Salvation

When a fish dies in the water it goes belly up. This is a law of physics having to do with center of gravity. When battle is imminent and one contender sees no chance of victory, he too may go belly up. You can often observe this trait literally in a pet that rolls over when its master approaches deliberately displaying its lack of defenses. Physics is not given credit for this phenomenon but in a sense perhaps it should receive at least some credit, because going belly up during a contention is a survival trait. It is pretending to be dead to protect oneself from really being dead. This strategy of going belly up does not always work; especially if the conqueror considers the conquered food, but it must have worked often enough to have become part of our survival strategy. You may ask what going belly up (pretending to be dead) and going belly up when really dead has in common. For the rational person they, of course, have nothing in common. Mythologically (something not true that has truth in it), however, a connection can be made. For the defense mechanism of pretending to die to be truly affective, the contender must truly die. Again this is a mythological statement. To the logical mind it is complete and utter nonsense, but to the irrational (the intuitive) self it is comprehensible. The defeated must truly assume himself dead to convince his adversary. For survival purposes the conqueror must believe his opponent is dead, otherwise he must render his adversary truly dead to assure his own survival. I assume that goal was originally in dispute for there to be a violent confrontation.

To die to stay alive and actually avoid being killed by this defense has no real affect on some animals; they just get up and walk or crawl or fly away when the threat is gone. On others it seems to have a social impact; it may even be the basis for the development of social compacts. In actually dying (instinctively dying, feeling as if you’re dead, accepting death) something happens to the psyche. It experiences a selfless moment. The self is lost at least for a moment, but in that moment it is free to reattach itself not just to its original self, but to another. I’m talking mythologically here. I do not believe there is actually a self. I believe our self is a figment of our imagination; however, I can’t explain the process of transference without talking about the self as if it were an actual entity. There is, depending on just how good you were at instinctively accepting your demise, a transfer of your self to whatever you believed killed you. It has after all proven to you it is more capable of surviving than you were. It has, on an instinctive level, become you. Your body has become a mere appendage of a new you and you will even go so far as to sacrifice yourself to assure the survival of this new you, the alpha, the one who beat you in the game of survival.

Moving away from our total transference of self to another (traumatic response to immediate hopelessness in the face of imminent demise), it might be productive to explore the more common aspects of this survival instinct. Dying before really dying has for the most part become so common that it is hardly even noticed in our daily social relationships though it is a part of almost all of them. Gestures suggesting peaceful intensions such as shaking hands (allowing another to incapacitate you), turning the palms up to show they hold no weapons, raising your hand for much the same reason, folding your hands together in a prayerful position, lowering your eyes, bowing your head, kneeling, genuflecting, and prostrating yourself are some innocuous examples that suggest a much milder form of going belly up. Other animals have other gestures; some not so appealing to us. There are other, more intimate, social relations that are more revealing but not as obvious, loyalty being high on the list.

This moment of death may need some further explanation, some more telling examples perhaps. When faced with an imminent awesome, overpowering event beyond your control and with no place to hide or seek shelter, you can turn to run knowing there is no escape and die in the act of running away or you can face that which you cannot control. Should you choose to face a wind so fierce you can see it bearing down upon you or a wall of water so high it blots out the sky above you or some projectile hurling towards you, something happens in the moment before death. There is a knowing that you are dead in the instant before you are actually dead. There is an acceptance, a feeling of well-being in the face of disaster. Many of us have survived such an experience, though not necessarily so extreme and often no more than an emotional trauma. You are not the same afterwards. Some have actually used the term “born again”.

That brings us to the purpose of this article. For years I struggled with an appropriate answer to evangelical Christians who accosted me with the question, “Have you been saved?” My natural response was, “Saved from what?” to which the immediate response was, “Eternal damnation, of course!” From this point the conversation goes downhill; I being convinced the person who accosted me is totally insane; he (or occasionally she) being convinced I am totally dense or at least lost beyond any hope of salvation. If I had answered yes, the questioning would continue until I was totally trapped and at the questioner’s mercy should I continue to be agreeable. If I answer no, the person who accosted me starts talking very fast and occasionally very loud in what seems to be a prepared soliloquy. Much of the time it quickly becomes apparent this person has no idea what he is talking about, but occasionally I stumble upon someone obviously trying to communicate something, but unable to adequately articulate the experience he is trying to share.

If it were not for this occasional encounter, I would simply say that the only appropriate response to an evangelical would be, “Get away from me!” There is, however, the occasional evangelical who touches something deep within me, and this I seek to justify. There are things I cannot control. I must come to terms with that, although I have come to understand that what I can’t control today, I may be able to control tomorrow. Based on the fact that there are still things I will never be able to control though others at some future date may be able to control some of them, I both rationally and emotionally extrapolate my inability to control some things into that which cannot be controlled. Some call that which cannot be controlled God; some call it chance. I don’t have a problem with either though I will not put a claim to one or the other. There is, for me, and I believe probably for all living things, an apperception of that which cannot be controlled. In the interest of clarity and at the risk of offending some less spiritually inclined, I will henceforth refer to that which cannot be controlled as God.

