reply to post by apushforenlightment
My beliefs will probably never be popular. But they're much more realistic and observable than any spiritual/religious belief. Every single
aspect of our behavior is based on our survival/fear-based instincts. Everything in our lives revolves around survival... food, water, place to sleep,
social status. It doesn't matter if someone tries to ignore those base instincts. They will always be with us and they will always shape how we live
on the planet. We are not 'higher beings'. We are merely an evolutionary monster, that outside of ourselves, destroy everything around us and offer
nothing back to balance our natural environment. Nothing has changed. Our history as a species is very clear. Morality is nothing more than a
rationalization of our instincts. The idea of utopia is utter fantasy. Again, a study of human history and behavior is all that is needed to dismiss
those romantic notions of humans living in peace and harmony together, even -much- less with nature.
Few examples of our animal instincts:
Nations/Countries: Territory we fight and protect over.
Bullying: children working out social status amongst themselves. Will never go away.
Money: social status
Attractiveness: mating/reproduction cycle
Racism: Instinctual cultural differentialism
Sex: Every young guy and woman whose time is ticking feels these natural hormonal urges.. everything in our culture from TV to art reinforces this
strong instinct.
Leaders: All social creatures have them and for the same reasons we have them.
I could list so many examples it would fill up a test book.
When I was seeking spirituality/religion answers to life, I never found anything that made sense to me. In fact, my BS detector went on overtime from
the very beginning. I've been around spiritual/religious types most of my life, and in every case, I find people who have depression/mental issues
(not belittling), corrupt people who use religion/spirituality to use other people, or people who just can't accept their circumstances in life and
have to resort to the unknown and fantasy to find a place to fit in (social again!). Not surprising, one of the biggest symptoms of depression are
delusions of grandeur and fantasy, something you'll see over and over right here on ATS among the spiritual/religious types, with their special
'powers' and 'feelings'. I totally respect the right of others to have any belief they want, but most of their beliefs are so nonsensical and
ridiculous at times, I can't take spiritual/religious people seriously at all anymore. More of the same.. 'peace and love' wrapped up in
metaphysically BS.
The root of our problem is we have never really accepted ourselves and what we are on the planet, and likely never will. I suspect it's part of our
animal behavior as the apex predatory to have an attitude of being a 'higher being'. It's likely we will go on destroying ourselves and the planet.
It's our nature to only worry about our hive or pack if you will, and as long as we have comfort, we'll continue doing what we do, only worrying
about troubling aspects of our survival when we make mistakes (like Japan nuclear crisis). We will always 'act' first, without thinking, I believe.
Look at the Pacific Garbage Patch? A very good example of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. But wait until it starts affecting our money/social aspects of
our lives.