Hi everyone. Here’s this month’s open thread. As always, feel free to use this space to ask/talk about whatever’s on your mind. Last month’s trigger question was about climate change and what, if anything we’re doing about it. Lots of great responses to that one! This month, I’m wondering about what you all think about religion, spirituality, God, etc. I’ve read that Homo sapiens is a species that needs to worship. Do you think that’s true? If so, who/what do you worship?
The invitation to balance immanence and transcendence becomes clearer over time. It is a delicate, beautiful, and necessary balance, often best found within the Heart. Problems arise when we give too much energy to extremes: focusing solely on transcendence can lead to spiritual bypassing, while focusing solely on immanence can result in a lack of deeper contemplation.
Discipline, rooted in the Latin "disciplina," meaning "instruction" or "training," connects us to the concept of being a disciple. Thus, engaging in contemplative discipline means becoming a practicing disciple. The question then is: To what should we devote our disciplined devotion and contemplative curiosity?
Each of us has a unique path, guided by Fate and Destiny. To weave our threads in a good and beautiful way, we must be connected to our Hearts, the seat of our Souls. God(s) and Goddess(es) remain relevant today as long as we rest within our Hearts, where love, compassion, and genuineness grow.
Hopefully, future generations will invite the Gods and Goddesses of Place back into the world. For now, our task is to become whole again, remembering what it means to be relationally ensouled and embodied during this Time of Trouble.
In the meantime, perhaps it's best to simply breathe, go for a swim, walk in the forest, chop wood, carry water, or hold the hand of a lover. Embrace everything and anything in between and betwixt our Becoming.
There is something deeply human about having a sense of wonder about life, consciousness, and the universe. It's hard for me not to feel grateful when I sense my smallness within the vast universe, and doing this brings about such a relieving sense of humility. Perhaps a sense of wonder combined with gratitude is the essence of worship. This makes me think the meaning of life is simply to exist as a human in the natural environment and to revel in the mystery of nature.
Perhaps a human shouldn't ponder the meaning of life any more than a star or tree would ponder its own existence. To sense the world and to be aware of our own awareness is pretty fulfilling and amazing. However, modern civilization takes us so far out of our natural environment (and all the positive reciprocal feedback that occurs engaging with it in a stewarding way) that we find the strangest, most convoluted, misguided ways of finding meaning because we can't exist as nature within nature. Which brings me to climate change...I don't think there is much that can be done but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Is there a good definition of spirituality? When I contemplate the topic it always seems out of my grasp. Is that what spirituality is? Worshipping what we can’t grasp?
I do not think that worship is a need for humanity as the search for meaning. Since meaning is subjective to our own experiences, not sure if the answer is important as the journey.
Nice topic. Yes, we need to worship (as Jung affirmed). All 1st nations do so, in similar ways: myth, i.e. storied nature. I was raised Catholic, an altar boy aged 8-9, beileved in a guardian angel, wasn't fiddled with. Lost that faith aged 12. I like Hindu wisdom these days: where all mod religions began. And gazing at clouds …
To me, it's not a question of a need to worship but rather a need to explain. Our species, more than others, is capable of perceiving beyond the present moment. Events from the past, possibilities of the future, lingering memories of those long gone, the yearnings for those yet to exist, uncertainties of the future, and randomness across the full spectrum of time all generate the need for a refuge from the chaos of life. In essence, the need for explanation and worship is a result of our big brains and their abilities to divorce us from our immediate existence.
The need for a fully understood and explained world manifests itself differently in different cultures. Linguistic Anthropologist Don Kulick has talked about how a tribe he lived with in Papua New Guinea, called Gapuners, didn't believe in natural death. Death could come at any time for any person regardless of age or health. This never sit well with them. It's too chaotic. Therefore all deaths were always caused by shamans or witches.
This inherent need for the world around people to be fully explained isn't tied to just religion. The comfort that conspiracy theories and strong man leaders (i.e. Trump) offer play on this same need.
That's not to say that rituals, spirituality, and religion aren't often utilitarian in nature. Ethnographer Hans Heinz described how when !Kung boys undergo the rites to manhood they are weaned from all food and forced to eat mush that consists mostly of ground root organs. Even after the rites of passage have been completed they are forbidden to eat most meats. If they eat forbidden meat they are told evil spirits will kill them. Yet they are still expected to hunt and provide for the group. Slowly over multiple years a shaman will release the curse against eating meat one species at a time. This religious ritual brilliantly conditions young men to share meat with everybody from the minute they begin hunting.
I'm an atheist. But not of the Richard Dawkins persuasion that deems religion as an unfortunate useless mutation akin to cancer. I don't think it's an embarrassing perversion of Homo sapiens. From what I can tell, organized religion was probably a natural emergent property of ever increasing populations with individuals whose familiarity and accountability of each other was ever decreasing. Overall, is religion a net positive or negative? I still lean towards negative. But I must admit that in an ecology and demography where small scale accountability is absent religion does offer a mechanism to maintain order.
I was struck by this fact when reading the slave girl Harriet Jacob's autobiography. She talks about growing up as a young slave girl and how her new owner started preying on her when she was 12 years old. I expected the sexual violence, and violence in general, but what surprised me was how constrained men were due to the perception of being a bad Christian (the white wives/women had a lot to do with it as well). I couldn't help but think that if it wasn't for the influence of religion, these men would be committing atrocities tenfold and out in the open. When you read about the ever expanding boundaries of the country, where it is mostly men and religious institutions are yet to be established, the increased brutality is a direct result of the absence of religion.
All that to say. Homo sapiens possess an inherent need to explain the unknown. Beyond that our species is capable of recognizing the unknown at a depth that most other species are incapable of perceiving. Whether that's death, chaos, or why the hell that baby hyena ran right into the mouth of a giant male lion only to be eaten alive (spoiler it was toxoplasmosis and not because it was possessed by the spirit of its grandpa's mortal enemy).
Chris asked if we think that Homo sapiens is a species that needs to worship. The power of the placebo effect in our species indicates that our species needs to believe. In what? I guess that depends on the society, culture, ecology, and demography of an individual. I think it's safe to say the need to believe via explanation is a human adaptation that reduces existential anxiety/stress. But, to me at least, worship arises as an emergent property of our big brains. Not necessarily a product of natural selection but a natural byproduct of a big brain.
I’ve been thinking of faith as an evolutionary coping mechanism to help humans deal with the burden of being conscious to the unknown. Worship and god can provide a narrative structure to an otherwise “blind” faith.
I’ve recently began to practice harnessing the comfort that comes with feeling “oneness” with something greater - in my case, nature.
I’ve always felt a connection to nature but I’m inclined away from traditional religion and blind faith in a man-made narrative. But the benefits of connecting with something larger than yourself are worth cultivating.
As I get older I’m better able to deal with life’s dichotomies and the cognitive dissonance that comes with harnessing beliefs that serve you.
It seems that religions exist primarily as stories or collections of stories. Storytelling is a major aspect of being human, if not the most unique thing we do. God may have many definitions but I think that God’s most significant role is as the most significant protagonist in any story humans have ever told. That is not to say that God doesn’t exist. Existing as a character in a story is real enough for me.
Worship at its core is simply attention. People invest their attention to religions in various ways. Some people dress a certain way as a form of attention to their faith, etc.
Stories only survive if they’re retold and there are folks to pay attention to them. I believe there is something there if a story has survived for thousands of years. Sure a book like the Bible has flaws but so do we and perfect is boring.
I've always taken the stance that there is absolutely no tangible evidence for or against the existance of a 'God' so being Agnostic is the only real choice.