For those creatures aware of themselves there is a conflict between the awareness of that which cannot be controlled and our determination to domesticate (control) what we cannot control. The initial response is to go belly up (an emotional upheaval saying, “I recognize the fact that you could kill me at any moment”). Like the terrible wind or the wall of water, that which cannot be controlled bears down upon you, and you face it. There is a quote somewhere which says, “To look upon God’s face is to die,” or something to that effect. Having passed this point of imminent death (traumatic upheaval), a person often considers himself an arm of God (or of some lesser deity—an alpha self) and as such seeks favor with that which cannot be controlled and in this way attempts to domesticate Him (subject Him to some means of control—prayer, gestures, tokens, sacrifice, incense, lucky charms or whatever else might influence that which cannot be controlled. These are futile gestures, of course, but the intensions are not always self-serving. Though the survival instinct is in itself self-serving, acting in the interest of another, and even of others, propels us into an empathetic relationship with our fellow creatures that offers an entirely new environment for our emotional and intellectual enrichment.

It would seem more productive to assume that that which cannot be controlled is at least neutral (chance) and perhaps benevolent (God). Some claim to see God, but interpret Him as satanic (hostile), and attempt to appease Him (usually by sacrificing others, physically and socially.) This would seem to contradict the very nature of a beneficent deity, but those who seek favored treatment realize that such favoritism must be at the expense of others and so treats the deity as satanic though proclaiming His beneficence. Their actions give the lie to their words, but some are nevertheless hypnotized by rhetoric. The alternative is to assume that God wants the best for each of us, but is willing to let us strive toward that objective without interference from other than the physical laws of our natural surroundings and the social and antisocial proclivities of our neighbors. The situation is something like a giant playpen in which we learn to cope. Being aware of that which cannot be controlled ( being saved--accepting the continuation of our life as a gift) and seeing the world through the eyes of God, so to speak (born again--stepping outside of ourselves to see ourselves as a small part of existence, empathetic reaction to others) is part of learning to cope. It is not a religious monopoly; it is a survival trait, an emotional, irrational response to what we really are.

Self

In all the Old Testament the most convincing evidence for God’s existence and for mankind’s actual encounter with God is the answer given by the burning bush to Moses’ question, “What is your name?” It answered, “I am I am.” Consider the implications of that reply. It implies that there is only one God, because otherwise God would need to have a name to be set apart from other gods. Consider Moses' motivation in asking the question. If he knew there was only one God, he would surely have known He would need no name. Instead he actually assumes that I am I am (Yahweh) is this god’s name as have generations after him. They believe this so sincerely that saying the name Yahweh was forbidden for a very long time because to say the name of a God was to summon Him and could have dire consequences.

Consider the original author of this story of Moses and his encounter with the almighty. Could he have meant for it be a comedic representation of a person’s confrontation with his creator (aside from Moses credulity in accepting a bush as a god)? The first human response would naturally be to gain control of the situation despite any protestations and gestures of submission he might make. What better way to take control of the situation than to determine the identity of the deity one is dealing with; and through that link to establish some measure of continued control, even if it is only the ability to get the attention of that particular deity by calling His name? In the story Moses assumes he has learned God’s name, when in fact God had said something like, “Moses, I know who I am. You do not need to know who I am. You only need to know that I am the only God there is. I don’t need a name.”

In olden times a favorite form of humor and of justice was for the guilty to condemn himself by inadvertently judging himself. A good example would be David’s admission that he had wronged the husband of Bathsheba. Moses condemned himself (as we still do to this day) by admitting he did not really believe in only one god. Instead of proclaiming the existence of one God without a name, he returned to Egypt asserting that he knew the name of a god and that that god had revealed himself as the God of the forgotten, of the slaves of Egypt. The humor is in the arrogance of Moses (humanity) in assuming to have outwitted God by acquiring His name.

The depth of perception of the original author of this revelation is in the recognition that God of course knows who He is but it is next to impossible for Him to communicate that information to our petty, self-serving minds. The Christian New Testament suggests that Jesus, when asked who he was answered, “I am I am” when he was taken into custody just before his execution. It is interesting that a human could sincerely and correctly make such a statement. “Who am I?” is a question we ask ourselves daily, and we really think we know. Let’s explore that humorous assumption.

