Evolution vs Creationism

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You are right, joacqin. I was at first rather skeptical about science, I never trusted it for some reason, cant quite place it but it felt like western propaganda for a long time. At the same time I was becoming increasingly frustrated with analytical philosophy, and I was going to give up on university all together until someone recommended me read The Tao of Physics. It helped me reconcile my beliefs with science, and since reading that book I have had no problems with science, and as it turns out I love it and wish I had done it years ago. Of course since then I have had to change my beliefs a bit, nothing too major, but over all Ive managed to achieve balance.

It probably helps with Dharmic religious myths being accepted as being just that...myths. Only the peasant or the fundamentalist (yes you get them in hinduism, blowing up mosques and the like, ridiculous) actually believes the stories to be literally true and that if they were ever proven to be wrong their whole world would shatter. Most moderate rational hindus know that it is the message contained in the story that matters the most, not the story itself. I do see the appeal of buddhism though, with the whole non-theistic take on gods, with the religion neither confirming nor denying the existence of gods.

Shiva Nataraja statue outside of CERN

 

A different perspective

It's nice to see that everyone seems to be coming to a sense of unity or at least harmony in understanding these concepts. For that reason I am hesitant to post here, reluctant as I hope not to disrupt that unity, yet as this is a topic which interests me I will take the selfish chance that it is.

I am an esotericist, there was a time I would have preferred to be more accurately called an occultist, yet these days so many who call themselves such are pursuing a darker path, in contrast to that strive towards service and love which embodies the occultist on their pursuit for knowledge and wisdom in understanding the law.

As such, my understanding falls strictly into neither of these catergories. It is our understanding that the universe is ONE, that that distant abstract, and unmanifested deity lies outside the limits of human perception, but nevertheless, is the cause and effect of all that proceeds. You will notice that this may be an interpretation of the christian God, and indeed, we, as some of those christians who have shared their thoughts here, see a unity in religious teaching, and one looking closer would see great similarities with the advaita vedantin teachings and the brahmanism spoken of also, indeed, it is the understanding that all such religions may be considered from an exoteric teaching, that is, the public doctrine, and an esoteric, reserved for the initiates and adepts of the mysteries down through the ages and common to all faiths and all peoples.

So therefore, proceeding from this infinite source of intelligence and life, of which the occultist asserts once manifest is indeed considered to be possessing of a material nature, yet it is a nature infinitely more distant from the solid as is plasma, and so subtle as to be considered of a purely spiritual nature, concerning qualities of which it is useless to speculate, proceeding forth from this over a period and over several transitions of which I shall not waste time with, we arrive at the formation of the particular solar system and planet of which we inhabit. I shall paraphrase and simplify to a degree with which I am almost uncomforatable, but is nevertheless most efficient, and state that it is the understanding that it is the union of the spiritual (to a materialist we would say super-physical) embodying spiritual being, with the pure or virgin substance which allows the opportunity for the arising of consciousness, of form, and of the visible universe. This yet still proceeds on planes of being (by this term I simply mean differentiations of substance still too fine to be considered the matter of the empirical physicist) that are, to a human, that of purely spiritual nature, embodying states of being and consciousness that the greatest sages of our time can only dimly grasp- yet grasp them he can and this is an important point to make, for it is the direct perception of such, and the possibility of attaining such as existing for all of humanity which supplies that evidence of these things as being, without resting only on the word of those wise illumined sages alone.

From thence proceeds further the differentiation of matter (and imagery might be better furnished by supplying the term concretisation) from this initial unified state.

Now I must again divorce from this process of cosmology to explain that a cornerstone of these teaching is that all of existence is indeed LIFE, and is endowed with such as a fundamental aspect of its nature; that the energy which gives the appearance of the particles composing the atom of science is in itself a living force, though one not aware of its nature in the same way as a plant or animal or human, and that as the cells of nature compose the living body of an organism, so too does this force have its own living-ness which, individual in itself, is also but an aspect of a greater being, all encompassing in its nature, and that we too may consider ourselves but units within such an existence, though the aspects of ourselves which truly compose the vehicle or body of it's expression, while dense and measurable to the occultist, visible and palpable to the clairevoiyant, would be considered fantastic and beyond physical existence to the materialist. Of this I shall later speak. The classification I shall now further clarify is that of an ethereal nature, of which the recently recognised plasma is but the densest manifestation, and, as modern science begins to recognise that the plasmic body of the sun contains all the planets within its periphery, so these teachings will come to further light, but yes, those states of matter are also said to possess states of consciousness, though wildly different to our own. That of physical matter well below, and if an analogy may be used, that of those states of matter and being that I have spoken of as referring primarily to consciousness, being of a nature obviously superior to that which the average human may consider himself in possession of at this point in time.