Otherwise you're really just telling us what your gut feeling is on the matter & there's only so much stock one can put into someone elses gut feelings.
Also, why do historians outright dismiss the idea that our ancestors' aural traditions of 'Gods' may have actually been humans with more sofisticated technology? We know 'The Cargo Cult' phenomenon is factual tribal behaviour & is the exact same thing.
Do they think that case is just a one off example in all human history or something?
I became a 'nature worshiper/Animist in 1970 when I started living in Nature ~ I still am and will always be an Animist. We are in the majority on the Planet but don't proselytise ~ in fact, many of us live without electricity nor computers still and don't shop at huge warehouses where there are hundreds of breakfast cereals on the shelves! I, in fact, have never had nor bought a box of breakfast cereal in my life! Tribal people are like that. Tribal people are always 'Animists'. I learned about this from backpacking to over 100 countries all my life. Just think! If there were no religions, we would never be in a war again? (of course, exceptions like Russia is not religious at all but a heavy dictator controls it).
I do not worship anything. I believe the entire concept of worship is nothing more than a mechanism of control, and/or a willingness to submit to someone or something, to relinquish control and freedom of thought to an entity, looking to that said entity to tell one how to live, what to think and feel, etc. It's the human races' greatest con game...and absolutely disqualifies us from being "worshipped" in anyway. Why would anyone worship a species so wrought with flaws and ill will? Or, even worshipping the better of humanity, to me, is still unnecessary. Instead, taking inspiration, or following a good example of behavior, makes more sense to me.
this includes idol worship. Whether it's a crucifix, the bible, or a flag (like the American flag), placing some kind of spiritual or "holy" value on a material object that can be easily destroyed is pure madness. the worshipping of the american flag is probably some of the scariest shit I have seen in my time. Talk about idol worship! I will never forget how flag worship in school made me ill. Once, during a brief stint in Catholic school, a student got yelled at by the Principal Nun for accidentally dragging a corner of the american flag onto the floor, while moving it from wherever. "PICK UP THAT FLAG OFF THE FLOOR! THAT IS OUR FLAG AND IT DESERVES THE UTMOST CARE AND RESPECT" She also added that is cost 300 dollars....for a fucking flag.
My take is this. When it religion, sprituality and such, I think that comes from within oneself, and not a made-up deity outside of ourselves to submit to. submission=death, IMO. Some people have said "well I worship myself" Why?? strikes me as completely insane. I simply look to myself for strength, love and support when I needed it, and cannot get it from others.
In short, I worship NOTHING. Because it's fucking silly.
Religion is a cultural perspective on the concept of god and has NOTHING to do with spirituality. I wrote a dissertation on this in undergrad. Wish I still had it to post here but that was 30 years ago. 😳
Some incredible responses to this one. To me it's simple; achieving some sort of 'mindless-ness' in nature, in the Aussie bush. In my younger days, teens and early twenties, I came across Zen while travelling in southern Vietnam. I had never realised that there was a whole body, 'religion' and historical discipline which related what I had been seeking: the concept of Emptiness. My Grandma and Ralph Waldo Emerson also influenced this in a similar way in the sense of striving to achieve 'one-ness' with God through nature. There is also a unique Northern Australian Indigenous idea of Dadirri, or 'deep listening' in nature. I came to the idea of 'Bushzen', a sort of personal non-religious religion. The pursuit of of non-clinging, the achievement of achieving nothing but contemplative non-contemplation in the bush.
I believe we all have a need to communicate with a spiritual being. It helps us when we are desperate and in need. It helps us to set a goal for our day. I need to worship God in my own way. No need for an organized church because those just have turned into weird political places to be told how you should vote and believe.
I believe that worshiping comes out of the feeling of awe that most people, if not all, experience. The Hebrew meaning of awe is similar to fear and even trembling. The biblical roots of the word worship mean to bow down and show reverence. When we don't understand something, especially something that causes a big emotional response in us we're often afraid of it.
Even falling in love can cause a fear response. Hence men and women worshiping each other when being in love
Imagine what it must have been like in ancient times when there was no science to explain things. Hence the need to bow down before all the unexplainable events and phenomena that happen everyday. A lot of which seem to come from nature (even the miracle of birth) and the vast sky..... That can be both majestic and terrifying. And to try to find a reason these things happened..... such as a sky god. Even now with all our science the power of nature can be terrifying, seeing a baby born can still be overwhelming to us, as can the beauty in a sunrise......and we can feel the awe in that power. And yes it can be humbling and it seems a natural response is to bow down to the power..... And worship that which we don't understand.
As for me I feel fully connected to the source of all things, I am a part of nature, and I hand my life over to that every morning. I know there is a 'spiritual' aspect to us humans. It's an appetite that needs constant feeding to keep us feeling good. Spending time in nature especially. And I've discovered that as miraculous as our clever monkey brains are ( supposedly the most complex thing in the universe) they are nothing compared to the intelligence of of whatever it is that keeps this amazing universe in balance....the sun hanging above us at just the right distance to make life on earth possible and the miraculous power that keeps our hearts beating and grows a baby inside us without us doing anything apart from coming together with another human and experiencing one of most beautiful acts to spark new life. Yes I am awed by this miraculous universe and everything in it.... And fully knowing I'm connected to whatever created it has changed my life in so many ways. I can relax and enjoy all the wonders and craziness, wars and beauty, saints and villains, without any need to control or try to understand it. Although I love science. And I also kinda believe in simulation theory because it's fun to ponder!!
I think some don’t ponder the question of worship on a regular basis, but I believe there is something inside of us what questions, “Why am I here?” Is this all random? And if a random big bang, where did the molecules comes from in the first place? If this is a Creator, why did they do it? Christians think to “bring God glory he made everything!” I don’t see a god or creator making something just to do something for themselves. Think about why we have kids, sure, it’s a little egocentric, but most people do have kids to love. So if that is true about us, is that true about a Creator? How could a god or creator be less loving than us? Now, if it is a loving God why hell? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are there so many religions? How does one know the truth about God and the purpose of why we were created?
I think religion and the concept of God are linked to the very human need for meaning. If you look to other organic beings, they have certain amount of natural freedom. Take a bear, a bear can choose to eat, sleep, mate and play, but it cannot ask itself "why" it does those things. Human beings, so far as we can tell, are the only organic beings endowed with capacity to ask those questions that revolve around why. And this makes us truly unique as beings in that we can ask those big ontological and existential questions: Why does anything exist? Who created us? What happens after death? Other beings like crows, bears, rainbow trout, roses, bacteria don't seem to be haunted by those questions. So, God and religion to me, are very much an attempt by human beings to answer those questions and that the capacity to ask and comprehend are very much an integral part of human cognition and being.
I find that as I’ve aged, those existential and ontological questions have started to become a larger force in my life. We all at some point encounter what the Psychotherapist Irvin Yalom calls the "givens of existence”, death, meaninglessness, freedom and isolation. And I think this is usually a turning point in peoples lives where they begin to seek out a spiritual practice/belief or double down into more material/ hedonistic aspects like money, fame, status, work, drugs/alcohol, sex and power.
In my late teens and early twenties, I very much was of the New Atheist bend, but I’ve come to see the very strict materialist creed of new atheism and the fundamentalist religious zealotry they were reacting against as antithetical to real spirituality. It was the death of my best friend at 28 years old that really shook me out of that worldview. Allan Watts famously said, God is such a loaded word in the West and that it has lost all meaning. I really believe that the discourse between new atheism and religious fanatics has contributed to that. Cause for me at least, the big ontological questions remain unanswered, the universe and being itself are still at its core – mysterious. Think about this for a moment,
"Let’s break the science down as simply as possible. For example, the“nuclear force” which binds together the elements in an atom’s nucleus is represented in physics by the number 0.007. If the value had been 0.006, the universe would have contained nothing but hydrogen. If it had been 0.008, all hydrogen would have burned off in the Big Bang and water would never have existed. “In either case,” says Goff, “there would be none of the chemical complexity we find in our universe.”
