Originally posted by Bleeeeep
reply to post by NorEaster
I think you are overly generalizing people. And I think you shouldn't separate religion and science the way you do, because the way I see, some
people's religion is science, and some religious incorporate scientific findings into their religion.
Of course, I'm speaking in broad generalizations since I'm trying to encapsulate a large notion within a very small presentation. Still, it is very
obvious that science and religion approach the human condition from extreme ends of the available spectrum, and I don't expect to get a lot of
opposition from a lot of people when I suggest such a thing. There are a relative handful of people who attempt to synthesize these two angles of
approach, and we all know that already. Those attempts are sometimes interesting and sometimes pretty cynical, and make for fun YouTube viewing from
time to time.
In truth, deliberately and artificially dicing up what constitutes the whole of what it means to be a human being is what has brought the modern human
race to the degree of intense psychological stress that we all discuss on this site each and every day. Violence and hatred have been a constant
presence within human civilizations since the very first city state emerged. Corruption and greed are also nothing new. What is new is the building
need for all of this - the good, the bad, and the god-awful ugly - to make sense in a way that actually makes sense, as opposed to making sense in a
way that serves a specific narrative that's been handed down by people who
(let's face it) couldn't have passed a 9th grade natural science
test, even if they'd been given a cheat sheet with the answers.
Sentience is a powerful survival tool, but if a viscerally acceptable narrative of self isn't available, that sentience can become increasingly
debilitating. A definite distraction at the very least, and this is what drove the ancients to inventing theologies and superstitions. Now, with the
help of our own technological accomplishments, we've handily debunked the logical plausibility of every single traditional narrative that exists, and
what we're left with is a confusing assortment of patchwork assertions that either
- double-down (a common stress response) on what has already been completely discredited, (this is why religious and spiritualistic
fundamentalism is so virulent in so many parts of the modern, literate world, and in a seemingly direct violation of what should be an increase in
intellectual and cultural sophistication)
- frantically combine and dismiss disparate aspects of both extremes in increasingly confusing attempts to fabricate an explanation for one
traditional narrative or another that doesn't mock the brain's need for logical consistency within its own understanding of itself and its place
with a version of reality that is also logically consistent, or
- belligerently insist that reality is an illusion, logic is a human contrivance and that the human intellect is the Alpha and Omega creator force
behind all that exists and has ever existed.
The bitch is that each of these efforts leaves the logic-driven human brain stressed, because the whole of what each modern brain has been exposed to
as incontrovertible reality clashes with every one of these attempts to replace or rehabilitate what has already been dismissed as discredited
ignorance. For most people, the only recourse is to focus on immediate satiety - enter greed, sexual excess, hyper-competitiveness, consumerism,
eating disorders, gambling, drugs, recreational violence - to bury their brain's need for
a belief that it knows what it is and how it came to
exist, beneath a constant flood of quick distractions.
Lets face it... Some people seek a new genesis explanation and some don't. Some people care and some don't. Some who care, do so for reasons
other than other peoples reasons. Same goes for those who wouldn't accept a new explanation - and the reasons are as varying as people's belief
systems.
In short: I don't think a new genesis explanation would be widely accepted if it isn't based on anything religious or scientific or it's not backed
by people we respect.
Most people have no idea why life sucks so much for them. Not that they need faith or religion or enlightenment, but that, viscerally, they each need
to have a core reality narrative that makes logical sense to the brain that works to configure each thought, response, reaction, emotion, and whatever
else is needed to survive from instant to instant. Before so much breakthrough knowledge and incontrovertible information was so ubiquitous, the
modern person's brain had the ability to rationalize a logical path through such reality dissonance, but that was before the Internet and instant
global communication technology.