So, I say all this so I may explain that we speak of these super-human intelligent lives as existing well before the existence of the earth, indeed, the product of countless aeons and cycles of life and death, and that the physical world slowly coming to be as we now now it as a result of this life 'clothing itself' so to speak, in matter, the purposes of which may be briefly and cursorily explained as of spiritual evolution, so to give those lower forms of intelligence the opportunity to reach that higher state, to make gods of men, and God of gods.

Thus we see evolution in a different light. One may follow the path of a material evolution of a form, of that process of breeding and of refinement of characteristics of which science concerns itself, and of whose mutations we see primarily as the effect of the indwelling super(or meta)-physical principles as manifesting the permutations of matter about itself to suit the purposes of its expression, that is, that it is the background on which substance is strung, and the vehicle is moulded to suit its purposes as can be afforded by the karmic qualities (and by this may be simply understood the past and therefore the characteristics with which it is endowed) of both the matter and of that indwelling spirit or soul.

Thus another evolution is evinced of which I have referred to, that of the spiritual being, the true man, who incarnates again and again over a series of lives, retaining the gross product of those experiences within the soul (as the reflection, but temporary however seemingly infinite, of the higher spiritual existence which may heretofore human incarnation be said to possess the quality of being but not of self-conscious actualisation, the refining process of human existence it is the object to produce) whilst the personality perishes along side the body, its vehicle and nothing more.

So then, the occultist considers humanity to have first, at some distant age, cast forth this spark of being into the depths of matter on the plane of energy of which science considers to be matter, and over aeons too immense to calculate, to have been refined in that dwarfed consciousness sufficiently to an extent to be able to embody (and be embodied by in turn) that greater and more sensitive life (and this sensitivity is the faculty evolved) within the vegetable and then animal kingdoms, achieving the pinnacle of form and then developing an emotional sensitivity and the latent seed of mind before finally able to progress to human life. This is of course, following the spiritual and not material evolution, as the prototypes of these forms are said to exist well before their manifestations on the physical plane.

Further clarification is necessary (and patience will be necessary for the matter is extremely complex) that these forms exist in super-physical states as expressions of beings who represent the sum-total of all lesser forms composed within, of which lesser forms the members of which are vivified by the indwelling spark of life cast forth, and gradually attaining conscious (though not yet self-conscious) operation on higher planes of being, representing finer states of matter, and experienced by humanity as states of consciousness and thought.

At the moment referred to as individualisation, that particular member of the animal kingdom who possess an infant intellect and refined astral (or emotional) nature strong enough gains the faculty of self-consciousness. This is said to no longer occur within modern humanity, as the gulf between animal and human is too great, and that this door closed long ago, whose descendants may be seen in the lowest evolved members of humanity. This process of self-consciousness is said again to be conferred by a unity of several aspects, of which I find it more efficient not to speak of, suffice it to say, that self-consciousness descends into or upon the ready vehicle from a higher (not directionally) source, the resulting unity of which may then and only then be considered as the true man, or member of humanity.

To answer some of the queries previously posited, this then is said to be the human soul, of whose existence I am sure, based upon my own recollections of past lives, achieved after strenuous effort. Members of the animal kingdom are considered not to possess an individual soul, but a group soul of a particular species to which are retained the refinements gained through life as the vehicle of that expression dies, this is not to say that animals, and domestic animals especially do not possess rudimentary intelligence, and especially developed emotional natures whilst embodied on the most physical plane. This state of group-soul is that life considered to embody the entirety of the mineral kingdom, as I said, possessing life in itself.

Now, in terms of human life on this planet, human life (absolutely in no way similar to the human bodies we are used to) is recognised as existing a-priori, that is, that those beings who had attained such a state of consciousness prior to the formation of the physical globe of the earth but await an opportunity, and it first arrives for those of the lowest order, in beings mindless and purely ethereal, well before any race of physical savages were ready for utilisation, and again ages before civilised man arrived on the stage, for those who had slowly refined themselves through process of incarnation on this earth in the method just explained, and those remaining who could not yet incarnate within a body or vehicle refined enough to be a suitable expression for the indwelling consciousness. It is indeed recognised that the great apes of today share a common ancestor with humanity, but it is never us who is seen as evolving from them, yet them from us, or at least those savages who once represented humanity, and those animal forms who were considered to eventually have attained individualisation, and this usually in death, are seen or represented nowhere today, and indeed, it was not the body which evolved, but the consciousness within, for after achieving such a state, such a flashing forth of awareness and of being, the next life was born into a human vehicle of those present at the time, whist that animal group soul continued to inhabit the progeny of its former member, and this is an important, a vital, distinction that is made.