"In so many ways, the universe is “Goldilocksesque” – it’s not too this, it’s not too that, it’s just right."
“Here’s another example of fine-tuning. If the mass of the “down quark” – an elementary particle, necessary for matter to exist – differed from what it is, once again the universe would only have contained hydrogen, rather than the 60 million chemical compounds we know exist. "
"Or there’s this: if the mass of an electron wasn’t just so, the universe would basically contain only neutrons, no atoms and no chemical reactions. When physicists measured the amount of “dark energy” in space, it turned out to be much smaller than expected. If this number had been any bigger, “things would have shot apart too quickly to allow gravity to clump things together into stars and planets”. If it had been smaller, the universe “would have collapsed back on itself”.
My twenty year old atheist self would have simply labelled this creationism and dismissed it. But I now look at the universe and being itself and view it as a mystery and I've come to realize that true spirituality, the nourishing and life affirming kind, is about finding a way to reside and revel in it.
I subscribe to the notion of “All things are full of Gods” mysticism.
These are eloquent comments and I learned something from each one of them. I cannot match their eloquence! But I present my own perspective in my just published memoir A CHAOTIC LIFE. For example, I discuss my contact with the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright who remarked : "Of course I believe in God, but I spell it Nature." I also met the theologian Paul Tillich who wrote about God as the "Ground of Being," and I resonate with this as well. currently, these perspectives are part of one's "personal myth," and one needs these narratives to chart one's way through an uncertain world.
When I think of my "evidence" of God, I often see it in a narrative way. I look back at my life and see moments that I chose a path or moments when I met people who would change my life and it just feels like the Universe brought them into my life for a certain reason. Maybe it's just comforting lies I'm telling myself because the implication is that since I've been guided in the past, I'm being guided now and will be in the future.
Humans don’t have a need to worship. They have a need to understand and know about the world (or whatever) in which they find themselves. They also need to feel enough security to believe with some justification that they will continue to exist, and to a degree that will allow them to be able to accomplish their other goal, which is to realize whatever values that give their lives meaning, which they think they will find, at least to a degree, in knowledge.
It’s only upon becoming an adult or an educated person or excessively (il)literate that one can begin to talk oneself and others out of these obviously built-in characteristics of the human imagination, which anyone can observe to one degree or another in children, albeit these characteristics can certainly be hijacked, suppressed, or distorted by preexisting organized belief systems, including but not limited to religion.
I think religion and its prototypical forms were invented through a combination of the condition of the species being actually helpless and subject to all kinds of deadly forces and terrors in the natural world that were beyond its control, and the attempt of the species to deal with that helplessness by means of some subterranean psychic maneuver (I suspect Freud made a similar observation) whereby the familiar relationship of parent-child, which also entailed its own ambivalent loves and repulsions, was superimposed on the inability to feel that sufficient security and knowledge of the world that was hoped for - these and the third element of uncomplicated awe or reverence in the face of limitations that were sensed to be insurmountable but referenced something incredible and thus were ok.
Then, with increasingly sophisticated, organized societies, and domineering personalities, came organized religion, which has commandeered and perverted these built-in understandings and impulses which it is now the task of all of us living today to wrest back from the clutches of all the charlatans and hucksters who have done so much damage under the various poses of authoritative insight.
My first recommendation in this direction will always be Robert Pirsig’s Lila.
I grew up muslim and always was irked by the idea of Tauheed (oneness of Allah). It felt like an arrogant declaration that we are correct, we know only our god is real etc etc. Used to be against blind faith and was very dawkins-esque until I realised science too is laced with faith based beliefs. It is also is searching for a single simple explanation of it all. The theory of everything. The end of physics. Theoretical physicists believe such a theory is possible to formulate despite no evidence to suggest that as yet. I'm not saying its incorrect, just that the search for this is driven by the faith that it is out there.
Over the years I've come to believe the oneness is not an attribute of god but the oneness is god. It is the god of all religions, the theory of everything, nirvana. Call it whatever you like, it is laced within our universe and feeling connected to the oneness, or recognising it, is a remarkably spiritual feeling. That is what I consider to be worship.
I think there is a need to worship and it takes many forms. Sufis in the part of Pakistan I grew up in worship through their music, when the audience and the performers are in one space, one minsdet, they are connected to the oneness. Others are wandering dervaishes. They roam the earth on foot worshipping the oneness around them. Similarly, scientists learning we are stardust are connecting to the oneness. Darwins theory ties all life to one common ancestor. The big bang suggests the universe started from a single point. I like to see these as not separate, but instead deeply suggestive of the oneness. I think contemplating these ideas is also a form of worship.
Humans cannot live without a story or narrative, at least not in the context of civilization. We need something to sublimate that mental space between our state of nature and our place in the civilized world. Maybe not everyone, but most people. So I think it's just a matter of what story works best for you, and provides you with the motivation, structure, and peace of mind to live your best life. I've been moving more toward Buddhism, and specifically TM (transcendental meditation) in the past few months. I took the course in 2017 and have been coming back to it as stress has risen in my life. The nice about eastern traditions is that it's less proselytizing and more about a way of living and being in the world. I'm still a bit skeptical of their brand of panpsychism (as oppose to western materialism), but am trying to keep an open mind.
This is a huge question that is difficult to encapsulate in words but I’ll give it a go!
For me spiritually means a knowing/understanding/feeling/faith in that which animates the universe and is at the heart of everything. We are divine sparks animated by this energy flow/spirit that all emanates from the same source. God consciousness is one name for it but there are many and really it cannot be contained by language and words. Its steeped in paradoxes by its very nature and is antithetical to our scientific reductionist way of ordering, measuring, weighing and describing of things hence why it is so difficult for our minds conditioned by this culture to feel/except/understand it.
Many land based cultures knew deeply and intimately what we were and how we fit into the cosmic dance of the universe and the roles we each played in order to maintain harmony with ourselves and with the whole of which we are all one. ‘As above so below’.
I believe we are the universe experiencing itself subjectively over and over again in order for it to experience the mystery of existence with all its awe, love, pain, joy, suffering and inherent duality of existence, hence the ego separation from the whole. We need ego separation to survive, procreate and prosper in the material world but ultimately the game of life is to understand our true nature of oneness with the whole and everything in it.
The universe is inherently playful in its very nature and expresses itself through creative artistry which then flows through us. It’s all just a continuous dance of flowing creativity ebbing and flowing, merging and dissipating, being born and dying, molecules and atoms (which are all fundamentally energy) come together creating form (including us) then dissipating into spaciousness then coming into material form again somewhere else in the cosmos and this is the dance of the universe/god.
God Consciousness is what we and the entire order of things is made of and for me we are here to enjoy the ride, come into awareness, let the love move through us and heal us and spread this love/energy to all living things and always remember the playful artistry of what life/the universe is about.
I did have a question though. When you say "land based cultures", are you talking about hunter-gatherers? Or are you talking about cultures not based on the water? Are land-based cultures farming societies? I'm assuming it's hunter-gatherers, but was seeking more clarification.
Yes, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers is what I’m referring to with land based cultures. An author named David Hilton who wrote a book called ‘Wild Mind, Wild Earth’ has a way more elegant and sophisticated take on how I see our relationship with spirituality. Definitely has some Taoist Allan Wattsy flavour to it.