Rene Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” The immediate question is “Who or what is this ‘I’ that is doing the thinking?” The answer gets complicated even more by what we think we know than by what we actually do know and what we actually do know is confusing enough all by itself.

Philosophers have pretty much agreed that our “self” (our “I”) exists apart from our physical bodies. Some even suggest it is all that exists and that what we perceive as physical reality does not exist. What we see probably is shaped by our personal point of view and so does not really exist, but there does seem to be something out there around which we wrap our perceptions. However, philosophers seem to see our “self awareness” either as sparks or as emanations from a common source (theologians would say God, but philosophers would probably not be so specific).

If we are godlike sparks of self awareness, then we have volition and can be held accountable for our actions for we are separated from God (theologians speculate that these sparks within us are striving to return to the source from whence they came and offer suggestions as to how we might facilitate that return.) If we are however godlike emanations or tendrils of self-awareness rather than sparks of divinity, then being directly connected to the source (God), our volition is from God and our perception of self is an illusion. (Some theologians call these emanations souls which are separate from our awareness of ourselves and they maintain that though all of us are self aware only some of us have been chosen to return to the source of our souls [God].)

Science suggests something quite different and consequently has sparked a desperate reaction from the religious community these past few years. Scientific discovery suggests that the something around which we wrap our perceptions is all that exists and that we (our “self awareness”) do not exist. We are therefor figments of our own imagination; our “self awareness” is a virtual reality generated by the body’s ability to store information and to organize that information for the purposes of survival (appropriate responses to external stimuli). Consequently, when the body is no longer able to store or even maintain memory (there would as a result of our body’s death be no information left to organize), our “self awareness,” which never really existed in the first place, ceases to function (from our perspective “ceases to exist”).

Quite frankly, I have to go with science on this one. I do not believe that God exists nor do I believe that we (the self) exist. On the bright side, it would seem we have something in common with God after all. Neither of us exists. I understand that this in a sense jerks the carpet out from under anyone who takes this quandary seriously, but I have never been obsessed with whether or not God exists though I did have some hopes for myself and am consequently a little disappointed. However, as a person of faith I leave the resolution of this problem to God. I will continue to find out as much as I can about how what has already been created works and pursue means by which I can adjust it somewhat (to my advantage of course).

Soul

There are so many things going on around us constantly that we could not possibly assimilate all at once. We must pick and choose what is necessary for our survival. We choose what we see. We choose what we hear, what we feel, what we smell, what we taste. We select from this chaos around us what we need to know and we ignore the rest until and unless it becomes necessary to our survival. You may respond that there are many things you are aware of that do not contribute to your survival. I would suggest that in reality there is nothing you are aware of that does not contribute to your survival or does not make you feel more secure in your survival.

Let’s take the next step. You not only select what you perceive, you process that information to suit your particular needs and your particular expectations. As perception builds on previous perceptions and as that accumulation of perceptions is processed individually and collectively, a world view begins to emerge. That world view will henceforth influence what you perceive and how you process what you perceive. This world view becomes your truth.

No two people have exactly the same experiences, and if they did no two people would perceive exactly the same things as necessary to their survival. That is partly responsible for why some of us survive and others do not. Even if two people had exactly the same experiences from their moment of conception and even if they perceived exactly the same things as necessary to their survival, they would not process that information exactly the same way. We are far too complicated an organism to make the same decisions under the same circumstances again and again, and each decision we make opens up new possibilities and makes other possibilities more unlikely for us. We are in effect the sum total of all our decisions, not of our experiences or even the processing of those experiences, but of the choices we make. This is our soul. This is who we are.

If we are so different, then how can we communicate with one another? We can’t really, but we can approximate. We approximate by assuming we understand exactly what another person says and does and that that person understands exactly what we say and do. We approximate closely enough (since survival skills, though not identical, are similar if successful) to influence the behavior of each other if not the mutual understanding of one another. By assuming an understanding based on the response to our approximating, we coexist and interrelate adequately.

There are two basic perspectives. They are outside-inside and inside-outside. The outside-inside perspective sees reality as action-reaction. The inside-outside perspective sees reality as consumption-conversion. Viewing reality from the outside-inside, you see the world working through predictable phenomena. Viewing reality from the inside-outside, you see the world consuming and converting. Living in an outside-inside world demands that you separate yourself from who you are. You must view the world through God’s eyes so to speak. You soon learn that because phenomena are predictable you can control reality by understanding and manipulating these phenomena.

Living in an inside-outside world however forces you to view the world subjectively – as the consumer and the consumed. As you watch the world being changed, you perceive something you cannot control consuming and/or changing that world. You realize that as part of the world, you are also being consumed and/or changed. To protect yourself from being consumed and/or changed you must become involved in the process by somehow determining how you are going to avoid being consumed or changed and if that is not possible how to influence when and/or how you are consumed or changed.