Some of these scenes may have been witnessed by recent occultists, again utilising clairvoiyant investigation and direct perception of those historic times, and others are taught by those who have superceded those to whom such matters are taught, believed because such teachings lead the aspirant to be able to cognise such matters themselves, if the practical body of instruction is followed.

This humble aspirant accedes of course that much of this will not be believed by many, but offers it as an alternative to the views already offered, in the hopes that it may be a point of interest or speculation to those so interested, who may find themselves upon the threshold, looking for further answers than that which this world has so far offered them. He again, humbly, has no wish to sway the minds of those which are already decided, and seeing the great and highly profitous results which those servers of humanity reach and have reached in the fields of science and of religion both, wishes sincerely the best for all of those pursuing such a path, and recognises the wisdom in them doing so, and yet may satisfy himself in the hopes that as such any synthesis of religion and scientific and philosophic thought has constantly and inevitably reinforced the particular codex he is fortunate to have been introduced to, that so such an inexorable path shall continue, until such a point of unity is met, that all forms of human knowledge and experience shall be contained within a single body, of which no need for contention is required, as all may experience the validity of such for themselves. He makes no claim that all he has said here is absolutely true, knowing full well the possibility to misinterpret any experience, especially that communicated by others, and remains as yet open minded for any revelation of such a high nature as that already experienced which would reveal further light upon the path, the search for truth, after all, being the most high in this particular context. He has had intimate experience with science and religion both, and renounces neither, yet hopes to reveal the truth latent in both and to which all seekers strive, should they so wish it.

 

A lot of effort went into that post. I am also reluctant to discourage a first time poster as it was a very eloquent effort and I would like to see more of you. However, you basically just repeated what some guy (or gal) thought up (possibly while high) about the universe. I can also think up things, does that make them true? This here is the core of the debate, religion and philosophy for that matter are thought constructs by people. Some guy thought them up. They are opinions. What makes the opinion of the guy who thought up religion X be the truth of the universe while the opinion of the guy locked up in the loonie bin is an expression of his poor mental condition?

Seeing as we are talking about the life, the universe and everything how did you people who have actually picked an answer to those questions decide which one to follow? Gut feeling?

I don't know, I much prefer that answer, I don't know. Try it out, it will not hurt you. I do not know, but I am all for trying to figure it out in a way that can actually convince people without them having to take my word alone for it. By using the scientific method we can attempt that.

 

I have a similar reaction to Eros as Joacqin. It was very eloquent and complexly written, in many places unnecessarily I think, but that's really not needed on these forums. Come on, tell us what you really think!

As to Joacqin's question. I admit, I was brought up in the Church. That's how I was introduced to it, but I never took it seriously until I got involved in my church's youth ministry team: gymnastics to be specific. I got involved, basically, because I was bored and wanted something to do, but I found a lot more. God was there with them, when they met, when they prayed, and when they ministered, and He called me. I had questioned my 'beliefs' before, but never come to any answers and so I figured, 'I'll stick with what I've got'. There, I found proof. Real proof. Like I said, it's hard to question the existence of someone you've had conversations with.

Nataraja, I also feel compelled to say that I fear your experiences with 'dissolution of the ego' may be far more dangerous than you believe. You may know what happens on the neurological level, but I suspect that the description of 'dissolution of the ego' is an accurate description on the spiritual level, and there are beings that would take advantage of that. This is really just a personal belief, and not even a discernably spiritual belief, but I do believe in demons and I believe things like that are basically lowering any defenses normal humans may have. I know I won't be able to convince you, and I think I may have said similarly before, but feel an obligation to voice the warning.

 

Not at all

Im still in my mind, I have just extended my consciousness in all directions, merging in to the universe around me. I dont cease to 'be', just the boundries between me and, say, the grass Im sitting on, blurs. Its not unlike the 'melting into' feeling that acid gives you, only its without the acid trip. Just the merging. Also, the conscious expansion is not unlike smoking cannabis, except there is none of the other effects, just conscious expansion.

Yeah I know, and I truly appreciate your concern. However, like I have said above, Im not lowering my defenses that normal humans have, I am removing the things that culture has put in our minds, removing the restrictions, not lowering defenses. You have to flow with it. Like the Jedi say 'Feel the force flowing through you', well, its like that, but not 'The Force', just tranquility.