‘Winter is a kind of pregnant emptiness. Spring emerges out of that—it flourishes. And life flourishes in summer and then dies back into that emptiness of winter. And you realize, oh, my thoughts are doing the same thing that the ten thousand things do—they’re part of the same tissue.... And so that’s another radical reweaving of consciousness and wildness—what I mean by “wild mind.”’
I don't think there is a need to worship, but I think it provides a lot of ease for us in many aspects of life, such as our ability to cope with our rapid conscious evolution. Our minds ability to perceive and be critical of an idea is naturally ahead of our ability to explain that idea scientifically (we must inquire before we can hypothesize and experiment). Before the scientific revolution, faith and worship is how homo sapiens connected our subjective perception of reality with the objective and physical world. Without this social practice, I believe there would've been great discourse internally and psychologically for individuals as well as socially for groups. It would have been difficult to keep individuals even keel and groups calm and cooperative in times of crisis. Faith and religion became the primary vehicle for how larger tribes/communities could be formed early on. We can still see that this is true. Even now when many mainstream religions are in decline (even though many stricter religions are growing), these are still the largest recognized methods to group people in the globe (Christians, Hindus, and Muslims make up ~70% of the globe). Of course, we can talk about how organized religions have been used to maintain, control, and repress those tribes, but spirituality, more broadly, is one of the best social tools we have.
Tangentially, I think people often see religiousity as the dominant view, and spirituality as the smaller group. I personally see spirituality as the larger umbrella and religion as a framework for describing spirituality. I believe innately, we are spiritual beings. It's how we reconcile what life is, not just our personal lives, but life in general from animals to plants and even cells. Science calls entropy the force for homogeneity and disorder, but life seems to organize in ideal ways and form to make beautiful organisms such as trees, birds, and even some people. In a very archaic, animistic sense, I think spirituality is the general way by which homo sapiens can understand and connect with all living things.
I agree. I think we all have some version of spirituality and our chosen religion is the vehicle through which we try to access it. People use Christianity, Buddhism, Mormonism, Capitalism (not recommended), etc. as frameworks for attempting to access the mystery of being alive.
Has anyone experienced the Third Man Syndrome? The awareness in times of deep trouble and despair that there is some spirit or person with you. Climbers talk about this experience when they are holding on for life in desperate situations. Is there a built in psychological evolutionary aspect to being human that kicks in as needed? If so, it would not be hard to believe God exists and why one would worship this God after that kind of experience.
Thats a good way to look at it. Whats the biological necessity of God? It must have helped our ancestors survive in some way. When i complain i usually blame someone even when i know they might of had nothing to do with it. Maybe when we were in a drought early on as hunter gatherers we blamed God because too hard to blame ourselves.
Potentially, but there is not necessarily any evolutionary reason for widespread cognitive features (or biological). The concept of "spandrels" illustrates this. There's a great essay called, "The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme," by S. J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin that outlines the idea. Things that evolve as a bi-product of some other process can be co-opted for some other purpose later. I think human sexuality is an example of this. Clearly, it originated as a reproductive mechanism alone, but then took on other purposes over time. So, the concept of God could be a result of having been an infant looking at adults, for example, and have no survival advantage at all.
Woah. Def looking that up now. If thats the case then God and the concept of God could just be the biggest collective social case of cognitive distortion known to man haha. That makes sense tho because when youre a baby the first thing you see is a bright light and these giant people.
Yeah, once you wrap your head around spandrels, you'll see them everywhere, and it will really change the way you think. Even the human brain could be a spandrel. I can't remember where I read this, but someone has theorized that the frontal lobe evolved as a redundancy because our ancestors' brains were sometimes overheating when they were out running down prey on the savannah. Then, somehow, the "backup brain" got wired up with the "primary brain," and human intelligence took off. The intelligence being a by-product of an evolved response to overheating.
I think worshipping god is a symptom of a deeper more primal condition namely fear. And fear uncontrolled is anarchy. We possess many tools to keep fear at bay but choose the group think opioid of worship.
It seems like when you meditate long enough you get to pure nothingness. This state of mind might have been what the ancients referred to as God. Universal oneness. And we mistook it for dude with beard. This pure nothingness you get to on deep meditation is the same nothingness a God would have started from to create the universe. So wen youre in that state, you are God according to some buddhist. But in this case, God is just a mindset. 1rst amendment, God is most important. So good to meditate a lot haha. Because then you can be God yourself. All the books of religion seem more like moral guidance. However, im very skeptical when it comes to definitive answers. If 50% scientist believe were in a simulation then maybe whose ever running it is God. Shamans who take ayahuasca 3,200 times to become a shaman in the amazon prob have a diff concept. Theres a lot we dont know. Plus the studies on flat liners, who all record the same thing happening when they die. And a lot of them meet these tall entities who seem to be Gods. Best way i think is to study flatliners, people who die and come back. Most scientific way for me at least. Because we can record this. Also if we get to a place we can record peoples thoughts that will help. Also if theres a God would he tell us, like “im God, go tell everyone”. That seeme egoic, anti-Godlike, like hes trying to get a bunch of followers on Instagram. Then scientist who dont believe in God, how many have not taken acid lol. That can be problematic. Has Richard dawkins taken acid? If not theres things science cant explain. Science explains the physical, if you go to a guru in India and ask if life just physical, they will 100% disagree lol. Theres so much beyond physical. For instance, what is trauma? Where is it? We cant see it. But its there right? Maybe God is a concept to cope with death. But most likely, its probably describes what happens when you meditate for too long and theres no other word to describe it besides God. Theres someone in India who meditated so long maggots were eating his legs because he forgot about his body. Therefore, God to me right now is this level of mind we should all strive to achieve, meaning a place of absolute no desire or attachment, hard to do when you live in America where every commercial is telling you strive to the exact opposite. Then once you reach this state of mind then you can reach an answer that will be more interesting. Like DMT is prob a shortcut to there and the answer you give while youre on that will be different then if youre on break at work in the lunch room eating microwavable spaghetti. Haha. Thanks to Chris for giving us our own lil segment to ROMA lol.
To me God is Nature and we can worship Nature. I do not believe in any kind of religion, they are all man made stories to create some expected behaviours. But I understand there are moments in life of such dread, confusion and pain, we feel lost and alone, and there is no problem to temporally have some faith in some fables to bring us some confort and help us to move on.
Hmm. Worship seems to me a highly loaded word, with ample -- often unnecessary --- baggage. I prefer the word 'reverence", which has a broader scope I think which can be understood both in secular and religious contexts Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines reverence as "honor or respect felt or shown : DEFERENCE
especially : profound adoring awed respect"
In a non-religious context (in the usual sense of the word 'religion'), reverence can be given to nature, to the sciences, to cultural institutions worthy of esteem, virtuous persons, etc. Personally, I hold a lot of reverence for the natural world -- and also to some aspects of culture which I deem worthy of high esteem and praise, such as genuine democracy, as contrasted with the sort of pseudo-democracy which often passes for real democracy in our present culture/s.
Googled the origin of worship got something along the lines of “ a posture of submission” and as a human I submit to the human experience. Neal Cassady said something like We are actually fourth dimensional beings in a third dimensional body inhabiting a second dimensional world! so worship and submit to that, just being and experiencing…
The invitation to balance immanence and transcendence becomes clearer over time. It is a delicate, beautiful, and necessary balance, often best found within the Heart. Problems arise when we give too much energy to extremes: focusing solely on transcendence can lead to spiritual bypassing, while focusing solely on immanence can result in a lack of deeper contemplation.