Since we are rational animals subject to both objective and subjective evaluation of the world around us, these two conflicting perspectives are engaged in a constant struggle within us. Some of us resolve the struggle by forcing one of these perspectives into submission and assuming it has been either destroyed or rendered ineffective in our struggle for survival. This is a serious mistake; because we only suppress the perspective. We cannot destroy or render helpless that which is so much a part of us and consequently force what should be an ongoing conscious and healthy struggle, resulting in compromise as each situation develops, into a rebellious repressed unconscious that sabotages attempts to better understand and respond to difficult situations lest in times of stress we suddenly find ourselves controlled by the very perspective we had thought defeated.

God

Could we move beyond the various names for God? To presume to know the name of God is to presume the power and authority to summon Him and to control Him. We realize today that this is not possible. It is, in fact, blasphemous in most main line religions to even suggest that we might be able to control God. Yet we continue to imply that we can by presuming to name the God who has no name, because He needs no name. He is the only God there is. Could we, perhaps, even move beyond minimizing God by insisting He created the world only a few years ago compared to an awesome and almost incomprehensible number of years ago simply because we want to assert our dominion over all other forms of life? I don’t care what any book has to say about it.
God doesn’t need to write a book through various ghost writers about His accomplishments. He can speak for Himself, and He has--in His creation. We simply need to look at it more closely than we are in the habit of doing, and then determine the approximate time of creation by using the reason God gave us. Besides, we’ve already established our dominion, often by simply wiping out other forms of life.
Let’s talk about God honestly and openly, and let’s start at the beginning. Not the beginning of God or of Earth or of life or of us, but the beginning of our experience of God. And then let’s continue on, discussing our growth in understanding and even our continuing growth in understanding. Contrary to the opinion of many believers, we still have a long way to go. God in our lives is an unfolding revelation rather than a sudden and complete understanding. It began at the very beginning of Mankind, and from the point of the evolutionist (which I am) even long before, and it will continue until our individual demise, Mankind’s demise, and from the point of view of those of faith (of which I am one) long after the demise of Mankind.
Who is God? God is just beyond your reach, always elusive, always there. You feel His presence in your darkest despair, sometimes welcome, sometimes not, but not obtrusive, just there. Reaching out, you can almost touch His hand, but never quite. Conversations are never quite complete, yet never unfinished. You talk. He listens. His side of the conversation is silent, but the quiet is a shout just beyond comprehension, easily understood, unless you listen too closely. Then it fades away. Let the shout enfold you and it becomes part of you. If you seek God, you will not find Him. He stands beside you and you cannot see Him, because you are looking into the far distance. Turning, you walk right through Him as you stare at the sky. He is not up there. God is a mystery. He will always be a mystery, but He will never be a puzzle. No matter how much you know, you will not know Him. No matter how little you know, He is easily understood. To say you know God is arrogant. It presumes a knowledge you do not have. To say you do not know God is ignorant. You know Him very well. You are ignoring Him.
Is God offended when you ignore Him? I cannot imagine in my wildest imaginings why He would be. Does He care if you ignore Him? Again, in my wildest imaginings I cannot conceive of any reason why He should. I suspect He may even admire you for ignoring Him. That, of course, would be my Christian background speaking. God respects us. He encourages us to set out on our own just as any good father would. You see, the early Christian theologians did a really remarkable thing with Pagan theology. They adapted it to Christian cosmology. God became family. He created us, thus becoming the father of us all. This reflects the very ancient view of those who domesticated animals and tilled the earth--mother earth. The idea is that we were all born from the earth and we all return to it in death. She was family, but bound us to her much too closely for the warrior class to accept. They preferred the God of thunder and lightening, the God in the sky, and so mother earth was abandoned. Christians see themselves as children of God. At the same time they see Him as all powerful, not confined to this planet. The mother earth theology still hangs on though in the gods controlling the other planets in our solar system: Mercury, Mars, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto.
But not only did God create us, He came to live among us. This again diverts Pagan theology to Christian concepts. God came to live among us as one of us. He joined our family, born as a child, raised by human parents, and finally dying an ignoble death, cursed to be bound by the futility of His soul trying to escape from the crossed paths of a tree. But God cannot be bound, and so broke the bounds of this age old superstition and all superstition that would bind us. God cannot be bound and neither can His children. Only we can allow ourselves to be bound by such nonsense now and in the future. There is nothing that can contain us unless we allow it to do so. We are God’s children.
There is more. Not only did God the father come to live among us, He came to live among us as one of us. He came as His own son, just like us. His son expected no privileges the rest of us do not have. This point has become so wrapped up in the attempt to explain it in a previous age that it is almost incomprehensible to us today. As a result many are pulled into a kind of Pagan mythology that completely misses the point in this day and age, at least in our understanding of it. It was certainly understood in an earlier age, but times change and language changes and our knowledge of the world around us changes. We are faced with a choice: reject the mythology that has developed around the resurrection or reject what we know to be true. It is not a choice we should have to make, but we must because many of our religious leaders have not moved beyond their Pagan perceptions. They refuse to reaffirm the deeper significance of God coming among us, living as one of us, and dying as one of us.
And it doesn’t stop there. God stayed behind and is still among us as part of us. This is an insight so deep it is frightening. Pagans had a father god, a mother god and a child god. The natural conclusion of a Pagan theology would be that Mary, the mother of God, would be the mother God, with Jesus the child God. This completely misses the significance of God among us. God must be complete. He cannot be separated into parts or His point in joining us is lost in the complexity of family relationships. The God story becomes just another myth without any real significance. The point is that God is a part of us. It’s the part that binds us together emotionally. We are blood, a common ancestor, Adam, connects us as humans. A common brother, Jesus of Nazareth, connects us to God. The question then becomes “How much like a human father is God?” and “How much like a human mother is God?” Mothers and fathers play a significantly different role in the raising of their children. This is basically an instinctive response to parenthood, but much of it is also a cultural development of the parental instinct -- the fathering instinct and the maternal instinct. Instinct is important to us, because it is what has kept us alive and has contributed to our evolution. God has not evolved. He is what He was, is, and ever will be. He does not have a parental instinct. He is what He decides to be. This doesn’t mean He changes, but it does mean He could change if He wanted to. It is, however, inconceivable that He would change just because He can. He’s God. He chose to be as He is. Whatever He chose cannot be improved upon. I say again, “He is God!” Whatever He chose is perfect. It has to be. It can not be made better?
Then what was the point in His coming among us as part of our family? The answer is clear. Of all the things we’ve done, good and bad, family was significant enough to be affirmed by God Himself. This is the relationship we should cultivate among ourselves. It is the one thing that makes us significant in this universe. If there are other intelligent beings in this universe, and there surely are, they are more than likely very different in their development than we are. The instincts that contributed to their survival and to their evolution are almost surely very different from our own. I would guess that God would affirm them in a very different way. Family could very well be of some value to these aliens though it be a completely alien concept to them now, yet one that could contribute to their future as to us could be the concept God has affirmed among them -- a concept that we may find completely alien, but perhaps useful to our future as well.
My point is this. God has become part of our family, but we make a horrible mistake if we attempt to obligate or limit Him to our instinctive responses and to our cultural biases. We can’t say “You are our father, so you must…..” or “You promised….” It will have to be enough to know He is family and that He cares, that He wants the best for us. The rest is presumptuous and too often arrogant.
But again, I must admit, this is my perspective as a Christian. Not all Christians believe in the trinity relationship of God to mankind, and certainly no other religion accepts it. I do not mean to present it as an established fact, but it is certainly a fascinating concept, and has great potential. Other religions have a more realistic view of God’s relationship to Mankind, but their expectations of Mankind often seem unrealistic and nonproductive. That, of course, could be, and probably is, a reflection of my ignorance.

