Was talking with religious friend yesterday about her being an
artist. We were comparing notes about the similarities between the flow
states she finds herself in when she’s painting to the flow state I find
myself in when I’m mountain biking. While we’re doing completely
different things when we find ourselves in the moment, the experience of
being completely present is exactly the same for all people – time
disappears because there is no past or future to give it a start or
finish point, the mind is silent, your emotions are at baseline and you
are one with the universe. It’s the same thing you get once you get good
at meditating.
Human beings are effectively the same. Brilliant pattern storing and
matching machines that go about their environment manipulating things
trying to figure the best way to get rewards and learn from the things
that created suffering. This is how the world actually is but our
powerful brains produce an interactive and reflective consciousness
that manufactures layers of meaning for what amount to a bunch of nerve
impulses.
So we’re going to wonder what happens when we die, where the universe
came from and is there a God? People are going to ask these questions
because people are curious. If we’re allowed to ask them. It is a mortal
sin in Christianity to question the existence of God, which is a shame
because it is the very topic that human beings will find very
interesting. I understand why some Christians don’t include certain
aspects of the religion into their faith, but religion doesn’t work that
way. If that is your God, ALL of the rules apply to you. Cherry picking
the pleasing aspects of it is a mortal sin and mortal sin is a show
stopper.
I’m an atheist so I’m free to consider God and religion and to really
figure-out what they are good for. Well, they’re tools to control the
way the brain functions. This isn’t evil, or good, it just is. Thoughts
are implanted in the brain and they shape the spontaneous thoughts. If
someone is always watching you for example, you’re more likely to
behave; the psychological studies show this to be true. But the more
interesting thing about religion and is the impact that the rituals have
on brain functioning and what this reveals about humanity and our
common thread.
Spirituality as a topic SHOULD come-up because people feel something
when they mediate or pray, getting together with people to rejoice in a
shared interest will create feelings of bonding, community and
closeness. We are hunters and gatherers and we stabilize when we focus
intensely on something, our brain waves adjust and we become different
types of thinkers. Mystic experiences can be facilitated and the human
brain is prone to them if the right conditions are met. What these
natural experiences get attributed to is another story but they are
simply just a different way of thinking that is a consequence of a
different way of acting.
Given our genetic similarity to all other human beings there are
going to be a finite number of paths through life – we have behavioral
tendencies that manifest themselves as ways of being. You have one way
of being and there are not that many of them. The specific things people
do will be different, but the layer of choice that we think is there
isn’t. What exists are a bunch of actions to take, most of which have
been determined for you already – there are lots of places to work, but
you don’t work at all of them; you work at very few of them. You have a
lot of stores to shop at, but you don’t really have a lot of things to
buy – you buy certain things, over and over and over again. An infinite
world of choice disappears because you choose to live somewhere and do
something. Doubt this? Go land helicopter or play professional net ball.
You are NOT free to do everything and anything. In fact, there are not a
lot of things that we are able to do when compared to the number of
things that are possible. But the fact that so many people have almost
exactly the same experiences in life does not mean anything other than
the tendency for human beings to do and experience the same things
because they are so similar.
We’re pack animal and as such we don’t do well with the random acts
of others. These relatively few ways of being, the invisible grooves
that people follow, are there because we need order. Our behavior
shouldn’t deviate too much from the norm and outliers are quickly
brought back into the pack if their actions are maladaptive and they
find themselves leading the pack if their actions are progressive. As
pack animals, there is no place for an invisible leader. We’re on the
tail of the sheep in front of us, following the groove we’re in. These
social conventions exist with all pack animals though, so humanity’s
spontaneous creation of behavioral streams and ways of being are not a
consequence of God or religion but a consequence to needing others to
survive.
Being an atheist I know more about religions than most religious
people. Most atheists do, we have to. Most of us have gotten an
education, asked the questions of the people who claim to know, asked
the questions of the people who claim to know nothing, watched the
actions of religious people, watched the action of the non-religious
people and watched the actions of the born again people. We’ve seen a
lot of the world through clean eyes, pure and free from mind control and
without the fear of considering things to be different. We’ve had to.
To consciously commit a mortal sin and make the decision to go to hell
for eternity is an admirable one. It takes a lot more character to
reject an immoral God than it does to continue to allow their atrocities
to be committed.
If you want to understand God, you need to understand people, and
know the god of the dogs, cats and animals. Liberty from ignorance comes
not from understanding religion and theology and not even from
understanding WHY there is religion and theology but from realizing how
and why it works so effectively on humans and how to fulfill these needs
through perceivable, empirical and scientifically demonstrated ways.
Most of us feel empty as is the human condition; a feeling needed to
push us towards something. Some will cover this hole with God because it
does a good job answering the why questions, some will cover it with a
baby, a marriage or a relationship just so they do not feel alone. The
atheists realize that this feeling is there to push us forward to do
things that increase the chances we create children and send our genes
into the future. Then we make the decision on whether or not this is
what WE want or need, never asking what is written in the scriptures.
A Christian friend once told me that to be an atheist was to put my
faith in something, and I suppose they were right. I have faith in my
ability to sense and perceive the things that happen in the world, I
have faith in my brains ability to assimilate and understand all of the
information that it is presented with and I have faith the enough human
beings will remain curious about the reasons for things that they will
continue to search for tangible and reliable explanations.