You surely wont, but I appreciate your concern, like Ive said. Nice to see that you dont have to 'try' to be a true christian. Rare indeed these days to find one.

As to what joacqin put forward...well...it is a bit of a long story. Shiva had ensorcelled me from a young age. Over the years I felt guided to where I am now. It was a journey that, while hard at the time, I now see as necessary. Over the years of my life I tried a few religions, but all of them I felt had a very small understanding of God, and I kept wanting more, craving more. When I tried christianity for a few years I felt like I was surrounded by spiritual babies content on being fed spiritual milk, and I craved meat (metaphorically since Im vegan, of course). I kept wanting something deeper, something more than what they were offering me. I knew there was more, but they had me convinced my gods were demons and that I couldnt go to them, because they were all satans and all that. Eventually I got really depressed because I felt like my life was not in my control, but rather it was in the control of some other being who felt to me like a demon (asura, not rakshasa). I also didnt like theism, and I didnt like how everytime I talked or even hinted at panentheism I was told to shut up, basically, and that my ideas were wrong. In the end I discarded christianity as being a dead-end path. It was only after I did my as of yet unfinished philosophy degree (I dont think I will finish it) that I was able to reason my way out of the restrictive and, dare I say, poisonous thinking and fear that gripped my mind. Then I felt the calling again, like I did when I was young. I started smoking cannabis again, and then I started craving goa trance again, just like I did when I was younger. Then finally Shiva appeared to me in the most insightful depiction of God. Suddenly the universe made sense again. I was back in touch with my roots, I felt liberated. I have become everything the christians at the churches I went to didnt want me to be, and the funny thing is is that it was who I was all along. Even more funny I feel is that I am back on the same path I was on before I was in to christianity, only I am a lot wiser now than I was back then. Although I have recently cut my hair and even more recently shaved off my beard, I am still the same person inside. I have realised it is not the long tangled matted hair and the long thick beard that makes one a true devotee of Shiva, nor is it the smoking lots of cannabis, the meditation and djing psychedelic spiritual trance music either that makes one a true devotee of Shiva. It is about who you are inside.

And NOG, I dunno if you think Shiva is a devil or a satan or whatever. My ex seemed to think he was, and she said often I was possessed by the devil and that I was evil and also that Shiva was one of the fallen angels. Seems that christians dont like him, might be the cobra necklace and the trident...

Back to evolution now...

What about the neanderthal? They were human, no doubt about that. They were not our ancestors, rather our cousins. MtDNA sequencing has shown this to be true. So where do they fit in to the creationism? Did they have souls?

 

@ Eros, Holy poop!
That post should count for at least 5 normal posts!!
As others have stated, welcome to the (sometimes)contentious Alleys.
Your post was extremely well written & it almost sounds like you are trying to describe a String Theory(kinda sort of) for religion & spirituality.

Keep posting, please.

 

Sensible words, Joacquin. Ultimately, all of this is just stuff that's in people's heads. I'm going with gut feeling on this one.

 

No, I understood what you were descibing. The Ego is the barrier between the self and the rest, the mind and the universe, however barriers can serve as both restrictions and protections.

Yeah, I know a lot of Christians like that, the ones that haven't grown and don't want to. That's a bad, sad thing, but unfortunately common. It is not, however, what Christianity is about. I'm guessing, when it came to your talk about pantheism, you either said the wrong things or talked to people that didn't have a clue what you were talking about (probably the latter). In a very real sense, Christianity is pantheistic, with three Gods making up the pantheon, and that sounds like very much the same sense in which you view Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahmin as seperate. In another very real sense, they are all three the same being, simply viewed through different roles. Christ is the part of God that became us, that became one of us. The Holy Spirit is the side of God that is constantly with us, changing us. God the Father is the side of God that stands outside of us, talks to us, and corrects us. That's also why in the Old Testament, you see so many names for God. Each one describes one characteristic, one role, one facet of God. There's God the Defender, the Strong Tower and Mighty Shield. There's God the Provider, the Shepherd, the Father. There's God the Maker, the Potter. God the Protector and Mighty is called Lion of Judah, while God the Sacrifice is called Lamb of God. There are countless names and facets, including God as mother, though that is one we see far less often than God the Father. These are all different faces, yet one being. The Trinity, however, represents a slightly more concrete division. Kinda.

I believe that all spiritual religions have something behind them. If it isn't God, it is a demon or the Devil itself. What you have described seems far more philosophical and psychological than spiritual, so I'm guessing you 'worship' facets of your own nature and the universe and ideas. Still not right, but much better, all things concidered.