Creation

God had a choice when he created us and our reality. He could create us from His own substance and separate Himself from that substance. We would therefore be perfect and good, but two perfect beings would seem to be a contradiction. I am convinced that God could have done this if He wanted, but it seems unlikely that He would. God already is. There would be no reason to create another. His second choice could have been to create us and our reality as part of himself. We would live out our lives in paradise and we would be part of God and parts of God would be us. Some of us predict such an event on our death. I suspect this is wishful thinking. Since we were not created part of God, there is little reason to suspect we would become part of God when we die. I could be wrong of course. You may be able to suggest other possibilities or you may believe He actually did make one of the above choices.

Assuming, however, that He made the choice to create us and our reality separate from Himself and of something He created out of nothing rather than out of Himself, a problem arises. If God alone is good, then what is not God is bad by the very fact of its being not God. Can a good God create something bad, even evil, like us? I suppose He could, and I believe God can and has created contradictions. We haven’t recognized any yet, and we possibly never will, but God can do what He wants. That must be accepted if God is all-powerful. I think we will find contradictions. We may already have begun to find them. If we have found them, we have made up rules explaining why they are not contradictions. Let’s assume God did create existence and He created it from scratch, not from His substance. Being separate from God, we are not good and have the potential for evil. We were however created in God’s image. Not from His substance, but in His image. Though we are not God and never will even come close to being God, we are God’s reflection. A not very good analogy, but the best I can come up with is a mirror. There is of course no real mirror and perhaps a holographic image would be more acceptable. The point is we are a reflection. In a God sense we are not real. We are only a reflection of what is real in the sense that only God is really real rather than in the sense that our reality is real.

