is more a careless and reckless, a lopsided, religiosity. You seem to beat ideas into the form you want them to represent, irregardless of their actual content.

This paragraph pretty much sums up the issue here. You don't really know what Kierkegaard and Nietzsche mean, and I know for certain that you don't know what Ramakrishna means either. And yet for some reason, you feel a need to inflict this lack of understanding onto other people and pass it off as some kind of wisdom.

At bottom, there is only one way of determining whether a Nietzsche, a Kierkegaard, or a Ramakrishna, is talking about wisdom and that is by personally understanding this wisdom oneself. That is, by switching on the light in one's own mind. Only then will a person be in a position to observe who else knows and talks about it, and who doesn't.

Alex, how could you possibly know whether or not Ramakrisha is "radically different" from Nietzsche and Kierkegaard when you have made no real attempt to switch on that light yourself?

I'm reminded of a savage who observes a scientist peering through a microscope and another one scribbling equations on a blackboard and concludes that they are engaging in radically different activities. In his ignorance, he only sees the "manifestations" and can't connect the two. He even calls those who do connect the two "priests" .....

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[Gretchen]

Do you mind explaining your statement a bit further? It sort of reminds me of a discussion long ago here where we discussed if lying was ever acceptable. Someone stated something to the effect that if one was a sage and he was trying to teach at a beginner level...in order to help the beginner understand, he could teach something that was close to the truth, but not. Others were not in agreement.

While I was editing, you were posting a reply. I was trying to find the exact posting because my example was based on my poor memory. Anyway, David wrote this a while back:

Lying is far too strong a word for what enlightened teachers do. It is more a case of tailoring the truth to suit the mentality of the listener.

For example, in the presence of the average person still stuck in the conventional materialistic outlook, the enlightened teacher might talk about how everything is an illusion. He might explain how things are mentally-created, generated out of concepts, have no objective existence, and so on. While all this is true as far as it goes, it is by no means the whole story. The teacher's primary goal here is to ease his student out of his crude materialistic mindset.

Should the student grasp the fact that everything is an illusion, and should he become fully absorbed in this truth such that it begins to alter his mind profoundly, the enlightened teacher might then change tack. He might start talking about how things are not really illusory after all, how they are really direct manifestations of Reality and therefore absolutely real. And so in this way, the teachers can guide the person past a more advanced pitfall and lead him further long the path to enlightenment.

Trevor wrote:

Implicit in the claim is that sincerity can produce falsehoods

In the case above, the enlightened teacher is sincerely lying...knowing that, in the end, truth will be fleshed out?

Trevor wrote:

Someone who does not know what is true does not technically lie when he speaks falsely. There's no conscious deception.

If the subject of a criminal case lied to his victims and knew he was lying, then he knows the truth...otherwise, he is lying to himself, no conscious deception.

Trevor wrote:

Lying is a talent, not a truth value.

I can understand how lying is a talent and can be used for good or bad ends. What do you consider a truth value...that there are good and bad ends? Maybe I'm missing the point.

Trevor wrote:

Toward what you were arguing, strategy is part of wisdom. Since lying is a strategy, as is seeing through deceptions, there's every reason to lie to beginners. Puts hair on their chests.

Hmmm...

[Robert]

In the case above, the enlightened teacher is sincerely lying...knowing that, in the end, truth will be fleshed out?

Isn't it more just a case of developing understanding through a gradual step-by-step process, rather than using lies (even white lies)? To me, the path to enlightenment is like a path that's leading me somewhere that I know will bring me back to where I started, I will have come full circle so to speak.

[Alex Jacob]

David: "Alex, how could you possibly know whether or not Ramakrisha is "radically different" from Nietzsche and Kierkegaard when you have made no real attempt to switch on that light yourself?"

I have some tid-bits to throw down to you:

The mental products you package and sell are absolute products, designed to attract an absolute-oriented personality, who is conditioned to see the world in those terms. I see it as a sort of neurosis myself, and as I have noted so many times, it attracts a neurotic, unbalanced personality.

The existential challenge, if you will, of understanding one's 'position', one's incarnation, one's being here, does not reduce to one sole experience. Yet you present it as such. I believe without a doubt that you truly see things like this, I don't think you are lying. For you, it would seem, 'Ramakrishna' is one thing (as is Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc), for me Ramakrishna is many different things. You possess your understanding of Ramakrishna, you employ it like a puffed up academic who 'knows' his material, and the most hilarious part of this is that you get brown-nosers to suck up to you to play out a theatre of master-chela. I don't write this for your benefit as there is, it seems to me, no way to ever get through to you. That is one of the characteristics of your neurosis---it is impenetrable. It is exactly in this sense and for this reason that I bother to write this out. It is not for your benefit, David.

