Good morning reader,
- I have been pondering over life for, probably all my life and I will, for sure, go on doing so for the rest of it too. The thing is that there are ‘things’ that I am not comfortable with, and I like it that way. I mean to talk about ‘spiritual and philosophical’ concepts here, because I do not condone the world.
- What? This is the stupidest statement I have ever heard! How can you not?
- I did not mean it like that.
- So say what you mean, why don’t you!
- I do not condone what ‘her’ species has done to the world…
- Yes, yes. We talked about that the other day.
- Okay, moving on. ‘She’ has been reading weird articles a few months back and as part of ‘her’, I’ve got a glimpse of a very strange universe, to which ‘she’ – therefore you and I – are supposed to belong and to which I feel particularly estranged.
- First of all, stop mentioning ‘her’, the reader knows we are ‘her’ by now so stand up for YOUR opinion…
- Fair enough…
- Second of all, would you care developing?
- Obviously I would, wouldn’t I? I’d not start babbling in the first place otherwise, now would I.
- So you say…
- Anyway, everything started when I began thinking existentialism or something of the sort.
- Big word…
- Yes! And what it all means, you know, life… us and our purpose. By the by, remind me later about ‘everything is connected’.
- Will do.
- As I was saying, I think all the time about life, from one point of view to another, and my thoughts on it grow but never really change nor get any closer to an answer.
- Bummer.
- One would think so but, I am starting to suspect that I will never get one and more importantly, that I am not supposed to anyhow…which, is fine by me I might add.
- If you say so…
- Hmm. All in all, I always end up wondering about God at some point.
- Like I didn’t see that one coming…
- Oh, shut it! This reminds me of French artist Michel Berger who said in one of his songs: ‘If God does not exist, the bastard’. Sometime later, he was forced to explain himself for shocked fans and said what he really meant: ‘If God does not exist, he really is a bastard.’ (Original quote is in French and from the song ‘Mandoline’ – 1983 – WEA)
- Interesting idea.
- I think so too and I have pondered over his/her existence for a long time.
- Have you come to know more then?
- I have not and I am not sure anyone should either; you know with what they call freewill and all. Regardless, it almost feels like an irrefutable truth that one should not even try and prove it right or wrong. In other words, it just is and one should be grateful about it.
- Kind of a biased opinion if not archaic, don’t you think?
- I have a question…
- Shoot!
- What came first, God or mankind?
- That one is actually easier than ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg?’
- Very clever… what do you think?
- Mankind of course!
- Now that is indeed biased… aren’t you supposed to be the unbiased one?
- Well, sue me!
- Fine. Is God just a creation of mankind? Is it because our species has a consciousness that it has a need for God, or any other ‘supernatural’ being? How come it needs it so badly? I’ve read that it was an ‘evolutionary asset that helps human survival’. (Quote from ‘Belief and the brain’s ‘God Spot’.’ March, 10th 2009 – Independent.co.uk)
- So, science says mankind came first; good enough for me; move on then.
- Yes, but see, scientists are studying human brain and its responses. From this, they draw conclusions but their own brains – the scientists’ I mean – are conditioned the same way as their subjects, right.
- Admittedly, but you are not saying what kind of conclusions.
- They are saying that when asked about religion or God like beliefs, it is always the same part of the brain that is reacting. As I understood it; it is somehow pre-programmed in our brains whether we’ll believe or not.
- Well, we know that different parts of the brains relate to different action of the body, feelings, and scientists are discovering more and more every day about the human brain. So, such conclusions are not so farfetched.
- Indeed, but still: what does make their conclusions accurate? Regardless of their degrees – no offence intended here – their brains’ conditioning is actually disqualifying them as reliable researchers on the matter.
- What?
- They are human therefore unqualified.
- That is indeed pushing it to a ridiculous extent.
- Thank you.
- Not a compliment, but okay. Let me just ask you this: scientists know so much about the human body – and brain actually – that they can repair it, cure diseases and even modify its aspects. That alone should qualify them enough to know what they are talking about.
- Well indeed! They cannot, however, cure everything. They cannot mend dead bodies…
- Beside the point!
- What I am saying is that because, through experiments on ‘religious’ people or atheist ones, they are biased from the beginning. They can induce certain responses in the brain by asking the same questions in different ways accordingly to the kind of volunteers they are working with; scientists are conditioned – by their own beliefs or disbeliefs – and therefore influencing the expected responses.
- This is preposterous to think such a thing. You really have trust issues. Do you have any proof of what you are saying?
- That’s the thing. I do not have any. It is my belief only…
- You are then full of yourself!
- … Scientists are also saying…
- You mean, all of them are saying…
- Just some of them are saying that we are molecules assembled together and that our ‘self is an illusion’. In other words, we do not exist.
- Scary.
- Indeed! That would mean that you do not exist, my dear. That would mean that you are just a figment of my imagination which should also be an illusion at some point…
- You’d be in trouble without me if you actually existed, because following your own reasoning you’d not exist either. She would be without a self so…
- I’d exist and I’d be less confused if I were by myself.
- Now you are just being plain mean.
- That would also mean that we are just machinery ‘put’ here for some reason that nobody bothered programming in us. Worse than that, since the self does not exist, we would be in the perpetual search for purpose…
- Now wait a minute!
- I know, right! We could not do that without a self. If one looks for purpose one is looking to define oneself. A consciousness cannot do that alone… not without a self… not without a soul…
- I’m with you here. Buddhism is saying that we are the sum of our experiences. What do you suppose that means?
- We have really got to read up on that… It is fun to guess, but I need to think outside the box on that one. Anyhow, I’d like to quote Antoine Lavoisier, French biologist – also chemist, philosopher and economist – who introduced the old maxim: ‘Nothing gets lost, nothing gets created, everything transforms.’ (The origin of the maxim is said to come from Anaxagoras – 500-428 BC)
- Hence ‘everything is connected’.
- Exactly. Maybe we do not really know what the ‘self’ is and yet we think we do, because we were ‘conditioned’ through our ‘evolution’ to think a certain way.
- Religion?!
- Precisely.
- Therefore God…
- No! Absolutely not! God has nothing to do with religion.
- Well, maybe it has; especially if man came first.
- What if we did not?
- We’ll never know for sure and as you were saying, it is probably not in our best interest to know – either way.
- Let’s just leave it at that for now and hope we did not crush any sensitive toes today.
- Hear, hear! Let us hope then.
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- Who said that?
