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Originally Posted by Abel  Quote: |
Originally Posted by Og There's a contradiction right there. No thing has intrinsic identity on a universal scale. The notion of a god judging us is disproven. There is nothing to judge. | What proof? Your opinion? Or perhaps the opinion of your god Joseph Campbell? Making a statement such as this indicates that you believe yourself to have infinate knowledge.Therefore, you appear to be presenting yourself as a god. |
No. Again, science does not deal in proof. And as you see above, I was not dealing in PROOF. I was stating that a hypothesis can be disproven (which is quite within the realms of science's tool kit).
Furthermore, my statement had nothing to do with the work of Joseph Campbell. I have a PhD in biophysics, am an electrical engineer and work in the field of behavioral neuroscience in model systems where we are fleshing out the neural basis for behavior in mice/flies/worms/etc.
Evidence indicates that human brains are complex networks of computational units called neurons. These neurons are arranged in adaptive networks that function to produce sensory experience, memory, and all the other properties of consciousness (as well as autonomous functions of body regulation). When it boils down to it, a human is an adaptive computer that is extraordinarily complex (there are as many neurons in your brain as there are trees in the amazon rain forest and as many connections between neurons as there are leaves on the trees).
All behavior, concepts, thoughts, experiences, feelings, etc, can all be linked to neuronal correlates. For example, the Bill Clinton, Jennifer Aniston, sweat, and orange neurons.
Here is a Scientific American Story on discoveries in humans about neural correlates of consciousness.
There is simply no room for a supernatural concept in the brain. We've shined light on all the corners. Though we can't map out an individual human's brain due to computational power and limited access to the internal tissues, we know precisely how every element of that brain functions.
The notion that a human being is somehow different than a highly complex confluence of events is just plain false. Free will is not a term that has any meaning. It's a null term. We are highly complex machines and all of experience including love and religion and everything that you could label is the product of this wondrously complex network of neurons all responding to sensory stimuli, its own chemical state, and its stored versions of previous states (memory).
Thus any notion of a God that judges individual human beings as if they were some isolated entity in the world is disproven. We are NOT those. The reason that we developed that idea in the past is precisely due to the complexity of the human brain. Describing a soul is like seeing a face on the moon or will in the weather. Just as a tornado is a complex confluence of meteorological events, a human being is a complex confluence of biochemical events.
A god entity that treats humans as intrinsically individual is either confused or non-existent. In either case, the fact remains that we are all one gigantic interactive process. Social strife like in iraq is a dissipation of energy in the system just as a hurricane dissipates heat from the equator to the north.
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Your arrogant self confidence is truly distasteful. It is ironic how your continued denial of God and the Bible actually lend support to it's truthfulness: Romans 1:21-22 "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,"
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This is not my vain imagination. It is the only possible conclusion to come to based on objective analysis. This does not mean that it is 100% true, but it at least means that the judgmental god being hypothesis (i.e. judeo christian/islam) is disproven. A judgmental god and heaven/hell just plain don't fit with the way the universe works and the way we're constructed. It'd be like saying that if you drop a rock in a pond, it flies off into space. It simply doesn't match observation at all. In fact it's quite the opposite.
As for Joseph Campbell, he does a wonderful job connecting the fundamentals of eastern religions with the fundamentals of western religions.
For me, he vocalizes this realization that I came to (on my own) in neuroscience in terms of social and historical facts. He reveals all modern religions as fundamentally expressing this same reality that I'm discussing here.
What is the difference between the connection between the light coming out of your computer monitor right now and your retina and the connection between a motor neuron and your arm muscle? One uses chemical neurotransmitters and the other uses photons. But just because your skin doesn't enfold my neurons does not mean that we are some intrinsically separate processes.
This is the message of the Garden of eden story. Its the acquisition of concepts of categories (i.e. the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that made them aware of life/death and male/female, and fear/desire, etc)... The fruit of the tree in the garden is the ILLUSION that you and I are separate. It's the ILLUSION that there is good and evil and that life and death have some meaning different than any one moment to the next in our lives.
Jesus' act was DIRECTLY pointed at this metaphor (i.e. his sacrifice is in reference to original sin). Jesus is loaded with metaphors where you free yourself from fear/desire and categories. Love your enemy (not "don't have enemies). Hate your Family/friends/self (not "don't have family/friends/self"). Turn the other cheek and go the extra mile. Both ways of being truly free no matter what state you're in.
Campbell links Christianity to the buddhist/hindu and older roots of this message of transcendence of categories of thought.
I do not reject christianity or the divine nature of jesus. In fact, I embrace it and I embrace my (and your) IDENTITY with jesus. I am christ and you are christ. This is his true message and Campbell offers scholarly historical support to this stance. When Jesus says "I and the Father are One," I understand what he means. Jesus identified with all of humanity and saw the confluence of events that every human represents. He saw the divine ground from which all life forms arise (i.e. like the weather system from which tornadoes and hurricanes bud out from). This is fundamental and ancient buddhism and hinduism. You are God and I am You and You are It.
Again, this stance on the nature of humans and the universe is NOT something that I hold out of arrogance. It is the only stance I am CAPABLE of holding. I have no capacity to hold another stance as this is what the evidence DEMANDS. This approach can not be labeled as arrogant. There is NO ego involved in it at all. It's the product of a lifetime of honest and vigorous searching and one that I would happily discard if the evidence (which I can and do provide) indicated otherwise.