Having entered the period called "Lent" and heading toward Easter, it is instructive to examine the early history of Christianity. One of the enduring myths about the Christian religion is that it effectively sprung uniform and whole as if like Zeus from Mt. Olympus. Sure, there were a few minor squabbles, but the religion that later became one of the world's largest, to all intents, began as one more or less monolithic entity.
In fact this is a fairy tale that has no real scholarly support. What I'd like to do here is to provide a kind of concise history of early Christianity, up to about 300 AD. Most of the content has been extracted from some notes on Early Christian History (from Loyola) as well as three excellent books: The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve & The Serpent (by Elaine Pagels), and Lost Christianities, by scholar and former fundamentalist, Bart Ehrman.
The intent here is not to badmouth Christianity or diminish it, but to show it in its historic light, as opposed to the (often) fantastic, and ahistorical light many have used to portray it.
One of the aspects that most stands out is its eclectic nature. Contrary to being a font for monotheism, early Christianity was anything but. Nor had the "god Man" claim for Jesus yet become entrenched, as it did later (mainly compliments of Paul) in the institutional religion.
In terms of the eclectic nature, Prof. Ehrman points out (op. cit.) that "some of the early Christians believed in one God, some in two, and some others in thirty". He also expressed the divergence of belief concerning Jesus:
"There were some who believed Jesus' death brought about the world's salvation (likely the precursors of evangelicals who wouldn't appear in full bloom for another 17 centuries, and others who thought it had nothing to do with it. Others said Jesus never died. We examine here some of the chief Christian voices-groups in the early centuries."
Perhaps the first were the Ebionites, and also the earliest of the banned sects, later to be called "heretics". This group believed in Christ but saw him as the Jewish Messiah, sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of Jewish scriptures. This take (of Ehrman) also comports with that of Oxford Scholar Geza Vermes, who notes (in his monograph ‘The Authentic Gospel Of Jesus’ (page 415):
“The religion revealed by the authentic message of Jesus is straightforward, without complex dogmas, mythical images or self-centered mystical speculation. It resembles a race consisting only of the final ‘straight’ – demanding from the runners their last ounce of energy and with a winners’ medal prepared for all the JEWISH participants who cross the finishing line."
Vermes goes on to observe (ibid.) that Christianity seems to "belong to another world, with its mixture of high philosophical speculation on the triune God, its Johannine Logos mysticism, and Pauline Redeemer myth of a dying and risen Son of God"
But why express surprise here? The fact is the myth of a redeemer god -Man had been in the cultural -religious zeitgeist (for example with the Mithraic pagans) for over twelve centuries. If a new faith wanted to claim exclusivity or unique gravitas and "separate from the pack" so to speak, it couldn't do better than to appropriate the same god -Man myth then weave it into its textual accounts. Readers of an inquiring mind couldn't do better than to access the Yale University Religious Study course lectures below:
The Historical Jesus
Arguing with Paul?
In line with the above, Jesus for the Ebionites was not a member of an eternal Trinity, but rather an ordinary man who kept Jewish law to perfection. As for their sacred text - accepted by them- it excluded the Gospel of John (which many current biblical historians have trouble with as well, partly for its elaborations - like on the trial of Jesus - which no other synoptic gospel discloses) while it retained most of the Old Testament and the Gospel of Matthew.
It's also noteworthy here, that the Ebionites - like the Gnostics- had a particular dislike for Paul, and also like the Gnostics viewed him as "the enemy" for his claim that all of Jewish law was rendered irrelevant by belief in Christ.
The Marcionites were another early Christian group, founded by a shipping magnate, Marcion, ca. 139 AD in Rome. Here, in this manifestation, we find the first appearance of the "double God", later circulated also by the Gnostics. The Marcionites thus accepted the world was created by an "evil God" (the one described in the Old Testament, in his various assorted genocides etc.) and that this evil god imposed a death sentence on humanity when it could not meet its impossibly high demands. In juxtaposition to the evil god was the "God of Jesus" and by belief in him, humans could escape from the vindictive wrath of the evil god. Those who did not, would remain in the evil god's clutches and join him in hell. (Again, we find exact resonances of this in modern evangelical Christianity who worship the same evil God in the OT. At least I've never heard or seen any of them reject him!)
Perhaps the most developed Christian group at the time, with the most refined philosophy and belief system, were the Gnostics. At least a few scholars speculate in fact that Gnosticism is at least partially an offshoot from early Greek philosophy. To summarize the Gnostic take:
'The world is essentially a cesspool and we're all mired in filth and ignorance. We all came from somewhere else, and salvation is finding our way back."
Like the Marcionites, the Gnostics believed an evil and inferior god ruled over the world (and also created our bodies). They called it demiurgos. Existentially, it was roughly on a par with Satan. So the evil god and Satan formed an evil twin duo. Gnostics, in terms of their scriptures and what they believed, penned their own "Gnostic Gospels". They rejected the Old Testament as antiquated rubbish about the demiurgos, while they rejected much of the New Testament because of the Pauline wording corruptions, and references to Jesus as "savior". They believed none of this was original, but the work of Paul's copyist henchmen.