The possibility that stands before any man to have an experience of the divine is what Ramakrishna 'means', and in that specific sense, in my surely limited way (with no need for apology or explanation) I can say that I 'understand' what Ramakrishna means. And, that is where I plugged into this particular conversation on this thread: you criticize harshly religion and religious processes and purvey the view that you are so many miles above all this---floating in Eternity with the likes of Ramkrishna amid your absurd 'understanding' of Nietzsche and whoever else you decide to put on the Plate of Genius, as if you own them. It is clearly a madness, but not at all the 'madness' of genius you referred to earlier. It is more closer to the truth that it is exceedingly mediocre, the work of a mediocre mind. That is surely a tough pill to swollow, but no need to worry: it will never enter your gullet.

One could use some of the words you are so fond of: mundane and banal to describe your doling out of Ramakrishna-Nietzsche-Kierkegaard. No part of this will you understand nor can you understand. The irony is that this IS what many religionists do. They ensconce themselves within very elevated ideas and human possibilities like hogs possess the whole wallow, but they dirty it too and they make it uninhabitable, yet they also seek to dominate it, to turn the conversation about 'it' into an ego-battle. I personally think you say some very fine things from time to time---your discourse is useful but would be so much more useful if you (and your 'crew' *laughs*) had quite a little bit more humility.

So, 'switching on the light', in this context (here on the GF and with troups of eager/neurotic youngsters) takes on a different meaning, but the irony is completely lost on you.

"This paragraph pretty much sums up the issue here. You don't really know what Kierkegaard and Nietzsche mean, and I know for certain that you don't know what Ramakrishna means either. And yet for some reason, you feel a need to inflict this lack of understanding onto other people and pass it off as some kind of wisdom."

*Yawn*

The conclusion I have come to is quite simple: we have to continually keep our eye on the priestly types, because given the opportunity they seem to almost immediately get up to their old tricks and start to pull the wool over people's eyes even as they profess to 'enlighten' them. Like in cults, they use psychology, insults, threats, lies and misrepresentations about their specialness and their superiority to carve out a little nitch for themselves where they can pontificate, missionize, etc.

And this was my whole point, and is my summation of your grand work: it reduces to a game, a very boring and 'banal' game.

[Malik]

Ask a religious person to show you their religion, say put your religion on the table and let me see it, ok?

Ask an athiest person to show you their athiesm, say put your athiest on the table and let me see it, ok?

[Carl G]

the most hilarious part of this is that you get brown-nosers to suck up to you to play out a theatre of master-chela.

Please name a few of these suck-up brown-nosers here. Can you even name one?

The rest of your convoluted diatribe is so dull and pointless that I wonder where the gay Heyoka clown shaman who used to post here in your name went. Ditto for the dreary posting in the Israeli threads. At least you used to entertain. Health okay these days, Alex?

[Trevor Salyzyn]

In the case above, the enlightened teacher is sincerely lying...knowing that, in the end, truth will be fleshed out?

An enlightened man cannot magically enlighten another even if he speaks no lies. In the end, the student must do all the work.

Or, the teacher enlightens another through cause and effect. The student does no work.

Or, not cause and effect, not magic, and neither student nor teacher exist. Nothing changes.

Which of these explanations are lies? Which are true?

What do you consider a truth value...that there are good and bad ends? Maybe I'm missing the point.

Truth values are the current way of speaking about truth in schools. You should have been introduced to bivalent (two-value) logic in some form pretty early on. "Here is a fact. True or false?"

True is one value; false is another one. Usually, a fact must be either true or false. This is known as the Law of the Excluded Middle...


...and before I get completely side-tracked by another shiny object, what I'm saying is that the opposite of truth is not a lie, but false. The opposite of a lie is sincerity.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

They [religionists] ensconce themselves within very elevated ideas and human possibilities like hogs possess the whole wallow, but they dirty it too and they make it uninhabitable, yet they also seek to dominate it, to turn the conversation about 'it' into an ego-battle.

And you, Alex the Ugliest Man, Murderer of God, are different, how exactly? It must be that private message count you keep mentioning!

Perhaps it would be preferable to you when the meaning of Little Red Riding Hood would be divined? As it's hard for wolves to digest its gist.

[Gretchen]

An enlightened man cannot magically enlighten another even if he speaks no lies. In the end, the student must do all the work.

True

Or, the teacher enlightens another through cause and effect. The student does no work.

False

Or, not cause and effect, not magic, and neither student nor teacher exist. Nothing changes.

In a certain sense, True.

Truth values are the current way of speaking about truth in schools. You should have been introduced to bivalent (two-value) logic in some form pretty early on. "Here is a fact. True or false?"

Well, I was already working when Apple and IBM came out with their PC's. So...there you have it...I have never heard of the term "bivalent logic." However, I have to work daily with facts in an attempt to find what is true and what is false. So, I suppose, I use this type of logic. It would seem that a lie is included in the subset of falsity, but not the other way round.

True is one value; false is another one. Usually, a fact must be either true or false. This is known as the Law of the Excluded Middle...

This reminds me of the dip switches we used to have to mess with in order to make the printer do certain things. I have never heard of the Law of the Excluded Middle. Interesting.

...and before I get completely side-tracked by another shiny object, what I'm saying is that the opposite of truth is not a lie, but false. The opposite of a lie is sincerity.