They were human? Really? Homo Sapien Sapien? I didn't know that? Realize, I don't even believe the arrival of the soul corresponded to the arrival of our species, meaning Homo Sapien Sapien was around before the first human (with a soul).

 

Homo sapiens neanderthalensis existed in europe before we did. They were stronger & smarter than us, but didn't cut it because they couldn't work together as well as us. By placing them as a subspecies, scientists admit to not knowing whether they intermixed in our population. Eventually though, true neanderthals were outcompeted.

 

They also had bigger skulls. Didn't help them one bit!

 

The brain of every animal filters information from the environment and basically restricts anything that is unnecessary to the daily life of the animal. However, in humans there is more than just our biology/neurology filtering what we perceive, there are also cultural restrictions that are just as real to us, ie real in our heads only, as the hardwired ones. Beliefs, for example, greatly control how we see the world, how we fit all the information we receive together in to a coherent picture, or idea, of the world and how it works. I dont like getting into the philosophical idea of what beliefs are, because western analytical philosophy is utterly horrendous and has no real understanding of the issues it debates. As joacqin said earlier, philosophy is just someones opinion, and I agree, it is just some uninformed persons idea, some non-scientists idea. From a scientific perspective Id say that beliefs form the foundation of our knowledge and help us form the 'world' we live in. Cultural beliefs are a second level of belief that we apply to ourselves, and which are based on prior knowledge and experiences, basically the teachings of the elders passed from generation to generation. However, just because our elders passed them down to us over many generations, it doesnt necessarily mean that these beliefs about the world are right or even valid. So, when I meditate I remove these restrictions of belief, I dissolve the ego. Yet, despite it not being self-awareness but rather a heightened sense of reality, afterwards, such as today for example, I have a stronger sense of my self than I did a couple of days ago, and I feel more grounded in my body.

It is panentheism, not pantheism. Problem was that they didnt know the difference, and thought that I was talking about pantheism which is apparently some sort of huge heresy. They truly had a small idea of God, although they claimed it was a huge one. I found it almost laugh out loud hilarious when they said to the children 'God makes the rain fall down'. The reasons why it rains are well known and well documented, tested and observable. God does not make the rain fall.

Dude, I dont worship anything, not a thing. Worship isnt part of my daily, monthly, or yearly activities. Yet, I see Shiva in everything, I cannot divorce what I observe daily from my spiritual life. Everything is a manifestation of anandatandava, the dance of bliss, with Shiva Nataraja creating, destroying, and creating anew all things and all forms from the sub-atomic level to the galactic level, and even beyond those two limitations. So I do not worship Shiva in any way, rather I stand in awe and seek to become One with the universe. If there was a temple here in Christchurch I would go to it, but the only hindu temple in NZ is in Auckland.

When did the first human (with a soul) live, how did he/she have a soul, and what made him/her different from his/her ancestors that had no souls?

 

I don't know. It may well not have even been one, but a large selection at one time. Intellectually, was there a society existing before? Language? Art? I don't know, I wasn't there.

 

OK...you say humans have souls because the bible says humans have souls, and logically I would look and see that humans were ensouled which is when the bible gods made them from the dust of the ground. Yet you also support evolution of some kind, and admit that there were humans around before humans had souls. But you dont know when they were ensouled, yet the bible makes it clear that there are souls in humans when the gods breathed the spirit in to the claymen.

However, if by 'soul' you mean to have society, language and art, then yes, humans have that like no other animal, yet it is not isolated to just our species.

There is not a single species of organisms that do not have a 'language'. Sure, it might not be a sophisticated verbal language like ours, rich in symbolism and meaning, but all organisms need to be able to communicate with each other...even single celled organisms. If I recall correctly back to my lectures on bacteria, archaea and protists, bacteria know when they are with members of their own species. They communicate with each other, they aggregate in certain areas etc. Higher up the level of organisation you find that plants communicate with each other all the time. Trees on the edge of the forest that get attacked by a pathogen will often warn the trees further from the edge so that they get their protection mechanisms set in place. Moving up even further to mammals, specifically primates, language is not only through gestures and body language, but even vocal. Chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla (possibly) all talk to each other in their own language. It may not be like ours, but it is language nonetheless.