Their core belief was that at the last instant of manifest existence a higher, supreme God would appear and insert into each of us his spark of divinity. At this stage, we would each attain a high enough level of knowledge (gnosis) to conquer our attachment to material reality and become Christs unto ourselves.
Thus, in the Gnostics, we see the first emergence of a totally different version of "Christ" from what Paul taught and circulated. Pagels observes ('The Gnostic Gospels', Vintage-Random House, 1979), p. 124 :
"While Pauline Catholics taught a reality of 'sin' and that 'Jesus alone could deliver healing and forgiveness of sins', the Gnostics on the contrary, insisted that ignorance, not sin, is what involves a person in suffering. The gnostic movement shared in this certain affinities with contemporary methods of exploring the self through psychotherapeutic techniques."
Also(p. 125):
"Whoever remains ignorant... cannot experience fulfilment. Gnostics said that such a person 'dwells in deficiency'. For deficiency consists of ignorance."
Perhaps the most daring, and threatening proposition of the Gnostics, was their belief in gnosis, or the 'de-localization' of Christhood. Why? Because if the (Institutional-doctrinal) Church accepted this, they'd have to surrender their coveted power wielded via intermediaries (priests, bishops, cardinals, etc.). Paul knew this full well, which he fought against the Gnostics' egalitarian Christhood with all his might. There was no way he'd accept that every human could become a Christ in his own right.
Pagels echoing the principle of gnosis (ibid., p.134):
"Whoever achieves gnosis becomes no longer a Christian, but a Christ."
Even today, Gnostic churches exist, despite Paul's effort to wipe them out. In Barbados, a large Gnostic church still remains not far from the Constitution River in Bridgetown. When I last visited, at least three members declared that they were nearly at the level of "Christhood".
In effect, in the Gnostic teachings, anyone had the capacity to become 'a Christ'. Pauline Catholicism, meanwhile - held there could be only one, on which all others had to depend for 'salvation'. The Gnostics, for their part, regarded the Pauline teachings of a unique god-Man as utter blasphemy. NO mere human (which they regarded Jesus) could also be God, but each human could eventually become a limited divine manifestation known as Christ. (They did allow Jesus might have reached that stage before other humans)
Pagels goes on (ibid.):
"We can see, then, that such gnosticism was more than a protest movement against orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism also included a religious perspective that implicitly opposed the development of the kind of institution that became the early Catholic Church. Those who expected to 'become Christs' themselves were not likely to recognize the institutional structures of the church -its bishops, priests, creed, canon, or ritual - as bearing ultimate authority."
For this reason, As Pagels notes (p. 102), the Catholic orthodoxy and tradition (including many Church Fathers such as Tertullian- the original theocon) saw fit to consistently denounce the Gnostics "while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves." And of course, we had the likes of the unscrupulous idiot Irenaeus calling them 'frauds'. (Pagels, p. 17) To serve his own purposes of course!
One is left to wonder, why - if the Church and St. Paul felt so self-righteous, they had to destroy and suppress the Gnostic gospels and writings. Was their Church so weak and tepid that it couldn't co-exist? Seems so. Just like today's evangelicals are evidently so weak and tepid that they can't tolerate and co-exist with other Christian groups.
In any case, by the 4th century AD the early eclecticism had nearly vanished and an institutional Pauline Christianity ended up the prime descendant of the original teachings and a religion which had essentially succeeded in wiping out or suppressing all groups not centralized in Rome. The major turning point was undoubtedly the "Edict of Milan" which removed all penalties for professing Pauline Christianity.
The latter subsequently achieved immense strength as it became the official religion of Rome, thanks to aligning itself with many elements of the Roman Sol Invictus (Sun worship) cult including adopting the same date for Its Nativity: the Winters Solstice or Dec. 25th. See also:
Revisiting The Origin Of Christmas & Sol Invictus
The rest as they say, is history, though historians such as Edward Gibbons have linked the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to its uneasy integration with the Pauline variant of Christianity.
See also:
How the early Pauline Christians invented “Jesus t...
Showing posts with label demiurgos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label demiurgos. Show all posts
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Yes, People Should Fear The Woodland Park Fundie Invasion!
"I grew up in Woodland Park and still live in the area. My family and I will not want to engage any of these people on the street trying to convert us. Besides doing our banking from a drive-up window, I do not foresee us doing any business in Woodland Park again. I would rather not support a town that in turn supports a man who believes HIV people should be put to death.