Discipline, rooted in the Latin "disciplina," meaning "instruction" or "training," connects us to the concept of being a disciple. Thus, engaging in contemplative discipline means becoming a practicing disciple. The question then is: To what should we devote our disciplined devotion and contemplative curiosity?
Each of us has a unique path, guided by Fate and Destiny. To weave our threads in a good and beautiful way, we must be connected to our Hearts, the seat of our Souls. God(s) and Goddess(es) remain relevant today as long as we rest within our Hearts, where love, compassion, and genuineness grow.
Hopefully, future generations will invite the Gods and Goddesses of Place back into the world. For now, our task is to become whole again, remembering what it means to be relationally ensouled and embodied during this Time of Trouble.
In the meantime, perhaps it's best to simply breathe, go for a swim, walk in the forest, chop wood, carry water, or hold the hand of a lover. Embrace everything and anything in between and betwixt our Becoming.
There is something deeply human about having a sense of wonder about life, consciousness, and the universe. It's hard for me not to feel grateful when I sense my smallness within the vast universe, and doing this brings about such a relieving sense of humility. Perhaps a sense of wonder combined with gratitude is the essence of worship. This makes me think the meaning of life is simply to exist as a human in the natural environment and to revel in the mystery of nature.
Perhaps a human shouldn't ponder the meaning of life any more than a star or tree would ponder its own existence. To sense the world and to be aware of our own awareness is pretty fulfilling and amazing. However, modern civilization takes us so far out of our natural environment (and all the positive reciprocal feedback that occurs engaging with it in a stewarding way) that we find the strangest, most convoluted, misguided ways of finding meaning because we can't exist as nature within nature. Which brings me to climate change...I don't think there is much that can be done but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Is there a good definition of spirituality? When I contemplate the topic it always seems out of my grasp. Is that what spirituality is? Worshipping what we can’t grasp?
I do not think that worship is a need for humanity as the search for meaning. Since meaning is subjective to our own experiences, not sure if the answer is important as the journey.
Nice topic. Yes, we need to worship (as Jung affirmed). All 1st nations do so, in similar ways: myth, i.e. storied nature. I was raised Catholic, an altar boy aged 8-9, beileved in a guardian angel, wasn't fiddled with. Lost that faith aged 12. I like Hindu wisdom these days: where all mod religions began. And gazing at clouds …
To me, it's not a question of a need to worship but rather a need to explain. Our species, more than others, is capable of perceiving beyond the present moment. Events from the past, possibilities of the future, lingering memories of those long gone, the yearnings for those yet to exist, uncertainties of the future, and randomness across the full spectrum of time all generate the need for a refuge from the chaos of life. In essence, the need for explanation and worship is a result of our big brains and their abilities to divorce us from our immediate existence.
The need for a fully understood and explained world manifests itself differently in different cultures. Linguistic Anthropologist Don Kulick has talked about how a tribe he lived with in Papua New Guinea, called Gapuners, didn't believe in natural death. Death could come at any time for any person regardless of age or health. This never sit well with them. It's too chaotic. Therefore all deaths were always caused by shamans or witches.
This inherent need for the world around people to be fully explained isn't tied to just religion. The comfort that conspiracy theories and strong man leaders (i.e. Trump) offer play on this same need.
That's not to say that rituals, spirituality, and religion aren't often utilitarian in nature. Ethnographer Hans Heinz described how when !Kung boys undergo the rites to manhood they are weaned from all food and forced to eat mush that consists mostly of ground root organs. Even after the rites of passage have been completed they are forbidden to eat most meats. If they eat forbidden meat they are told evil spirits will kill them. Yet they are still expected to hunt and provide for the group. Slowly over multiple years a shaman will release the curse against eating meat one species at a time. This religious ritual brilliantly conditions young men to share meat with everybody from the minute they begin hunting.
I'm an atheist. But not of the Richard Dawkins persuasion that deems religion as an unfortunate useless mutation akin to cancer. I don't think it's an embarrassing perversion of Homo sapiens. From what I can tell, organized religion was probably a natural emergent property of ever increasing populations with individuals whose familiarity and accountability of each other was ever decreasing. Overall, is religion a net positive or negative? I still lean towards negative. But I must admit that in an ecology and demography where small scale accountability is absent religion does offer a mechanism to maintain order.
I was struck by this fact when reading the slave girl Harriet Jacob's autobiography. She talks about growing up as a young slave girl and how her new owner started preying on her when she was 12 years old. I expected the sexual violence, and violence in general, but what surprised me was how constrained men were due to the perception of being a bad Christian (the white wives/women had a lot to do with it as well). I couldn't help but think that if it wasn't for the influence of religion, these men would be committing atrocities tenfold and out in the open. When you read about the ever expanding boundaries of the country, where it is mostly men and religious institutions are yet to be established, the increased brutality is a direct result of the absence of religion.
All that to say. Homo sapiens possess an inherent need to explain the unknown. Beyond that our species is capable of recognizing the unknown at a depth that most other species are incapable of perceiving. Whether that's death, chaos, or why the hell that baby hyena ran right into the mouth of a giant male lion only to be eaten alive (spoiler it was toxoplasmosis and not because it was possessed by the spirit of its grandpa's mortal enemy).
Chris asked if we think that Homo sapiens is a species that needs to worship. The power of the placebo effect in our species indicates that our species needs to believe. In what? I guess that depends on the society, culture, ecology, and demography of an individual. I think it's safe to say the need to believe via explanation is a human adaptation that reduces existential anxiety/stress. But, to me at least, worship arises as an emergent property of our big brains. Not necessarily a product of natural selection but a natural byproduct of a big brain.
I’ve been thinking of faith as an evolutionary coping mechanism to help humans deal with the burden of being conscious to the unknown. Worship and god can provide a narrative structure to an otherwise “blind” faith.
I’ve recently began to practice harnessing the comfort that comes with feeling “oneness” with something greater - in my case, nature.
I’ve always felt a connection to nature but I’m inclined away from traditional religion and blind faith in a man-made narrative. But the benefits of connecting with something larger than yourself are worth cultivating.
As I get older I’m better able to deal with life’s dichotomies and the cognitive dissonance that comes with harnessing beliefs that serve you.
It seems that religions exist primarily as stories or collections of stories. Storytelling is a major aspect of being human, if not the most unique thing we do. God may have many definitions but I think that God’s most significant role is as the most significant protagonist in any story humans have ever told. That is not to say that God doesn’t exist. Existing as a character in a story is real enough for me.
Worship at its core is simply attention. People invest their attention to religions in various ways. Some people dress a certain way as a form of attention to their faith, etc.
Stories only survive if they’re retold and there are folks to pay attention to them. I believe there is something there if a story has survived for thousands of years. Sure a book like the Bible has flaws but so do we and perfect is boring.
I've always taken the stance that there is absolutely no tangible evidence for or against the existance of a 'God' so being Agnostic is the only real choice.
Otherwise you're really just telling us what your gut feeling is on the matter & there's only so much stock one can put into someone elses gut feelings.
Also, why do historians outright dismiss the idea that our ancestors' aural traditions of 'Gods' may have actually been humans with more sofisticated technology? We know 'The Cargo Cult' phenomenon is factual tribal behaviour & is the exact same thing.
Do they think that case is just a one off example in all human history or something?
I definitely believe in something much greater than myself ~ and, thus far, Nature wins hands down!