Since we do not really exist in a God sense, the bad that we are and the evil that we can become only exists in our perception of it. We are what we are. We are not God, but we are enabled as the image of God to see God in our own reflection and in the reflection of others. Now comes the hard part. God did not create just us. He created creation. We are only part of that creation. The part of creation that is not us is also God’s reflection. The only difference between rational creatures and the rest of creation is that when God looks at His reflection, we look back. To think that God looks at His image and sees only us is an arrogance born of being made of something other than God. We have been blessed beyond other life on this planet (and I emphasize this planet) with an enhanced ability to see through God’s eyes, so to speak, to step out of ourselves and view the world with some degree of objectivity. I say an enhanced ability; because I do not really know whether other life on this planet has this ability to some lesser degree. Since we have so much trouble exercising this ability for any extended period of time, I think probably not. So we are alone facing God.

How do we know we are facing God? We pretend we have confronted God through some rational realization or we accept hearsay evidence that others have met God, and even though rationally we find that extremely unlikely, we accept the possibility. It is difficult to understand why we do? Yet we believe them, even though we know that people lie. A natural consequence of our determination to stay alive becomes a determination to dominate and what better way to dominate than to claim access to something beyond the control of others, something that could enhance or threaten their continued existence. Yet, knowing this, we accept their assertion despite any evidence to support their claims; often despite the fact that those making such claims have long been dead. Why do we repeatedly claim to prove something with evidence repeatedly proven false?

Why do we make up stories that are obviously not true, certainly not verifiable, contrary to everything we have experienced, and which contribute nothing to our survival? From an evolutionist point of view, such an unjustified, but universal and persistent pretension must contribute something to our survival or at least in some way be associated with our determination to stay alive. I would suggest that our awareness of God is an apprehension rather than a comprehension, that it is intuitive rather than deductive, that it is irrational (instinctive) rather than rational, and that we are so embarrassed by being irrational (having instincts) and thus not set apart from the animal kingdom, that we rationalize the irrational. We pretend we know God’s presence when we actually only feel His presence. We are consequently forced to prove His existence no matter how foolish the proof may be, and we will defend that proof as if our very life depended on it.

That is the danger of rationalizing the irrational. It creates a conflicted reality, subjective (which we are) against objective (which we strive toward). When our subjective self cannot successfully adapt objective reality to our expectations and we are unwilling or unable to adapt, we become nihilistic. We wish the termination of objective reality. We create Heaven as the realization of our rationalized irrational yearnings and/or turn to prophecy and to revelations, however absurd, as our justification and our hope, and we consequently waste what could be a productive and joyful life yearning for something that is not and never will be.

Religion

The strongest argument against the existence of God is the wanting so much that God exist. It contaminates the good sense God gave me. I am unable to objectively evaluate and realistically extrapolate my observations, and I am continually tempted to stop searching for answers, because my emotional response to questions about how things work is that I am challenging God; I am questioning His judgment by subjecting His creation to my criticism. There is also the naming problem. It was once believed that knowing the real name of something gave one power over what was named, even God. He could be conjured by calling His name. This is more obviously true of what one understands; the better one understands God’s creation, the better understanding one has of how something works, the more able one is to control it. In a sense, God is being challenged. It is, therefore, more pious to accept without question what is. The believer must limit his view of God’s creation to an appreciation of that creation rather than attempt to understand how it works. To see God’s creation through God’s eyes, one must become an atheist.

This has become a significant problem for the religious community; one must remain ignorant to maintain ones belief system, or one must reevaluate constantly ones beliefs in relation to each new understanding of God’s work. But belief is often fundamental to ones relationship with God. There are promises that have been made—paradise, eternal life, and ultimate punishment of ones enemies—which justify ones commitments to family, community, and God. Why would anyone serve a God without rewards? And these rewards are an integral part of ones beliefs as well as the responsibilities to which one is committed to earn these rewards. The argument might be made that God looks at who you are rather than at what you are or what you do, but this is misleading, because, in order to be a believer, “you must believe…” or “you must do…” and to receive the rewards you must be a believer. To resolve these outmoded, and often ridiculous and self-destructive, beliefs and behavior, religious institutions must reevaluate the basics of their approach to the Almighty.

There are, however, no premises, no axioms, and no postulates, for an objective evaluation of ones religious inclinations. I am an evolutionist and an atheist, and I have a relationship with God based not on belief, but solely on faith. I can find no justification for the existence of God in His creation. In fact, the contrary appears to be true. God’s creation, from my perspective, works better without His interference and without his presence. I do not mean to suggest that I work better without His presence, but that is a completely different matter. I would, however, as an atheist and an evolutionist, suggest a rational critique and possible foundation for the study and reevaluation of religious institutions.