Additionally, the fact that he believes (according to the article) that he can make dead people come alive is absurd" - S. Platt in Colorado Springs Independent, Dec. 25, p. 4
The letter writer was referencing the setting up of a "bible college" (probably like 'Smokehouse Online Bible College' in FLA) in Woodland Park, not far from us. It is being pushed by one Andrew Wommack, best known for instigating a 'kill the gays' bill in Uganda (since revised to 'only' life imprisonment). If it had passed, the original form of the law would have allowed the execution of all HIV-positive LGBT people in that country. It would also punish friends, family members, and co-workers who don't report LGBT people to police within 24 hours. This is what we secular folk are supposed to "tolerate" of our nutty Xtianoid Fundie brethren. But, as anyone knows, the basic premise of tolerance is that one is not obliged to tolerate intolerance, especially as evinced in the pending Uganda bill. That is the paradox of it.
The letter writer himself is correct to be concerned, because if Wommack's entity is spawned it means the little burg will be directly supporting extremists and nuts who seek to spread "knowledge" but are really spreading bunkum about "demons", "conversion" and other bollocks. The paradox of the fundagelical morons is that they can't even see the paradoxes of their own bible-based morality. For example, they rant and rave about abortion and "preserving life", yet are willing to pass a law to permit gays (born that way on account of genetics) to be executed.
These fundagelical reprobates actually believe their Bibles contain their moral answers. But if they knew the actual content, I can’t see why they’d do that! For instance, 2 Kings 2, 23:24 allows children to be slain by wild animals if they insult their elders or any authority (in this case a prophet). Thus, the Bible is not offering any kind of absolutist moral teaching, but rather more plausibly regurgitating the bloodthirsty thoughts of the vengeful, limited-minded human who wrote it. Why can't fundies see that? Likely because, like Andrew Womack, their brains are as bloodthirsty as the OT writers.
Similarly, by Deut. 22:22 both John Edwards and his former girlfriend (Riele Hunter) would have been stoned to death. The bible fails here by flouting the absolutist code for 'No killing' (in the 10 commandments) and even worse, allowing it for adultery.
Meanwhile, by Deut. 21: 18-21 we read[1]:
So, any insolent or intemperate son would have to be taken to the outskirts of a city by his parents who'd let the elders stone him to death. While the modernist may think this insane, there are actually fundamentalist Christian apologists who seek to parse it in a way that makes it palatable! The Website for The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) claims, for example[2],
But these rationalizations amount to nonsense. ”Exacting requirements of the law” is in reality no different from the harsh Muslim Sharia law where thieves get their limbs hacked off or women are whipped to death for adultery. Just because “God” allegedly proclaimed it doesn’t make it morally right and indeed, this is a justifiable basis to question whether this is any real God at all, as opposed to a phantasm percolating in the temporal lobes of an ancient brain. Somewhat similar to the modern schizophrenic or psychotic who claims: “God told me to kill that child!”
The appeal to “grace” is also fulsome and not required, nor is any invocation of "the cross", since even if a historical Jesus actually existed and suffered crucifixion there’s no evidence of a God-man or Savior[3]. The obsession with rebellion and family order isn’t compelling either, given multifold alternatives existed that didn’t require slaying the son. In addition, one can rightfully argue that the apologists are resorting to a slippery slope logical fallacy with the claim that a simple family issue would metastasize into a national rebellion and putatively “failure of prophecies” if the extreme sanction hadn’t been enforced. In any case, the matter of the reality of biblical prophecies also must be questioned, especially whether their fulfillment is always in terms of ex post facto confabulation by zealous scribes using already existing Old Testament pointers.
My point is that the bible cannot be an arbiter of moral authority, far less absolute authority. A more serious and adult take on the whole issue of the biblical God is offered by Lloyd Graham in his 'Deceptions and Myths of the Bible':
"Man owes God nothing, not even thanks. Whatever is, exists because of necessity and not divine sufferance. And whatever exists suffers because of nondivine Causation. Our world is full of suffering, tragedy, disease, disaster, pain; we demand a better reason than religion has to offer. "
Perhaps for this reason, Graham insists that it is the de facto creations – humankind- who are the genuine authors of workable morality (dynamic justness not moral justice) not the claimed Maker portrayed in the Bible. Religious scholar Elaine Pagels makes much the same point in her book, The Gnostic Gospels, pointing out that the Gnostics regarded the biblical deity as a degenerate sub- being which they called demiurgos..
Again, both Graham’s epigenetic god and the Gnostics' demiurgos are crude God-concepts, hence must be viewed in the light of limited human brains, deficient in their own aspirations to truth or even testability. The danger is that when moral or ethical testability is absent, then uncontained absolutism can result - with devastating consequences. Jacob Bronowski has maintained that because human knowledge is limited, and further - the human brain is limited in its processing capacity- one must temper expectations and especially refrain from absolutist moral judgments. The reason is that only partial aspects will be glimpsed and then invoked to fabricate a false or pseudo morality. As Bronowski has put it:
"The Principle of Uncertainty or, in my phrase the Principle of Tolerance, fixed once and for all the realization that all knowledge is limited."
The question is how long it will take for those like Andrew Wommack to get this into their thick craniums.