Society? No problems...ALL of nature is a society. Every organism except humans has an ecological niche in which it fits, but as soon as a new opportunity opens up the niche gets filled. This will allow species to radiate and possibly form new species through adapting to a new ecological niche that is open. Complex society is not just something humans have, even at a species level. There is a strict social hierarchy in all of the great ape species, even in lesser apes like baboons. Also, one must not forget the humble ant who not only has a tiny brain, is virtually, if not completely, blind, and yet has language, social order, and the emergent property of a greater consciousness. The sum of the ants that make up a colony is significantly less than the result of having them all together. This is a common thread in all of biology...2+2=5, or 6, or 10, or 20. Life exploits the laws of chemistry and physics at the molecular level by having reactions that are metabolically favourable, and this sort of exploitation is present in every level as you go up in complexity. A classic example is the brain and the mind. The brain is the origin of the mind, yet the mind is greater than the individual brain cells that go in to making up the brain.

Art...well, I have to admit that it is only really humans that do art. It seems to be an activity that is restricted to our species for the most part. Some other great apes do art, Ive seen a gorilla doing painting and Ive seen bonobo doing art too, but it is nothing that is part of their natural behaviour. Yet art itself can be explained away by looking at the time in our past when it emerged. It was during the end of an ice age, and here we were...smart, dexterous, technologically sophisticated relative to our ancestors...and suddenly the climate is warming up. Less work is required for hunting and gathering. They didnt have tv or computers back then, nor books nor plays, so they made art. Art is the result of having time on your hands. But along with the art came better, more efficient tools and tool making techniques, so it wasnt all just fun and games to have leisure time. However, art is nothing unless you have the capability for the appreciation of things which are aesthetically pleasing. So before art came along humans must have developed a sense of awe and wonderment about the world around them. This is quite possibly a uniquely human trait. So if by having a soul you mean 'capable of aesthetically appreciating the universe' then you might have your candidate for what a soul is right there.

All in all though, there really is not much that separates humans from the other animals species, aside from the sophistication in which we do certain things which are by no means unique to our lineage. So, if by soul you mean having sophistication in certain things, then this might be another candidate for what a soul is.

So far, however, has anyone yet given a clear example of what a soul actually is, how it came to be in us and not the other animals, and how it might be indirectly (or directly, ideally) detectable and testable by empirical means. However, the fact remains that you cannot indirectly observe a soul in any organism, and because of this you can deduce that one simply is not present. It is analogous to the story I was told in my first year of philosophy about the diligent gardener...who happens to be invisible, who happens to work when no one is looking, and yet remains 'existent' despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

And before I go back to BG2 I will leave you all with another interesting video, this time about ants...their society, their language, their laziness!?! Watch to find out...

Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?

 

I think it would be acceptable for everyone to consider the term 'soul' as based on cultural and moral values. nataraja chooses to see his cat as having a 'soul', while others object to this. They prefer to see humans as the only beings deserving of a 'soul', while all other life has a lower regard. For them, the 'soul' is a divine mandate for superiority. No further explanation is necessary. Humans are stewards, or custodians, of all other living things. We have a right to eat the animals we want to, and we can show affection to pets. For some people, their pets will never be 'humanized', while others prefer to see them as people.
For me, I can't help but feel like my mom's cat is an adopted sister, and it's like I grew up with her half of my life. In the past, we were looking after my cousin's discarded rabbit (when girls get to the age that they think about boys, rabbits are forgotten). My mom called me back then, and asked me: "Guess who I found dead in the garden, with all four paws in the air?" I immediately thought of the cat, not the rabbit, and started to feel intensely sick. When my mom said it was the rabbit, I was SO relieved. But I still had cold shivers for at least half an hour after that.
This is a picture of Bonnie. She's 16 already, but I hope she lives on till a ripe old age

 

I couldnt agree more...brilliant stuff.

All I have been objecting to so far is the idea that we have some sort of 'spirit' soul inside us doing 'something', either animating us or something else. Yet, you can reduce any organism down to a molecular level...and there is nothing metaphysical about life to be seen...anywhere. Life really is greater than the sum of its parts, thats the beauty of it. The same goes for consciousness. The ants in the video show clearly how with no central taskmaster organisation arises. Nothing metaphysical or mystical or spiritual about this. It simply 'is' what life 'is'. This is completely contradictory with the account of what life is according to the bible. Evolution and creationism are not compatible, one side has to give way to the other. When it comes down to it, really, it is a matter of 'this' or 'that'. No question about it, you are either an intelligent person who may or may not have studied evolution indepth and realises that it is the best explanation for the origin of the diversity of life on the planet, or, you are an intelligent person who may or may not have studied evolution in depth and not realised that it is the best explanation for the origin of the diversity of life on the planet 'because' you approach it with pre-established beliefs that hinder your impartiality. When you go about mixing evolution with creationism you end up with fuzziness on both sides. You have to either disregard parts of the bible, OR, parts of evolutionary theory.