I became a 'nature worshiper/Animist in 1970 when I started living in Nature ~ I still am and will always be an Animist. We are in the majority on the Planet but don't proselytise ~ in fact, many of us live without electricity nor computers still and don't shop at huge warehouses where there are hundreds of breakfast cereals on the shelves! I, in fact, have never had nor bought a box of breakfast cereal in my life! Tribal people are like that. Tribal people are always 'Animists'. I learned about this from backpacking to over 100 countries all my life. Just think! If there were no religions, we would never be in a war again? (of course, exceptions like Russia is not religious at all but a heavy dictator controls it).
I do not worship anything. I believe the entire concept of worship is nothing more than a mechanism of control, and/or a willingness to submit to someone or something, to relinquish control and freedom of thought to an entity, looking to that said entity to tell one how to live, what to think and feel, etc. It's the human races' greatest con game...and absolutely disqualifies us from being "worshipped" in anyway. Why would anyone worship a species so wrought with flaws and ill will? Or, even worshipping the better of humanity, to me, is still unnecessary. Instead, taking inspiration, or following a good example of behavior, makes more sense to me.
this includes idol worship. Whether it's a crucifix, the bible, or a flag (like the American flag), placing some kind of spiritual or "holy" value on a material object that can be easily destroyed is pure madness. the worshipping of the american flag is probably some of the scariest shit I have seen in my time. Talk about idol worship! I will never forget how flag worship in school made me ill. Once, during a brief stint in Catholic school, a student got yelled at by the Principal Nun for accidentally dragging a corner of the american flag onto the floor, while moving it from wherever. "PICK UP THAT FLAG OFF THE FLOOR! THAT IS OUR FLAG AND IT DESERVES THE UTMOST CARE AND RESPECT" She also added that is cost 300 dollars....for a fucking flag.
My take is this. When it religion, sprituality and such, I think that comes from within oneself, and not a made-up deity outside of ourselves to submit to. submission=death, IMO. Some people have said "well I worship myself" Why?? strikes me as completely insane. I simply look to myself for strength, love and support when I needed it, and cannot get it from others.
In short, I worship NOTHING. Because it's fucking silly.
Religion is a cultural perspective on the concept of god and has NOTHING to do with spirituality. I wrote a dissertation on this in undergrad. Wish I still had it to post here but that was 30 years ago. 😳
Some incredible responses to this one. To me it's simple; achieving some sort of 'mindless-ness' in nature, in the Aussie bush. In my younger days, teens and early twenties, I came across Zen while travelling in southern Vietnam. I had never realised that there was a whole body, 'religion' and historical discipline which related what I had been seeking: the concept of Emptiness. My Grandma and Ralph Waldo Emerson also influenced this in a similar way in the sense of striving to achieve 'one-ness' with God through nature. There is also a unique Northern Australian Indigenous idea of Dadirri, or 'deep listening' in nature. I came to the idea of 'Bushzen', a sort of personal non-religious religion. The pursuit of of non-clinging, the achievement of achieving nothing but contemplative non-contemplation in the bush.
Shameless plug to be sure, but I'm hoping to get this feeling across in my camping/bushcraft channel I have recently started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLMJ-Med57c
I believe we all have a need to communicate with a spiritual being. It helps us when we are desperate and in need. It helps us to set a goal for our day. I need to worship God in my own way. No need for an organized church because those just have turned into weird political places to be told how you should vote and believe.
I believe that worshiping comes out of the feeling of awe that most people, if not all, experience. The Hebrew meaning of awe is similar to fear and even trembling. The biblical roots of the word worship mean to bow down and show reverence. When we don't understand something, especially something that causes a big emotional response in us we're often afraid of it.
Even falling in love can cause a fear response. Hence men and women worshiping each other when being in love
Imagine what it must have been like in ancient times when there was no science to explain things. Hence the need to bow down before all the unexplainable events and phenomena that happen everyday. A lot of which seem to come from nature (even the miracle of birth) and the vast sky..... That can be both majestic and terrifying. And to try to find a reason these things happened..... such as a sky god. Even now with all our science the power of nature can be terrifying, seeing a baby born can still be overwhelming to us, as can the beauty in a sunrise......and we can feel the awe in that power. And yes it can be humbling and it seems a natural response is to bow down to the power..... And worship that which we don't understand.
As for me I feel fully connected to the source of all things, I am a part of nature, and I hand my life over to that every morning. I know there is a 'spiritual' aspect to us humans. It's an appetite that needs constant feeding to keep us feeling good. Spending time in nature especially. And I've discovered that as miraculous as our clever monkey brains are ( supposedly the most complex thing in the universe) they are nothing compared to the intelligence of of whatever it is that keeps this amazing universe in balance....the sun hanging above us at just the right distance to make life on earth possible and the miraculous power that keeps our hearts beating and grows a baby inside us without us doing anything apart from coming together with another human and experiencing one of most beautiful acts to spark new life. Yes I am awed by this miraculous universe and everything in it.... And fully knowing I'm connected to whatever created it has changed my life in so many ways. I can relax and enjoy all the wonders and craziness, wars and beauty, saints and villains, without any need to control or try to understand it. Although I love science. And I also kinda believe in simulation theory because it's fun to ponder!!
I think some don’t ponder the question of worship on a regular basis, but I believe there is something inside of us what questions, “Why am I here?” Is this all random? And if a random big bang, where did the molecules comes from in the first place? If this is a Creator, why did they do it? Christians think to “bring God glory he made everything!” I don’t see a god or creator making something just to do something for themselves. Think about why we have kids, sure, it’s a little egocentric, but most people do have kids to love. So if that is true about us, is that true about a Creator? How could a god or creator be less loving than us? Now, if it is a loving God why hell? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are there so many religions? How does one know the truth about God and the purpose of why we were created?
I think religion and the concept of God are linked to the very human need for meaning. If you look to other organic beings, they have certain amount of natural freedom. Take a bear, a bear can choose to eat, sleep, mate and play, but it cannot ask itself "why" it does those things. Human beings, so far as we can tell, are the only organic beings endowed with capacity to ask those questions that revolve around why. And this makes us truly unique as beings in that we can ask those big ontological and existential questions: Why does anything exist? Who created us? What happens after death? Other beings like crows, bears, rainbow trout, roses, bacteria don't seem to be haunted by those questions. So, God and religion to me, are very much an attempt by human beings to answer those questions and that the capacity to ask and comprehend are very much an integral part of human cognition and being.
I find that as I’ve aged, those existential and ontological questions have started to become a larger force in my life. We all at some point encounter what the Psychotherapist Irvin Yalom calls the "givens of existence”, death, meaninglessness, freedom and isolation. And I think this is usually a turning point in peoples lives where they begin to seek out a spiritual practice/belief or double down into more material/ hedonistic aspects like money, fame, status, work, drugs/alcohol, sex and power.
In my late teens and early twenties, I very much was of the New Atheist bend, but I’ve come to see the very strict materialist creed of new atheism and the fundamentalist religious zealotry they were reacting against as antithetical to real spirituality. It was the death of my best friend at 28 years old that really shook me out of that worldview. Allan Watts famously said, God is such a loaded word in the West and that it has lost all meaning. I really believe that the discourse between new atheism and religious fanatics has contributed to that. Cause for me at least, the big ontological questions remain unanswered, the universe and being itself are still at its core – mysterious. Think about this for a moment,
"Let’s break the science down as simply as possible. For example, the“nuclear force” which binds together the elements in an atom’s nucleus is represented in physics by the number 0.007. If the value had been 0.006, the universe would have contained nothing but hydrogen. If it had been 0.008, all hydrogen would have burned off in the Big Bang and water would never have existed. “In either case,” says Goff, “there would be none of the chemical complexity we find in our universe.”
"In so many ways, the universe is “Goldilocksesque” – it’s not too this, it’s not too that, it’s just right."