[3] This is the take of Biblical scholar and member of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, with whom I concur when he refers to the historical Jesus as a Mediterranean “peasant Jewish Cynic”. Such Cynics were “hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies”. See: Crossan: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, 421.
Additionally, the fact that he believes (according to the article) that he can make dead people come alive is absurd" - S. Platt in Colorado Springs Independent, Dec. 25, p. 4
The letter writer was referencing the setting up of a "bible college" (probably like 'Smokehouse Online Bible College' in FLA) in Woodland Park, not far from us. It is being pushed by one Andrew Wommack, best known for instigating a 'kill the gays' bill in Uganda (since revised to 'only' life imprisonment). If it had passed, the original form of the law would have allowed the execution of all HIV-positive LGBT people in that country. It would also punish friends, family members, and co-workers who don't report LGBT people to police within 24 hours. This is what we secular folk are supposed to "tolerate" of our nutty Xtianoid Fundie brethren. But, as anyone knows, the basic premise of tolerance is that one is not obliged to tolerate intolerance, especially as evinced in the pending Uganda bill. That is the paradox of it.
The letter writer himself is correct to be concerned, because if Wommack's entity is spawned it means the little burg will be directly supporting extremists and nuts who seek to spread "knowledge" but are really spreading bunkum about "demons", "conversion" and other bollocks. The paradox of the fundagelical morons is that they can't even see the paradoxes of their own bible-based morality. For example, they rant and rave about abortion and "preserving life", yet are willing to pass a law to permit gays (born that way on account of genetics) to be executed.
These fundagelical reprobates actually believe their Bibles contain their moral answers. But if they knew the actual content, I can’t see why they’d do that! For instance, 2 Kings 2, 23:24 allows children to be slain by wild animals if they insult their elders or any authority (in this case a prophet). Thus, the Bible is not offering any kind of absolutist moral teaching, but rather more plausibly regurgitating the bloodthirsty thoughts of the vengeful, limited-minded human who wrote it. Why can't fundies see that? Likely because, like Andrew Womack, their brains are as bloodthirsty as the OT writers.
Similarly, by Deut. 22:22 both John Edwards and his former girlfriend (Riele Hunter) would have been stoned to death. The bible fails here by flouting the absolutist code for 'No killing' (in the 10 commandments) and even worse, allowing it for adultery.
Meanwhile, by Deut. 21: 18-21 we read[1]:
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice
of his father, or the voice of his mother, and when they chastise him, he will
not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and that,
when they chasten him will not hearken
unto them; Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him
out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. . And
they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and
rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ And all the
men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put
evil away from among you, and all Israel
So, any insolent or intemperate son would have to be taken to the outskirts of a city by his parents who'd let the elders stone him to death. While the modernist may think this insane, there are actually fundamentalist Christian apologists who seek to parse it in a way that makes it palatable! The Website for The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) claims, for example[2],
"In the Old Testament God
appears harsh for three reasons. First, it was to demonstrate the exacting
requirements of the Law, a perfect and demanding standard. Second, it
ultimately demonstrates the need for grace that would eventually be manifested
on the cross. Third, should rebellion take root the very heart of the gospel
would be at risk since the prophecies of the Messiah coming to and through Israel
But these rationalizations amount to nonsense. ”Exacting requirements of the law” is in reality no different from the harsh Muslim Sharia law where thieves get their limbs hacked off or women are whipped to death for adultery. Just because “God” allegedly proclaimed it doesn’t make it morally right and indeed, this is a justifiable basis to question whether this is any real God at all, as opposed to a phantasm percolating in the temporal lobes of an ancient brain. Somewhat similar to the modern schizophrenic or psychotic who claims: “God told me to kill that child!”
The appeal to “grace” is also fulsome and not required, nor is any invocation of "the cross", since even if a historical Jesus actually existed and suffered crucifixion there’s no evidence of a God-man or Savior[3]. The obsession with rebellion and family order isn’t compelling either, given multifold alternatives existed that didn’t require slaying the son. In addition, one can rightfully argue that the apologists are resorting to a slippery slope logical fallacy with the claim that a simple family issue would metastasize into a national rebellion and putatively “failure of prophecies” if the extreme sanction hadn’t been enforced. In any case, the matter of the reality of biblical prophecies also must be questioned, especially whether their fulfillment is always in terms of ex post facto confabulation by zealous scribes using already existing Old Testament pointers.
My point is that the bible cannot be an arbiter of moral authority, far less absolute authority. A more serious and adult take on the whole issue of the biblical God is offered by Lloyd Graham in his 'Deceptions and Myths of the Bible':
"Man owes God nothing, not even thanks. Whatever is, exists because of necessity and not divine sufferance. And whatever exists suffers because of nondivine Causation. Our world is full of suffering, tragedy, disease, disaster, pain; we demand a better reason than religion has to offer. "
Perhaps for this reason, Graham insists that it is the de facto creations – humankind- who are the genuine authors of workable morality (dynamic justness not moral justice) not the claimed Maker portrayed in the Bible. Religious scholar Elaine Pagels makes much the same point in her book, The Gnostic Gospels, pointing out that the Gnostics regarded the biblical deity as a degenerate sub- being which they called demiurgos..