Coineineagh is right in that I consider my cat to be a person, yet not a human. All organisms with personalities are persons. That cow you just ate the backside of, person; the chicken whose leg you just ate, person; that fish you enjoyed eating...maybe a person. No disrespect to people who like their pet fish, but when you get down to that level of cognitive power I suspect theres not much room for things aside from 'swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry' in that tiny tiny brain. Birds aside, the level of 'person-hood' (and I dont like saying that) depends on the size of the brain relative to the body, not the size of the brain itself. With birds it is different because they do not have a neo-cortex yet a lot of species are able to do complex cognitive tasks. Somehow evolution wired up their brains differently...possibly even before they were birds, back when they were dinosaurs. However, none of this at all has anything whatsoever to do with spiritual souls that somehow inhabit our bodies. It is all to do with the level of complexity AND the structure of the complexity.

I fully understand you there coineineagh in regards to your cat. When I was house sitting for my dad last June (incredibly cold time), my cat, who lives with him, decided to get out of bed and go outside for like 4 hours. I got so worried that I eventually started looking outside for her, fearing she was dead. I was so upset that I was furiously texting my ex about how I loved the cat almost as much as her, and how she was my special friend etc, despite it being 5amish. She told me to calm down and that my cat will come back, and she did eventually. Albeit rather cold. I get like this because she truly is a friend, she knows my behaviour, she knows who I am after not seeing her for many many months, she even knows my sisters after not seeing them for years. She is a person, a unique character, and she is definitely the boss. We dont own her, she owns us, well, my dad at least. Ive managed to keep our relationship one in which we are both equals. And, as far as I am concerned, she is at the same point in the evolution of her species as I am in mine. Life is not a hierarchy, as much as we like to think of it as being such. It is a tree, and all the current organisms alive right now are the survivors of some incredibly nasty natural disasters, such as the ice ages, the KT event, the snowball earth etc. All organisms are at the same level along their evolutionary trajectory, even the ones that people like to eat.

BTW my cat is a chocolate point siamese

 

Ah. This would be the perfect timing to post this: Advanced Dungeons and Discourse part I

 

Not exactly. Or rather, not really at all. Remember, Genesis is not a text book on creation. Genesis 1 gives a general overall view of Nothing -> Man, while the Garden of Eden, the Creation of Man, etc. gives a more personal, anecdotal view of how we got from where we were made (perfection) to where we are now (umm, less so). Do I believe Adam was one single individual? Not necessarily. Do I believe he was litterally moulded out of clay? No, that herralds back to Genesis 1 when everything was made from the 'formless and void' stuff. Do I believe there was a particular point when God had evolved the physical bodies of man as ape-like creatures and said, 'Yeah, they're ready now,' gave them souls, and then they in general, and possibly in particular 'fell'? Yes.

No, I particularly chose those things because they are things that other animals may be said to have on one level that we have on another. They may have been forever changed by the addition of the soul, but they themselves are not evidence thereof. I picked things on the border specifically to show I wasn't sure.

No, I believe the soul is what gives us choice, what lets us rise above our purely physical, intelectually instincual, animal nature. You have repeatedly claimed and even on some levels shown (and I have agreed) that mankind is an animal on the biological, physical level. Yet I have shown that, unlike animals, we are not necessarily bound by our insincts, not even by rational extrapolations of our instincts. We can rise above them and develope different natures. This is the soul.

The invisible gardener is disproven by the fact that no gardeining work is done. If you don't weed, then weeds grow. If you don't water or fertilize the plants, they die or go wild. In human nature, though, there is something done that differentiates us from wild animals (the choice to reject instinct) which cannot be defined by any natural mechanic yet observed. Is it proof the soul exists? No, but it is a bit of evidence in favor.[/QUOTE]

See, for me, that's about like saying we should consider lightning as based on cultural and moral values. I don't see mankind as 'deserving' of a soul any more than I see my car as 'deserving' of tires and a braking system. It is part of how we were designed to operate, but it isn't a value assessment. The soul doesn't give us a divine mandate over other creatures, God did. With that divine mandate, however, comes the responsability, which we have woefully failed in. We were meant to oversee creation, and we've failed time and again. A lot of the past was due to limited understanding and abilities (though not all by any means). Unfortunately, these days, we even have understanding and abilities to fix many things, yet we don't. Yes, humans are stewards and custodians, but not owners. Unfortunately, many people today think they're owners, not stewards or custodians.

 

It's good that you feel a responsibility towards maintaining and caring for the world's resources, even if you have a totally different motivation than I do. With things like conservation, it's the result that matters.
I would categorized the 'soul' as being based on cultural (religious) and moral values. It's intangible, and appears to be a man-made concept, from my perspective. Just like the terms right & wrong, good & evil, illegal, heaven & hell, impolite, monday, etcetc.