For the past two decades religious groups have again begun to question evolution. Evolutionists have responded defensively, but not offensively even to the most absurd suggestions like pseudoscientific nonsense using perversions of the scientific method. It is an established practice in furthering a political agenda to look for the weaknesses of the opposition. Weaknesses are usually hidden well, but ones greatest weakness is usually also ones greatest strength, and that is what one brags about. The greatest strength of science is the scientific method of continuing doubt. If only one experiment does not have the outcome of all the others, the outcome of all the others is in doubt. Religious groups have exploited this concept by claiming their pseudoscientific conclusions contradicted those of the scientific community. And even though science has through many, many years always made religious groups look foolish when religious doctrine directly contradicted scientific discovery, an unbelievable number of people have been persuaded, even in the scientific community.

What is it that attracts us to the absurd? Why do we believe there is a God when the evidence is overwhelming that there is not, and based on this belief, why do we accept the claims of those even less informed than we are, and promises from people we would not buy a used car from? Rene Descartes said it is as if God has marked us as his creation just as any craftsman would, and that this mark is apparent in our yearning towards the Almighty. Friedrich Nietsche said we instinctively seek an uberman, an Overman, a superman.

It seems logical that, in response to the past few decades of religious evaluation of evolution, an evolutionist should evaluate religion. From an evolutionist viewpoint, there are three instincts that have contributed to our survival that can also be associated to our religious development—the instincts of the hunted, the hunter and the herd—or in a religious terminology, “heathen, pagan and atheist.” These are basic religious world-views, and all other religions are various mixtures of these three pure religions.

The heathen blends in with his environment. To him the world is a part of him, one does what one does. There are rules to follow, and they are followed simply because they are the rules. Simple logic explains his world, and part of that logic is that an unseen world is part of the world he lives in [trees move because they have volition or because unseen spirits move them]. It is as it is. One interferes at ones peril. The world is accepted as it is, and what happens, happens for the best. He is fatalistic. Heaven as the place he will go when he dies. It is a spirit world and it interacts with the real world.

The pagan uses the world to his advantage. He believes in earning what he gets. He exploits the heathen by telling him he must do as he is told to protect him from the spirits or to gain some reward like heaven or good fortune. He tries to predict the future through signs and portents. He exploits the atheist by condemning him to hell if he does not do as he is told or if he does not accept the current belief system or written doctrine, prophecy, myth. He is an opportunist.

The atheist forms relationships. He thinks in terms of “us” and “them.” He sees the world in terms of good and bad; what we understand is good, what we do not understand is bad. What gives us pleasure is good, what causes pain is bad. There are those who are with us and there are those who are against us. There is no middle ground. He finds the concept of Hell appealing as a place appropriate for those not of his group. He guards the gates of Heaven from Satan’s minions. He is for family, community, country. He is an organizer, a traditionalist, a follower of rules.

A simple way to discriminate among these three survival instincts is to remember “heathens believe in heaven,” “pagans believe in profit,” and “atheists believe in affiliation.”

From these roots spring our many religions. The differences between these many religions sprout from the infinite varieties of mixtures of the three rational responses to our irrational (instinctive) determination to survive.

Spiritual

Spirit and soul are often confused one for the other. They are, in fact, quite different. Spirit is understood as animation, motivation, thrust. Soul is intuited as alone, unique.


Soul has no rational basis unless Plato’s pseudo-metaphysical argument is taken seriously. In that case, our soul is immortal having existed from before our birth and continuing to exist after our death. The fact that it is ours temporarily is inconsequential and our affect on it is minimal if at all. As a person of faith, I do not accept that. I believe a soul is given us at birth by God, that it is our essence so to speak, that it has no form or substance, that it is pure potential much as energy is potential in a boulder on the edge of a cliff, and that we begin to shape our soul as soon as we begin making decisions. I believe that at any moment in our existence our soul has been shaped by the sum of all our decisions up to that point, that this is what God values in us, and that this is what we are held accountable for if we are held accountable at all.


Spirit is what drives us. This does have some rational basis if viewed from an evolutionist perspective. I do not refer to the chemical processes that activate our bodies, but to the energy that impels us toward some distant goal as yet unseen, the energy generated by our determination to stay alive, metamorphed in times of our assured existence into a determination to dominate. Our spirit is our emotional response, our awareness of immediacy, our instinctual response to whatever challenges us, physically and mentally. Our spirit is our awareness of being alive.