Again, both Graham’s epigenetic god and the Gnostics' demiurgos are crude God-concepts, hence must be viewed in the light of limited human brains, deficient in their own aspirations to truth or even testability. The danger is that when moral or ethical testability is absent, then uncontained absolutism can result - with devastating consequences. Jacob Bronowski has maintained that because human knowledge is limited, and further - the human brain is limited in its processing capacity- one must temper expectations and especially refrain from absolutist moral judgments. The reason is that only partial aspects will be glimpsed and then invoked to fabricate a false or pseudo morality. As Bronowski has put it:
"The Principle of Uncertainty or, in my phrase the Principle of Tolerance, fixed once and for all the realization that all knowledge is limited."
The question is how long it will take for those like Andrew Wommack to get this into their thick craniums.
[1]
Deuteronomy, The Old Testament, 321 (The Authorized King James version)
[2] See, e.g.
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/stone-rebellious-son
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
"Evil" - the natural outcome of innate brain defects
While assorted religious crazies and insane people foment their fake umbrage at "evil" (some so insane that they go so far as to invent a personality to embody it, e.g. "Satan") more level -headed and rational beings have always been aware it's a con. "Evil" exists, but not as an infinite negative absolute, or personified in an entity, but rather as a dynamic of our own brain.
What people refer to as “evil” is easily explainable in terms of brain evolution. Thus, Homo Sapiens is fundamentally an animal species with a host of animal/primitive instincts residing in its ancient brain or paleocortex.
Meanwhile, the paleocortex sits evolutionarily beneath the more evolved mesocortex and neocortex, the latter of which crafts concepts and language. One clever person has compared this tri-partite brain structure to a car design welding a Lamborghini to a Model T Ford chassis, with a 1957 Chevy engine to power the Lamborghini. If an automotive engineer can conceive of such a hybrid beast, I'd be interested to know exactly how he thinks it would run.
Given the preceding brain structural defect, there is much evidence that the aggregate of human behavior will get progressively worse as the complexity inherent in technological and globalized societies increases, but brain evolution is unable to keep pace with it. Basically, we are a species with the capability of making nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles – but with Cro-Magnon brains – and a swatch of reptilian tendencies.
Indeed, the mixed brain design, in terms of adaptability to technological society, is already theorized as one major cause of depression and mental illness in such societies (e.g. The Noonday Demon, Chapter 11, ‘Evolution’, p 401)
The behavior resulting from this hybrid brain is bound to be morally mixed, reflecting the fact that we literally have three “brains” contending for emergence in one cranium. Behavior will therefore range from the most selfless acts (not to mention creative masterpieces) to savagery, carnal lust run amuck and addictions that paralyze purpose.
The mistake of the religionist is to associate the first mode of behavior with being “human” and not the latter. In effect, disowning most of the possible behaviors of which humans are capable.- and hence nine tenths of what makes us what we are. Worse, not only disowning these behaviors – but ascribing them to some antagonistic dark or negative force (“Satan”) thereby making them into a religious abstraction.
The neocortex then goes into over-drive, propelled by its ability to craft words for which no correspondents may exist in reality. Suddenly, our “souls” are at risk of being “lost” to “Satan” who will then fry us in “Hell”. In effect, the religionist’s higher brain centers divide reality into forces of darkness and light, just like the ancient Manicheans.
As the divide grows and persists, certain behaviorally idealistic expectations come to the fore, and a mass of negative or primitive actions is relegated to “evil”. Humans tuned in to this Zeitgeist, which is soon circulated everywhere, being to suppress all behaviors that they regard as defective or “sinful”. They don’t realize or appreciate that humans are risen apes, and not “fallen angels”.
Are we all “sinners” as assorted fundamentalist crazies and zealots claim? No, we’re an animal species saddled with a tri-partite brain whose higher centers often become self aware of the gulf between the base, atavistic and primitive behaviors (emanating from the reptilian brain) and the ideal, non-atavistic behavior conceived by the neocortex. The neocortical language centers then craft the term “sin” to depict the gulf between one and the other.
In this context, the concept of “sin” makes eminent sense. Sin emerges as the label placed on specific brands and forms of “evil”. In reality, “Sin” itself is predicated on an exaggerated importance of humans in the universe. Thus, it elevates (albeit in a perverse way) the importance of humans in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. With “sin” the overly self-important and morally smug, self-righteous human has at least the potential of offending his deity – thereby getting its attention – as opposed to being relegated to the status of a cosmic “roach” (which any advanced alien sentience would regard us). "Sin" is thus an attention getter to a Big Cosmic Daddy.
“Sin” then is localized and reactive behavior at the personal, individual level. “Sin” impinges on and affects the deity that so many believe in. Take away the deity, and sin loses its allure and quickly becomes redundant. How can there be “sin” if there is no deity to offend or to notice “sin”? To tote up all the little “black marks” in its “book of future judgment”.