 

Id give you rep for that coineineagh, but its too soon since I last gave you rep, sorry

Anyway...

Actually, the creation myth in the bible is your standard Mesopotamian creation mythology, the only real difference between it and the Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian, etc, accounts is its lack of literary quality, it is your average poor quality copy of higher civilizations culture and literature by less civilized peoples on their borders. While the Sumerian culture was not the first civilization that lived in Mesopotamia, it was their culture that laid the foundation for the mythology and traditions of the bible. According to Sumerian creation mythology, humans were made from mud and were created to work for the gods, and their afterlife was a gloomy opposite shadow world. Every successive peoples that invaded the area adapted the local mythology and made it their own, and so over time the myth telling gained a life of its own. The creation story of the bible is in no way allegorical or anecdotal, it is literally how the ancient people saw themselves in the universe and accurately portrays the understanding of the world at that time, which is why it is written the way it is. It is no different from any other creation mythology that exists in every culture.

Everything about human nature is animal nature, everything about who we are, how we think, IS our animal nature. Everything about who we are IS our instinct, and everything about our behaviour IS purely physical. There is no distinction between natural and unnatural behaviour, only humans make these artificial distinctions. Every single thing about our nature is animal, because we are animal, and animals behave and act according to their animal natures.

So you reject your instinct to use language? Your instinct to pursue intellectually rewarding activities? Nearly every single part of human behaviour is instinct...the use of tools, language, arts, music, performance, story telling (ie mythology), and more, are our instinctual behaviours. But of course there is something done that differentiates us from 'wild' animals, we have become domesticated. The choice to reject instinct is observable in many other species of animals, and it can be defined on a mechanical level by the structuring of our brain. It is primarily our brain that makes human nature unique from other species, much the same as the metabolism and muscles of a cheetah makes cheetah nature unique from other species. The way we act is not any evidence in favour of souls existing because we see the beginnings of 'us' in the other great apes. In fact, you can look back probably even before Erectus and see the use of fire, which would indicate an overcoming of the fear of fire, and you can go back as far as Australopithecus and see the use of simple Oldowan tools. The use of fire and stone tools is clearly an adaptation of instinctual behaviour, but, in no way does this require a metaphysical soul to be present.

That is exactly the point...no work is being done. It was an entirely natural phenomenon that was being observed, and any addition of something akin to an invisible gardener is unnecessary. Life too is an entirely natural phenomenon, including humans. Nothing supernatural is going on at any level. Evolution is an entirely natural phenomenon, nothing supernatural is guiding evolution in any way whatsoever. Evolution is not goal-orientated. We got to where we are as a species by accident, by chance, by blind luck. We survived where other species of humans did not, we out competed other human species, and eventually we will either become extinct, or, there will be some sort of speciation event which will cause our descendants somewhere along the line to become new species, or a new species, depending on what the speciation event is.

Im not even going to bother commenting on your last part there NOG, it is nothing but a faith statement, which isnt wrong in itself, but is severely mistaken on the nature of who we are. As said before, evolution is not goal orientated, we were not designed to be anything other than to be good at making babies and stopping ourselves from being cold, hungry or dead.

Indeed, you hit the nail on the head. Most of the things we think, as a species, think of as being real things are nothing more than constructs of the mind, artificially constructed 'things'. It is just part of what makes us who we are as a species of animals. Along our evolutionary path in the past we learnt how to make tools with our hands to get at the marrow of carcasses, we certainly couldnt break the bones with our teeth or our hands. With tool making comes conceptualizing the tool, thinking about it in 3 dimensions, knowing where to hit, where not to hit, how to hit, how not to hit, what angles are optimal, what angles arent optimal, what stones are good and what stones arent good etc etc. For about 2 million years (I think, might be wrong), the tools of our ancestors did not show much imagination, they were simply a means to an end. However, doing this day in and day out for a very long time put pressure on our ancestors, natural selection. Over time our ancestors gradually became more and more like who we are now, through tiny incremental steps in conceptual abstract thinking. This allowed us to be the innovative animals we are today. Culture, and everything that came with it eventually, such as religion and mythology, are outward expressions of our minds, minds that were shaped by stone tools as much as we shaped the stones themselves.

Behavioural Modernity
I am a supporter of the Continuity Hypothesis, just so you all know...

 

Nataraja, based on what you have posted then it is natural and instinctual for human beings to believe in a higher power and to devise religious beliefs including that of the soul.