We show spirit in our enthusiasm, in our energetic activity. The more determined we are, the more spirited are we perceived as being. This is not a rational response to the world around us, though thought may be generated by it. This is an emotional activity, an instinctual response, an intuitive proclivity. In our deepest despair, our spirit raises us up. Our greatest challenges encourage our greatest spiritual response. When life is easy and all our needs are satisfied, our spirit is not. It becomes dull and we become insensitive. Those around us suffer and we do not care unless and until their suffering challenges us. Then our determination to dominate may be stimulated, not to dominate the dominated who are already suffering, but to dominate the suffering itself. Perspective can thus determine our decision to act. We become whole by sharing that which has depressed us. Everyone benefits.


When we are spiritual, we seem to separate from our physical self. It is as if our determination to stay alive suddenly becomes pure energy without purpose, consuming us. This experience can be exhilarating and calming or it can be the blood lust of battle leading to indiscriminate slaughter of everyone and/or every living thing in sight.


If spirit is what drives us, what real purpose could it possibly serve outside our bodies? As I said before this experience can be pleasurable and relaxing in and of itself or following some emotional outburst, but it seems to serve no purpose other than allowing our body and mind temporary respite. There may be a feeling of transcendence, but this is an illusion, a mythological interpretation of a sense of well-being. There is no place to which we might transcend. However transcendence, when viewed mythologically can communicate deep truths to those who listen with open hearts The idea of transcendence can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves, but it can also mislead. The problem is with those who can’t see beyond the surface of mythology and interpret the myth literally, much as the ancient Greeks did with their mythology.


What about spirits (ghosts)? If spirit is what drives us, why do we call ghosts spirits? I do not believe in ghosts nor in incorporeal spirits of any kind, be they demon, angelic, or human. A belief in ghosts, demons, and/or angels is one of the byproducts of confusing spirit with soul. The soul, it is believed, is immortal, but it has no substance though it takes shape as our decisions mold it. Spirit is the energy that drives us forward day by day. It has no shape, but seems, on the instinctive (intuitive) level to be the very embodiment of life itself. It can be perceived as having substance, as being substantial. If we forget that the soul has been molded by decisions and instead mold it in the shape of the deceased or in the shape of our worst nightmares (our deepest fears) or our highest hopes (protector, companion), then transpose the presumed life force (spirit) as its substance, we have a phantasma.


The heathen in us accepts the spiritual as an explanation for what we do not understand; whether it be the wind, the air we breathe, fire, or the shapes we see in clouds and in shadows and in the bark of trees, the apparent attempt of breath to escape our bodies and its seeming attachment to us as we draw it back in, faces in the fire, the sound of fire as it consumes what fuels it and its apparent attempt to consume us. The heathen in us, even when we know better, when we understand what makes the air move, the purpose of respiration, and the chemistry of fire, still believes deep within us in the spiritual implications.


The pagan in us grasps the spiritual for its potential profit and/or power. It sees prophecy as giving us power over the future or, failing that, power over those around us. It sees interpretation of the way the wind blows, the bird flies, the trees sway, and thousands of other chance occurrences as having significance and as a means to gain an advantage or to influence the behavior of others. It empowers some objects as ornaments of protection and/or of power and others as potentially dangerous and to be avoided and feared. It empowers places in much the same way, to be revered and sought out or to avoid. We cross our fingers for luck or for protection. We wear special articles of clothing or make special gestures for luck and for protection. Even when we know all of this is meaningless, deep within us we something still responds to the spiritual implications of chance and feels a need to protect ourselves from it or to use it to our advantage. We continue to participate in the lottery or other games of chance knowing full well that we will not win, but feeling that we might.


The atheist in us turns to money, weapons, property, family, and friends for protection from chance. We say we are not taking chances, that we make decisions based on observation and experience, but we treat these things as more than what they are, just as the heathen treats the unknown and the pagan treats chance. We give them a spiritual significance far beyond their actual power to protect. We become dependent on them to an unrealistic extent. Money the tool becomes money the more we have the more we need. We give our weapons and our property names and treat them with love and affection. Weapons and property (tools) become weapons and property (an extension of ourselves). Family and friends too often either hold us back and/or push us beyond our capacity depriving us of our spirit, our will to survive, by becoming our spirit, our will to survive.


Though all of these survival attributes (instincts, intuitions) have contributed and continue to contribute to our survival, their interrelationship can confuse our rational thinking and cloud our judgment if we make no effort to understand and appreciate their contribution to what we are, to what we can become, and to our rational thinking. They add color and they add purpose, but they can distort. We must learn to enjoy that distortion, basking in it, but not letting it overwhelm our good sense or prevent us from learning more about the world around us. Denying what we know to be true in favor of what we want to be true should not be the spirit that drives us, but we do not want to lose the spirit that drives us by taking away the instincts, the survival skills developed over millions of years, that fuel that spirit. We need to allow, even encourage, our rational and irrational skills to work together enabling us to function as fully developed human beings.