“The Devil” or “Satan” is simply the projection of the most primitive brain imperatives onto the external world. And yes, this imperative (which I will soon get to in more detail) is capable of mass murder as well as genocides. A supernatural Satan need not be invoked here, only the ancient brain residue of reptiles – acting collectively – aided and abetted by a newly perverted neocortex, which now does the reptile brain’s bidding, as opposed to attempting to halt it.
In fundies' parlance, this projected entity is indeed “like a lion seeking someone to devour”. Think of the T-Rex and its insatiable appetite for flesh. Think of components and aspects of the T-Rex brain in each of us. Lying in wait for the right trigger to set it off – like in the Virginia Tech massacre. Now, project that horror and its instincts to tear, rip and kill anything different or vulnerable outside yourself. Voila! We have "the Devil” incarnate. Only really a psychological embolism adorned in reptile tendencies we have within us. So alien and terrifying we have to project it outside to a nameless “Devil”. Too horrific to take ownership of!
Interestingly, some authors turn these concepts back on themselves and arrive at mind-boggling conclusions. The authors of the book ‘Mean Genes” for example, make the case that genetic imperatives often drive the most fundamental (epigenetic) morality. The hybrid brain in this sense is merely the facilitator of the genes’ imperatives. Perhaps there is a method behind the “madness” of the brain’s disjunctive function: To aid and abet a primal, epigenetic morality.
On the local level, the genetic imperative means I protect my family first in the event of disaster. The welfare of others is secondary, given limitations of time and resources. It is my family’s genes that must prevail. To the extent they do, epigenetic morality is satisfied. A certain pool of genes has increased its survival value.
In the larger societal sense and deformed to an extreme, the epigenetic imperative leads to horrors such as the Holocaust, where Jews were depicted as inimical genetic “aliens” to “true Germans” and the German Fatherland. (In a trip to Germany in 1985, I still found a number of WWII era Germans who accepted this.) And hence could be dispensed with as serious threats, once their own humanity was removed. Likewise, the genetic imperative running amuck explains the Rwandan genocide, where Tutsis could be dispensed with as the “genetic aliens” to the REAL Rwandans, the Hutus. (In this case, Hutu talk radio played a key role in spreading the memes for the epigenetic morality- another reason why we may be well advised to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine" in this country - to allow opposing viewpoints to be aired in the same time spots as the most off the wall talk radio screeds.)
Examining these genocides at the detached, objective level one cannot but help notice the analogies with ant (or bee) species that invade the habitats (e.g. hives) of others, kill them, make off with their queens and seize their resources.
In this sense, the epigenetic morality and imperative emerges as the real “god” articulated in the Bible, while the perfecto, “goody two shoes” posturer (invented later by the clever, angelic leaning neocortex) is the fake. This was the contention of author Lloyd Graham in the last chapter of his book, ‘Deceptions and Myths of the Bible’, 1979.
For example, as Graham observes (p. 315):
“Satan is matter and its energies and the (Temptation of Jesus in the desert) story is but a mythologist’s way of telling us…that in the inanimate world matter and energy dominate….The only consciousness here is the epigenetic and this is – as yet- wholly incapable of controlling violent forces. This explains why our imaginary God of love and mercy allows these forces to destroy us”.
Graham’s depiction of the material and epigenetic god is one embedded in carnal lusts, revenge and avarice – so how can humanity be any different?
As Graham earlier notes (p. 272):
“Man owes God nothing, not even thanks. Whatever is, exists because of necessity and not divine sufferance. And whatever exists suffers because of nondivine Causation. Our world is full of suffering, tragedy, disease, disaster, pain; we demand a better reason than religion has to offer.”
Perhaps for this reason, Graham insists that it is the de facto “creations” – humankind- who are the genuine authors of workable morality (“dynamic justness” not moral justice) not the claimed “Maker”.
Religious scholar Elaine Pagels makes much the same point in her book, ‘The Gnostic Gospels’ pointing out that the Gnostics regarded the biblical deity as a degenerate sub- being which they called “demiurgos”.
Of course, the Christian reading this will no doubt chime in: “What about free will? Can we not resist the epigenetic imperative?”
Maybe, but it’s by no means clear that any such entity as “free will” exists other than in limited domains. (E.g. I have the “free will” to choose a vegetarian diet over an all mear diet)
Even Einstein, writing in his marvelous book ‘Ideas and Opinions’ was suspicious that humans were genuinely free agents. As he noted:
“The man who is thoroughly convinced of universal causation …..has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity – internal and external- so that he cannot be responsible….any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motion it undergoes"
The beauty of atheism is that it dispenses with both demiurgos (the petulant genetic “evil god”) and “Satan”, and atheists emerge as grown up enough to assume responsibility for their own actions, rather than whining that “the devil made me do it” or worse, projecting Satanic motives and attributes onto fellow beings. (We know where that sort of demonization leads!) We know the real “devil” inheres in those untamed genetic imperatives, and we also know that to the extent we are self-aware – we can often defeat the more parochial and self-serving tendencies and sometimes aspire to greatness. Leap-frogging and circumventing our human limits.