I can now understand what you mean a little better. I will also state that if "truth value" is defined so here, then I may need to adjust my thinking a bit.

Thank you Trevor.

[Alex Jacob]

If I told you, I'd have to kill you, Carl. You know how it goes. The gay Heyoka clown, the GAY Heyoka clown? Just what are you trying to insinuate, huh?
________________________________________________

Diebert, how's things?

"And you, Alex the Ugliest Man, Murderer of God, are different, how exactly?"

I...don't have a mirror in the bathroom, but I keep myself under 24 hour video camera observation. I haven't killed a God for 3 weeks!

Anything good on The Trouble with Women These Days thread?

[Shahrazad]

Carl,

The rest of your convoluted diatribe is so dull and pointless that I wonder where the gay Heyoka clown shaman who used to post here in your name went.

What was his screen name?

[Jamesh]

In taking what Kevin has stated, given that consciousness was an evolutionary adaptation for survival, could it be that the creation of religion and gods are a “side effect” of this adaptation?

The God Effect is part of the whole-of-life historical evolutionary development of the animal herd mentality, within which structure and an interpersonal hierarchical value system must exist.

As animals brains evolved past the simplistic instinctual style social interrelationship of reptilian behaviour, and became able to conceptually encompass, even if just marginally, the concept of "future". With this the animals brain would also be able to acknowledge, via conscious thought, the danger taking one action over another. When these choices relate everyday herd activity the beast learns that subservience to more powerful herd members, pays off. The time for non-subservience is mainly just during the mating session when hormones rage. The fittest breed primarily with the fittest, but all breed. Over time this has the effect of stretching out the physical, and now mental, variety within the species.

With this physical/mental variety, in mammals particularly, the beasts brain can understand the relative degree of power of other herd members. A hierarchical value system can form. The one at the top of the value chain becomes leader.

Leadership evokes additional responsibilities of herd management. Mostly this occurs via displays or actions of physical power or ability towards other herd members. The most successful leaders will be those who can most consistently achieve this without injury, and this takes mental capacity. By selection, the genetic pool for leaders will continually produce the best of the best potential survivors, and they will take into their future more of the most beneficial mutations of other herd members. This effect could even occasionally lead to species division, with sufficient isolation and environmental change.

The better the skill of the leader to safely lead, the more the herd will become subservient to the herd leader, and others higher in the hierarchy. Over time the species subservient nature, although it already exists in an instinctual capacity in relation to physical power, will also become a mental trait, genetically passed on.

The human brain has this animal herd-ness, we are primates, but we also have a concept of awe in, and intrigue about, nature, as well as a brain powerful enough to enable imagination, and a wide array of emotions. Within our human brains these things are all brought together, intertwined, and we create gods and religions as a result.

[Gretchen]

If given this statement is true,

The human brain has this animal herd-ness, we are primates, but we also have a concept of awe in, and intrigue about, nature, as well as a brain powerful enough to enable imagination, and a wide array of emotions. Within our human brains these things are all brought together, intertwined, and we create gods and religions as a result.

And this statement is true,

By selection, the genetic pool for leaders will continually produce the best of the best potential survivors, and they will take into their future more of the most beneficial mutations of other herd members.

What do you anticipate the future “best of the best” will be? Nietzsche's Ubermensch? *

*I read about a third of his book, but it was a little much for me right now. However, the overman was clearly defined.

[Gretchen]

1. An enlightened man cannot magically enlighten another even if he speaks no lies. In the end, the student must do all the work.

2. Or, the teacher enlightens another through cause and effect. The student does no work.

3. Or, not cause and effect, not magic, and neither student nor teacher exist. Nothing changes.

Which of these explanations are lies? Which are true?

I thought about this some more and failed to put why I agreed with two that are in contradiction to each other. How can I speak of one existing in #1 and then one not existing in #3? My thinking is that in the finite world one exists- that is, through our personal perception. But in the infinite world one doesn't - nothing changes. What Is is.

Edited to replace #2 with #3, mistake. Also, if you say sincerity is the opposite of a lie, then you have violated your own definition. As for #2, after thinking more on it, should it not read: Another is enlightened through cause and effect, neither the teacher nor the student do any work?

[jupta]

1. An enlightened man cannot magically enlighten another even if he speaks no lies. In the end, the student must do all the work.

2. Or, the teacher enlightens another through cause and effect. The student does no work.

3. Or, not cause and effect, not magic, and neither student nor teacher exist. Nothing changes.

Which of these explanations are lies? Which are true?

I thought about this some more and failed to put why I agreed with two that are in contradiction to each other. How can I speak of one existing in #1 and then one not existing in #2? My thinking is that in the finite world one exists- that is, through our personal perception. But in the infinite world one doesn't - nothing changes. What Is is.

Then how did the finite come into being?

[Gretchen]

Then how did the finite come into being?

Other people may have a better answer to this question, but I have to look at it as one does in math with all finite things as a subset of the one infinite. On one side of the equation it looks like one while on the other - many, but the many make up the one. Simplistic, but for now, that's how I see it. God is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.