“Here’s another example of fine-tuning. If the mass of the “down quark” – an elementary particle, necessary for matter to exist – differed from what it is, once again the universe would only have contained hydrogen, rather than the 60 million chemical compounds we know exist. "
"Or there’s this: if the mass of an electron wasn’t just so, the universe would basically contain only neutrons, no atoms and no chemical reactions. When physicists measured the amount of “dark energy” in space, it turned out to be much smaller than expected. If this number had been any bigger, “things would have shot apart too quickly to allow gravity to clump things together into stars and planets”. If it had been smaller, the universe “would have collapsed back on itself”.
My twenty year old atheist self would have simply labelled this creationism and dismissed it. But I now look at the universe and being itself and view it as a mystery and I've come to realize that true spirituality, the nourishing and life affirming kind, is about finding a way to reside and revel in it.
I subscribe to the notion of “All things are full of Gods” mysticism.
That everything is one, and that oneness is God.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/24222253.mind-blowing-theory-god-may-spark-radical-new-21st-century-religion/
These are eloquent comments and I learned something from each one of them. I cannot match their eloquence! But I present my own perspective in my just published memoir A CHAOTIC LIFE. For example, I discuss my contact with the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright who remarked : "Of course I believe in God, but I spell it Nature." I also met the theologian Paul Tillich who wrote about God as the "Ground of Being," and I resonate with this as well. currently, these perspectives are part of one's "personal myth," and one needs these narratives to chart one's way through an uncertain world.
When I think of my "evidence" of God, I often see it in a narrative way. I look back at my life and see moments that I chose a path or moments when I met people who would change my life and it just feels like the Universe brought them into my life for a certain reason. Maybe it's just comforting lies I'm telling myself because the implication is that since I've been guided in the past, I'm being guided now and will be in the future.
Humans don’t have a need to worship. They have a need to understand and know about the world (or whatever) in which they find themselves. They also need to feel enough security to believe with some justification that they will continue to exist, and to a degree that will allow them to be able to accomplish their other goal, which is to realize whatever values that give their lives meaning, which they think they will find, at least to a degree, in knowledge.
It’s only upon becoming an adult or an educated person or excessively (il)literate that one can begin to talk oneself and others out of these obviously built-in characteristics of the human imagination, which anyone can observe to one degree or another in children, albeit these characteristics can certainly be hijacked, suppressed, or distorted by preexisting organized belief systems, including but not limited to religion.
I think religion and its prototypical forms were invented through a combination of the condition of the species being actually helpless and subject to all kinds of deadly forces and terrors in the natural world that were beyond its control, and the attempt of the species to deal with that helplessness by means of some subterranean psychic maneuver (I suspect Freud made a similar observation) whereby the familiar relationship of parent-child, which also entailed its own ambivalent loves and repulsions, was superimposed on the inability to feel that sufficient security and knowledge of the world that was hoped for - these and the third element of uncomplicated awe or reverence in the face of limitations that were sensed to be insurmountable but referenced something incredible and thus were ok.
Then, with increasingly sophisticated, organized societies, and domineering personalities, came organized religion, which has commandeered and perverted these built-in understandings and impulses which it is now the task of all of us living today to wrest back from the clutches of all the charlatans and hucksters who have done so much damage under the various poses of authoritative insight.
My first recommendation in this direction will always be Robert Pirsig’s Lila.
I grew up muslim and always was irked by the idea of Tauheed (oneness of Allah). It felt like an arrogant declaration that we are correct, we know only our god is real etc etc. Used to be against blind faith and was very dawkins-esque until I realised science too is laced with faith based beliefs. It is also is searching for a single simple explanation of it all. The theory of everything. The end of physics. Theoretical physicists believe such a theory is possible to formulate despite no evidence to suggest that as yet. I'm not saying its incorrect, just that the search for this is driven by the faith that it is out there.
Over the years I've come to believe the oneness is not an attribute of god but the oneness is god. It is the god of all religions, the theory of everything, nirvana. Call it whatever you like, it is laced within our universe and feeling connected to the oneness, or recognising it, is a remarkably spiritual feeling. That is what I consider to be worship.
I think there is a need to worship and it takes many forms. Sufis in the part of Pakistan I grew up in worship through their music, when the audience and the performers are in one space, one minsdet, they are connected to the oneness. Others are wandering dervaishes. They roam the earth on foot worshipping the oneness around them. Similarly, scientists learning we are stardust are connecting to the oneness. Darwins theory ties all life to one common ancestor. The big bang suggests the universe started from a single point. I like to see these as not separate, but instead deeply suggestive of the oneness. I think contemplating these ideas is also a form of worship.
Yes, this resonates for me. Maybe "God" is what fish call water.
Nice one. Is the ether making a comeback?
Humans cannot live without a story or narrative, at least not in the context of civilization. We need something to sublimate that mental space between our state of nature and our place in the civilized world. Maybe not everyone, but most people. So I think it's just a matter of what story works best for you, and provides you with the motivation, structure, and peace of mind to live your best life. I've been moving more toward Buddhism, and specifically TM (transcendental meditation) in the past few months. I took the course in 2017 and have been coming back to it as stress has risen in my life. The nice about eastern traditions is that it's less proselytizing and more about a way of living and being in the world. I'm still a bit skeptical of their brand of panpsychism (as oppose to western materialism), but am trying to keep an open mind.
What does spiritually mean to me?
This is a huge question that is difficult to encapsulate in words but I’ll give it a go!
For me spiritually means a knowing/understanding/feeling/faith in that which animates the universe and is at the heart of everything. We are divine sparks animated by this energy flow/spirit that all emanates from the same source. God consciousness is one name for it but there are many and really it cannot be contained by language and words. Its steeped in paradoxes by its very nature and is antithetical to our scientific reductionist way of ordering, measuring, weighing and describing of things hence why it is so difficult for our minds conditioned by this culture to feel/except/understand it.
Many land based cultures knew deeply and intimately what we were and how we fit into the cosmic dance of the universe and the roles we each played in order to maintain harmony with ourselves and with the whole of which we are all one. ‘As above so below’.
I believe we are the universe experiencing itself subjectively over and over again in order for it to experience the mystery of existence with all its awe, love, pain, joy, suffering and inherent duality of existence, hence the ego separation from the whole. We need ego separation to survive, procreate and prosper in the material world but ultimately the game of life is to understand our true nature of oneness with the whole and everything in it.
The universe is inherently playful in its very nature and expresses itself through creative artistry which then flows through us. It’s all just a continuous dance of flowing creativity ebbing and flowing, merging and dissipating, being born and dying, molecules and atoms (which are all fundamentally energy) come together creating form (including us) then dissipating into spaciousness then coming into material form again somewhere else in the cosmos and this is the dance of the universe/god.
God Consciousness is what we and the entire order of things is made of and for me we are here to enjoy the ride, come into awareness, let the love move through us and heal us and spread this love/energy to all living things and always remember the playful artistry of what life/the universe is about.
Sounds Alan Wattsy. I love Alan Watts.
I did have a question though. When you say "land based cultures", are you talking about hunter-gatherers? Or are you talking about cultures not based on the water? Are land-based cultures farming societies? I'm assuming it's hunter-gatherers, but was seeking more clarification.
Yes, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers is what I’m referring to with land based cultures. An author named David Hilton who wrote a book called ‘Wild Mind, Wild Earth’ has a way more elegant and sophisticated take on how I see our relationship with spirituality. Definitely has some Taoist Allan Wattsy flavour to it.