Thereby we can avoid blaming every major human tragedy and back step on some imagined supernatural “dark force” permeating existence and just waiting to catch us unawares.
There is a dark “force” in the cosmos and we call it “dark energy”. But it is something that can be discerned by physics and has no supernatural attributes. Intelligent humans would do best to invest their time investigating the nature and mystery of dark energy, rather than squandering time on silly phantasmagorias and fabrications of the mind like “Satan” and “evil”.
What people refer to as “evil” is easily explainable in terms of brain evolution. Thus, Homo Sapiens is fundamentally an animal species with a host of animal/primitive instincts residing in its ancient brain or paleocortex.
Meanwhile, the paleocortex sits evolutionarily beneath the more evolved mesocortex and neocortex, the latter of which crafts concepts and language. One clever person has compared this tri-partite brain structure to a car design welding a Lamborghini to a Model T Ford chassis, with a 1957 Chevy engine to power the Lamborghini. If an automotive engineer can conceive of such a hybrid beast, I'd be interested to know exactly how he thinks it would run.
Given the preceding brain structural defect, there is much evidence that the aggregate of human behavior will get progressively worse as the complexity inherent in technological and globalized societies increases, but brain evolution is unable to keep pace with it. Basically, we are a species with the capability of making nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles – but with Cro-Magnon brains – and a swatch of reptilian tendencies.
Indeed, the mixed brain design, in terms of adaptability to technological society, is already theorized as one major cause of depression and mental illness in such societies (e.g. The Noonday Demon, Chapter 11, ‘Evolution’, p 401)
The behavior resulting from this hybrid brain is bound to be morally mixed, reflecting the fact that we literally have three “brains” contending for emergence in one cranium. Behavior will therefore range from the most selfless acts (not to mention creative masterpieces) to savagery, carnal lust run amuck and addictions that paralyze purpose.
The mistake of the religionist is to associate the first mode of behavior with being “human” and not the latter. In effect, disowning most of the possible behaviors of which humans are capable.- and hence nine tenths of what makes us what we are. Worse, not only disowning these behaviors – but ascribing them to some antagonistic dark or negative force (“Satan”) thereby making them into a religious abstraction.
The neocortex then goes into over-drive, propelled by its ability to craft words for which no correspondents may exist in reality. Suddenly, our “souls” are at risk of being “lost” to “Satan” who will then fry us in “Hell”. In effect, the religionist’s higher brain centers divide reality into forces of darkness and light, just like the ancient Manicheans.
As the divide grows and persists, certain behaviorally idealistic expectations come to the fore, and a mass of negative or primitive actions is relegated to “evil”. Humans tuned in to this Zeitgeist, which is soon circulated everywhere, being to suppress all behaviors that they regard as defective or “sinful”. They don’t realize or appreciate that humans are risen apes, and not “fallen angels”.
Are we all “sinners” as assorted fundamentalist crazies and zealots claim? No, we’re an animal species saddled with a tri-partite brain whose higher centers often become self aware of the gulf between the base, atavistic and primitive behaviors (emanating from the reptilian brain) and the ideal, non-atavistic behavior conceived by the neocortex. The neocortical language centers then craft the term “sin” to depict the gulf between one and the other.
In this context, the concept of “sin” makes eminent sense. Sin emerges as the label placed on specific brands and forms of “evil”. In reality, “Sin” itself is predicated on an exaggerated importance of humans in the universe. Thus, it elevates (albeit in a perverse way) the importance of humans in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. With “sin” the overly self-important and morally smug, self-righteous human has at least the potential of offending his deity – thereby getting its attention – as opposed to being relegated to the status of a cosmic “roach” (which any advanced alien sentience would regard us). "Sin" is thus an attention getter to a Big Cosmic Daddy.
“Sin” then is localized and reactive behavior at the personal, individual level. “Sin” impinges on and affects the deity that so many believe in. Take away the deity, and sin loses its allure and quickly becomes redundant. How can there be “sin” if there is no deity to offend or to notice “sin”? To tote up all the little “black marks” in its “book of future judgment”.
“The Devil” or “Satan” is simply the projection of the most primitive brain imperatives onto the external world. And yes, this imperative (which I will soon get to in more detail) is capable of mass murder as well as genocides. A supernatural Satan need not be invoked here, only the ancient brain residue of reptiles – acting collectively – aided and abetted by a newly perverted neocortex, which now does the reptile brain’s bidding, as opposed to attempting to halt it.
