The Official Religion of Planet Earth

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The Official Religion of Planet Earth

Post by pinback »

Just copying and pasting this from nomango.com, because I assume we're all athiests here, right?
nomango wrote: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism... All pikers! Rookies! Pretenders to the throne, upon which sits the greatest, most popular religion of all, practiced devoutly by virtually every single human walking the face of the Earth:

The religion of Me.

What is religion if not an absolute faith in something that can never be known, never be touched, never be seen, and of which there is no scientific evidence? The athiest pounds his desk insisting that all religion is a farce, since there is no provable "God" out there in the heavens, while at the same time, thinks absolutely nothing of his utterly absolute belief and confidence in a "me" to whom "his life" is happening.

And yet (see wine glass trick) at this very moment, right here, right now, there is life blazing along like always, full and immaculate in whatever appearance it takes, and nowhere in it is there anyone or anything that it is happening to. You can take a dead guy and cut up their brain, cell by cell, and you will never find the person who experienced their life. And it is always right here, right now, so even if you look into the past or future, you will still never find anyone, because there's nowhere to look.

Just this, completely whole, no subject or object, nothing inside or outside of it which it is happening to.

Just this, always and forever.

So. How religious are you?
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Post by Jizaboz »

Actually, I'm an agnostic who is a bit fascinated with pre-Christian religions.

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Post by Jizaboz »

Btw, that is some pretty interesting reading there on nomango.

Also, did you know this is still up? http://www.heavensgate.com/

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Post by pinback »

Jizaboz wrote:Actually, I'm an agnostic who is a bit fascinated with pre-Christian religions.
Agnosticism, pre-Christian religions, Christian religions, every other religion is a subset of the belief in "me", isn't it? They're all just descriptions of what it all means to "me", aren't they? Will "I" go to heaven or hell, was "I" created by a God or by natural, scientific means, etc., etc.?

When the belief in "I" is seen through, then all religion sort of evaporates, in favor of what is, since there's no one there to experience it, or even much care.
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

You know this is starting to sound a lot like the stuff Julien Jaynes was writing about the mind of prehistoric and ancient man back in the 70s.

Pretty fascinating stuff. I read this whole book about 10-15 years ago when I was researching the development of man and civilization from nomadic hunter gatherer to agriculture and animal husbandry based sedentary life.

Oh hey you can read the whole book online now! Wow I might reread this.

1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

ITs a very long and heavy read unless the subject really captures your imagination as it did for me. So here is what the whole book is about in one sentence.

"the transition from the bicameral mind to subjective consciousness"

Quoted directly from the book in the chapter on "The Witness of History" under sub chapter heading "Preconscious Hypostases" on page 259.
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

Summary of what is meant by bicameral mind:

Basically the bicameral state of mind was one in which the two hemispheres of the brain were kind of acting independently, one producing visions and voices interpreted as gods which guided them, the other half a kind of preconscious self.

At some point, roughly 3000 years ago, many ancient records lament the passing or flight of the gods. The gods who once walked among them and interacted with them directly suddenly packed up and left.

At this point various forms of divination became a mainstream phenomenon. A desperate attempt to get back in communication with the gods.

And many examples are given of the mental change by quoting ancient texts like the Illiad and such.

After around 1000BC writers began displaying a more subjective form of consciousness. In the first chapters of the book when the bicameral mind is explained examples of its continued existence in cases of extreme schizophrenia are given.

And later when the transitional period around 1000BC is covered examples are given in the ancient literature of how the less frequent voices and visions only occurred under conditions of extreme stress.
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

It seems to me that back when Carl Jung was studying abnormal psychology and developing his ideas of symbols embedded deep in the collective unconscious shared by all but only occasionally surfacing during psychotic breaks, he was studying the mind of primitive man we all carry with us which Jaynes called the bicameral mind.

Jung believed in a process he called individuation whereby we can replace the Ego with the Self as the center of consciousness and thus gain access to the insights lost in the abyss of the unconscious.

Perhaps the same insights preconscious man received through hallucinated visions and voices of the gods as Jaynes described.

What you refer to as "The religion of Me," sounds like something similar to the goal of Jung's Individuation and an extension of what Jaynes was studying. Even the word Individuation could just be a fancy term for "Me."
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

When the belief in "I" is seen through, then all religion sort of evaporates, in favor of what is, since there's no one there to experience it, or even much care.
"I" representing the Ego which the process of Individuation overthrows in favor of a kind of holistic, free, transcendent state Jung refers to as the "Self." And following Jaynes theory of the development of consciousness this new state of mind beyond the Ego centered one could be considered a reconciliation of the opposing halves of the ancient bicameral mind which never really merged completely back in 1000BC.
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

Just found this one other dude on the interwebs with what sounds like the same mystical philosophical awakening you describe... http://www.sbspiritual.com/SpiritualAnswers.en.html

Guess I was way off base with my attempts to relate to it through my own past studies into the mind of man. I definitely disagree with most of what that other dude is saying. I usually find myself torn between the Hyborian Age barbarian view of philosophy and theology as the products of city-bred weaklings and the life affirming answers to the great philosophical dilemmas of our time found in the incredible works of Colin Wilson.

So called "New Thought" and the Law of Attraction are pretty interesting too. It's actually not new thought at all, just repurposing ancient beliefs and ideas to fit a more modern context. I've known and tried to follow Zig Ziggler's stairs to success for most of my life which basically boils down to a healthy dose of Peale's power of positive thinking to overcome and avoid "stinkin thinkin." It isn't a very great leap from that to applying the Law of Attraction.
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

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Post by Donald Ebinsen »

pinback wrote: Agnosticism, pre-Christian religions, Christian religions, every other religion is a subset of the belief in "me", isn't it? They're all just descriptions of what it all means to "me", aren't they?
Look up "solipsism" some time. For non-solipstic religions, people create religion in their own image, and it sounds better to have an external force that is much more powerful than themselves, because then you can have things you can't create yourself, like eternal life.

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