‘Winter is a kind of pregnant emptiness. Spring emerges out of that—it flourishes. And life flourishes in summer and then dies back into that emptiness of winter. And you realize, oh, my thoughts are doing the same thing that the ten thousand things do—they’re part of the same tissue.... And so that’s another radical reweaving of consciousness and wildness—what I mean by “wild mind.”’
~ David Hinton
Hinton’s interviewed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee on the Emergence Magazine podcast here. Fantastic conversation and highly recommend: https://emergencemagazine.org/interview/an-ethics-of-wild-mind/
I don't think there is a need to worship, but I think it provides a lot of ease for us in many aspects of life, such as our ability to cope with our rapid conscious evolution. Our minds ability to perceive and be critical of an idea is naturally ahead of our ability to explain that idea scientifically (we must inquire before we can hypothesize and experiment). Before the scientific revolution, faith and worship is how homo sapiens connected our subjective perception of reality with the objective and physical world. Without this social practice, I believe there would've been great discourse internally and psychologically for individuals as well as socially for groups. It would have been difficult to keep individuals even keel and groups calm and cooperative in times of crisis. Faith and religion became the primary vehicle for how larger tribes/communities could be formed early on. We can still see that this is true. Even now when many mainstream religions are in decline (even though many stricter religions are growing), these are still the largest recognized methods to group people in the globe (Christians, Hindus, and Muslims make up ~70% of the globe). Of course, we can talk about how organized religions have been used to maintain, control, and repress those tribes, but spirituality, more broadly, is one of the best social tools we have.
Tangentially, I think people often see religiousity as the dominant view, and spirituality as the smaller group. I personally see spirituality as the larger umbrella and religion as a framework for describing spirituality. I believe innately, we are spiritual beings. It's how we reconcile what life is, not just our personal lives, but life in general from animals to plants and even cells. Science calls entropy the force for homogeneity and disorder, but life seems to organize in ideal ways and form to make beautiful organisms such as trees, birds, and even some people. In a very archaic, animistic sense, I think spirituality is the general way by which homo sapiens can understand and connect with all living things.
I agree. I think we all have some version of spirituality and our chosen religion is the vehicle through which we try to access it. People use Christianity, Buddhism, Mormonism, Capitalism (not recommended), etc. as frameworks for attempting to access the mystery of being alive.
Has anyone experienced the Third Man Syndrome? The awareness in times of deep trouble and despair that there is some spirit or person with you. Climbers talk about this experience when they are holding on for life in desperate situations. Is there a built in psychological evolutionary aspect to being human that kicks in as needed? If so, it would not be hard to believe God exists and why one would worship this God after that kind of experience.
Thats a good way to look at it. Whats the biological necessity of God? It must have helped our ancestors survive in some way. When i complain i usually blame someone even when i know they might of had nothing to do with it. Maybe when we were in a drought early on as hunter gatherers we blamed God because too hard to blame ourselves.
Potentially, but there is not necessarily any evolutionary reason for widespread cognitive features (or biological). The concept of "spandrels" illustrates this. There's a great essay called, "The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme," by S. J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin that outlines the idea. Things that evolve as a bi-product of some other process can be co-opted for some other purpose later. I think human sexuality is an example of this. Clearly, it originated as a reproductive mechanism alone, but then took on other purposes over time. So, the concept of God could be a result of having been an infant looking at adults, for example, and have no survival advantage at all.
Woah. Def looking that up now. If thats the case then God and the concept of God could just be the biggest collective social case of cognitive distortion known to man haha. That makes sense tho because when youre a baby the first thing you see is a bright light and these giant people.
Yeah, once you wrap your head around spandrels, you'll see them everywhere, and it will really change the way you think. Even the human brain could be a spandrel. I can't remember where I read this, but someone has theorized that the frontal lobe evolved as a redundancy because our ancestors' brains were sometimes overheating when they were out running down prey on the savannah. Then, somehow, the "backup brain" got wired up with the "primary brain," and human intelligence took off. The intelligence being a by-product of an evolved response to overheating.
James R. Martin “ reverence” now that’s a very good word.
I think worshipping god is a symptom of a deeper more primal condition namely fear. And fear uncontrolled is anarchy. We possess many tools to keep fear at bay but choose the group think opioid of worship.
It seems like when you meditate long enough you get to pure nothingness. This state of mind might have been what the ancients referred to as God. Universal oneness. And we mistook it for dude with beard. This pure nothingness you get to on deep meditation is the same nothingness a God would have started from to create the universe. So wen youre in that state, you are God according to some buddhist. But in this case, God is just a mindset. 1rst amendment, God is most important. So good to meditate a lot haha. Because then you can be God yourself. All the books of religion seem more like moral guidance. However, im very skeptical when it comes to definitive answers. If 50% scientist believe were in a simulation then maybe whose ever running it is God. Shamans who take ayahuasca 3,200 times to become a shaman in the amazon prob have a diff concept. Theres a lot we dont know. Plus the studies on flat liners, who all record the same thing happening when they die. And a lot of them meet these tall entities who seem to be Gods. Best way i think is to study flatliners, people who die and come back. Most scientific way for me at least. Because we can record this. Also if we get to a place we can record peoples thoughts that will help. Also if theres a God would he tell us, like “im God, go tell everyone”. That seeme egoic, anti-Godlike, like hes trying to get a bunch of followers on Instagram. Then scientist who dont believe in God, how many have not taken acid lol. That can be problematic. Has Richard dawkins taken acid? If not theres things science cant explain. Science explains the physical, if you go to a guru in India and ask if life just physical, they will 100% disagree lol. Theres so much beyond physical. For instance, what is trauma? Where is it? We cant see it. But its there right? Maybe God is a concept to cope with death. But most likely, its probably describes what happens when you meditate for too long and theres no other word to describe it besides God. Theres someone in India who meditated so long maggots were eating his legs because he forgot about his body. Therefore, God to me right now is this level of mind we should all strive to achieve, meaning a place of absolute no desire or attachment, hard to do when you live in America where every commercial is telling you strive to the exact opposite. Then once you reach this state of mind then you can reach an answer that will be more interesting. Like DMT is prob a shortcut to there and the answer you give while youre on that will be different then if youre on break at work in the lunch room eating microwavable spaghetti. Haha. Thanks to Chris for giving us our own lil segment to ROMA lol.
Some human beings created gods and the rest simply follow like sheeps
To me God is Nature and we can worship Nature. I do not believe in any kind of religion, they are all man made stories to create some expected behaviours. But I understand there are moments in life of such dread, confusion and pain, we feel lost and alone, and there is no problem to temporally have some faith in some fables to bring us some confort and help us to move on.
Hmm. Worship seems to me a highly loaded word, with ample -- often unnecessary --- baggage. I prefer the word 'reverence", which has a broader scope I think which can be understood both in secular and religious contexts Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines reverence as "honor or respect felt or shown : DEFERENCE
especially : profound adoring awed respect"
In a non-religious context (in the usual sense of the word 'religion'), reverence can be given to nature, to the sciences, to cultural institutions worthy of esteem, virtuous persons, etc. Personally, I hold a lot of reverence for the natural world -- and also to some aspects of culture which I deem worthy of high esteem and praise, such as genuine democracy, as contrasted with the sort of pseudo-democracy which often passes for real democracy in our present culture/s.
Googled the origin of worship got something along the lines of “ a posture of submission” and as a human I submit to the human experience. Neal Cassady said something like We are actually fourth dimensional beings in a third dimensional body inhabiting a second dimensional world! so worship and submit to that, just being and experiencing…
No god. No need to worship. You can call me a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Perhaps one day you will join us. And the world will be ONE🙂✨