In fundies' parlance, this projected entity is indeed “like a lion seeking someone to devour”. Think of the T-Rex and its insatiable appetite for flesh. Think of components and aspects of the T-Rex brain in each of us. Lying in wait for the right trigger to set it off – like in the Virginia Tech massacre. Now, project that horror and its instincts to tear, rip and kill anything different or vulnerable outside yourself. Voila! We have "the Devil” incarnate. Only really a psychological embolism adorned in reptile tendencies we have within us. So alien and terrifying we have to project it outside to a nameless “Devil”. Too horrific to take ownership of!
Interestingly, some authors turn these concepts back on themselves and arrive at mind-boggling conclusions. The authors of the book ‘Mean Genes” for example, make the case that genetic imperatives often drive the most fundamental (epigenetic) morality. The hybrid brain in this sense is merely the facilitator of the genes’ imperatives. Perhaps there is a method behind the “madness” of the brain’s disjunctive function: To aid and abet a primal, epigenetic morality.
On the local level, the genetic imperative means I protect my family first in the event of disaster. The welfare of others is secondary, given limitations of time and resources. It is my family’s genes that must prevail. To the extent they do, epigenetic morality is satisfied. A certain pool of genes has increased its survival value.
In the larger societal sense and deformed to an extreme, the epigenetic imperative leads to horrors such as the Holocaust, where Jews were depicted as inimical genetic “aliens” to “true Germans” and the German Fatherland. (In a trip to Germany in 1985, I still found a number of WWII era Germans who accepted this.) And hence could be dispensed with as serious threats, once their own humanity was removed. Likewise, the genetic imperative running amuck explains the Rwandan genocide, where Tutsis could be dispensed with as the “genetic aliens” to the REAL Rwandans, the Hutus. (In this case, Hutu talk radio played a key role in spreading the memes for the epigenetic morality- another reason why we may be well advised to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine" in this country - to allow opposing viewpoints to be aired in the same time spots as the most off the wall talk radio screeds.)
Examining these genocides at the detached, objective level one cannot but help notice the analogies with ant (or bee) species that invade the habitats (e.g. hives) of others, kill them, make off with their queens and seize their resources.
In this sense, the epigenetic morality and imperative emerges as the real “god” articulated in the Bible, while the perfecto, “goody two shoes” posturer (invented later by the clever, angelic leaning neocortex) is the fake. This was the contention of author Lloyd Graham in the last chapter of his book, ‘Deceptions and Myths of the Bible’, 1979.
For example, as Graham observes (p. 315):
“Satan is matter and its energies and the (Temptation of Jesus in the desert) story is but a mythologist’s way of telling us…that in the inanimate world matter and energy dominate….The only consciousness here is the epigenetic and this is – as yet- wholly incapable of controlling violent forces. This explains why our imaginary God of love and mercy allows these forces to destroy us”.
Graham’s depiction of the material and epigenetic god is one embedded in carnal lusts, revenge and avarice – so how can humanity be any different?
As Graham earlier notes (p. 272):
“Man owes God nothing, not even thanks. Whatever is, exists because of necessity and not divine sufferance. And whatever exists suffers because of nondivine Causation. Our world is full of suffering, tragedy, disease, disaster, pain; we demand a better reason than religion has to offer.”
Perhaps for this reason, Graham insists that it is the de facto “creations” – humankind- who are the genuine authors of workable morality (“dynamic justness” not moral justice) not the claimed “Maker”.
Religious scholar Elaine Pagels makes much the same point in her book, ‘The Gnostic Gospels’ pointing out that the Gnostics regarded the biblical deity as a degenerate sub- being which they called “demiurgos”.
Of course, the Christian reading this will no doubt chime in: “What about free will? Can we not resist the epigenetic imperative?”
Maybe, but it’s by no means clear that any such entity as “free will” exists other than in limited domains. (E.g. I have the “free will” to choose a vegetarian diet over an all mear diet)
Even Einstein, writing in his marvelous book ‘Ideas and Opinions’ was suspicious that humans were genuinely free agents. As he noted:
“The man who is thoroughly convinced of universal causation …..has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity – internal and external- so that he cannot be responsible….any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motion it undergoes"
The beauty of atheism is that it dispenses with both demiurgos (the petulant genetic “evil god”) and “Satan”, and atheists emerge as grown up enough to assume responsibility for their own actions, rather than whining that “the devil made me do it” or worse, projecting Satanic motives and attributes onto fellow beings. (We know where that sort of demonization leads!) We know the real “devil” inheres in those untamed genetic imperatives, and we also know that to the extent we are self-aware – we can often defeat the more parochial and self-serving tendencies and sometimes aspire to greatness. Leap-frogging and circumventing our human limits.
Thereby we can avoid blaming every major human tragedy and back step on some imagined supernatural “dark force” permeating existence and just waiting to catch us unawares.
There is a dark “force” in the cosmos and we call it “dark energy”. But it is something that can be discerned by physics and has no supernatural attributes. Intelligent humans would do best to invest their time investigating the nature and mystery of dark energy, rather than squandering time on silly phantasmagorias and fabrications of the mind like “Satan” and “evil”.
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