Mark Vernon, Christianity and the Evolution of Consciousness |415|

Alex, I was glad you challenged him about the idea that consciousness changed at around the time of Christ. As you said, there is essentially no evidence for that statement.

David

Doesn’t seem unrealistic though... maybe not a phase shift, but I think our group consciousness is evolving. I feel like it has changed rapidly just in my lifetime.

The degree to which communication channels are opened affects the degree to which humans are networked which affects our group consciousness and intelligence and relation to authority. As networking increases, hierarchy must flatten to remain stable.

The romans paved roads all over the place so that is probably one of the greatest factors in the evolution of consciousness in that era.

The printing press was the next big leap forward in communication / networking.

Now we have the internet which is accelerating communication / networking and causing the most rapid change to date.
 
You're personifying a religion: likening it to a person who makes deliberate choices. If one is going to personify Christianity, I think it makes more sense to describe it as a number of people. Some people calling themselves Christians are hypocritical; some possess genuine sincerity and tailor their actions according to the beliefs of their religion. One can't be genuinely a Christian and an active paedophile or sympathiser with toxic ideologies such as Nazism. Anyone can call themselves a Christian, but not everyone practises Christianity's central tenets, which focus on love and egalitarianism.

In fact, probably most don't, but there is a wide spectrum and you've characterised those at one extreme as representative of the whole by your use of the word "trended". It's as if you're characterising a millipede by a few legs that are broken and twisted and haven't noticed that on the whole the movement of the beast is reasonably fluid. This is a lopsided, axe-grinding position. There are other millipedes out there, including those representing various other religions and political ideologies: observe how they move and ask whether they're better or worse.
that works both ways Buddy
 
Let's ignore all the science ancient pagans contributed which writers of the Bible used
 
Alex, I was glad you challenged him about the idea that consciousness changed at around the time of Christ. As you said, there is essentially no evidence for that statement.

David

You don't think Christianity itself was a change in consciousness? A change from paganism to monotheism. From "might makes right" to "Love they neighbor"?

What do you think a change in consciousness would look like?


  • Alexis de Tocqueville: "The most profound geniuses of Rome and Greece" never came up with the idea of equal rights, he wrote. "Jesus Christ had to come to earth to make it understood that all members of the human species are naturally alike and equal."

  • Friedrich Nietzsche: "Another Christian concept ... has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights."

  • Richard Feynman: The other great heritage is Christian ethics — the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual — the humility of the spirit.

  • James Hannam: Christianity made science a theologically justified and even righteous path to pursue. Since God created the world, exploring how it works honors its Creator. ... the "scientific revolution" was a continuation of developments that started deep in the Middle Ages among people whose scientific work expressed their religious belief. The conflict thesis, in other words, is a myth. ... The Church also made natural philosophy a compulsory part of the courses it required trainee theologians to follow. So, science held a central place in Christian centers of learning...Christians realized it was impossible to work out the laws of nature through rational analysis alone. The only way to discover his plan was to go out and look. ... Given the advantages Christianity provided, it is hardly surprising that modern science developed only in the West, within a Christian civilization.

  • Jürgen Habermas, "Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love."

  • John Lennox: Behind the European Declaration of Human Rights lies Christianity, behind universities, hospices, hospitals, lies Christianity, behind the abolition of slavery lies Christianity.

  • Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry: But really, Christianity's invention of children — that is, its invention of the cultural idea of children as treasured human beings — was really an outgrowth of its most stupendous and revolutionary idea: the radical equality, and the infinite value, of every single human being as a beloved child of God. If the God who made heaven and Earth chose to reveal himself, not as an emperor, but as a slave punished on the cross, then no one could claim higher dignity than anyone else on the basis of earthly status.

  • Nancy Pearcey: Luc Ferry says the same thing. We tend to take the concept of equality for granted; yet it was Christianity that overthrew ancient social hierarchies between rich and poor, masters and slaves. "According to Christianity, we were all 'brothers,' on the same level as creatures of God," Ferry writes. "Christianity is the first universalist ethos." ... Atheists often denounce the Bible as harsh and negative. But in reality it offers a much more positive view of the human person than any competing religion or worldview.

  • Dennis Prager: The pre-Christian Germanic tribes of Europe regarded the Church's teaching that murder was wrong as preposterous. They reasoned that killing innocent people was acceptable and normal because the strong should do whatever they wanted.... I asked Samuel Oliner, "Knowing all you now know about who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, if you had to return as a Jew to Poland and you could knock on the door of only one person in the hope that they would rescue you, would you knock on the door of a Polish lawyer, a Polish doctor, a Polish artist or a Polish priest?" ... Without hesitation, he said, "a Polish priest."




Below is Mark Vernon's answer. The evidence he gives is not just the Bible but also Greek philosophers, and in the commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. What's wrong with it?

yeah I mean
29:54
I think you can put together a
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historical story so for example you know
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in the book I talk about the the story
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that comes out of the Hebrew Bible and
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how there's an evolution of of
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consciousness that you can track through
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the Bible and you can do it relatively
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objectively so for example you can what
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you can do is stack up the bits from the
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Bible and put them on a timeline because
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modern biblical scholarship has teased
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out that you know certain bits of the
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Bible are older than other babies it's
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not the Genesis one is the oldest bit at
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all you know so if you do that what you
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can do for example is show how the
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language gradually moved from an
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interest in what's going on outside
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through an interest of what's going on
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inside it becomes more and more
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introspective the language so and that
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that sort of fits in a timeline you can
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do the same with ancient Greek
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philosophy because and we've got you
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know quite a we've got a continuous read
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like of ancient philosophy and and and
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similarly not just Socrates starts
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challenging people and getting to them
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to think for themselves and but for
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example that the Stoics and the
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Epicureans that the next generation of
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philosophers and they develop what it's
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been called Spiritual Exercises and this
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is the cultivation of the self and which
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is quite a new thing so you can I think
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track in the book I need to in the
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Mediterranean Basin and I do completely
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set the point that that's a Western
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point of view but I think it can be done
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from the Indian subcontinent and the
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Chinese perspective as well people have
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done this looking at increasingly now
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they at this notion of the axial age and
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what it suggests is that it's a bit
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pejorative from the Western point of
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view to say that we feel that there was
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a sort of pivotal moment and when things
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like free world for example it's not
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until the 1st century AD that
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philosophers start talking about free
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will that just hadn't really existed
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before and then also things like fate
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and they start to lose their currency on
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people people feel less and less that
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they're being controlled by fatalistic
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forces from the outside but there's a
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kind of inner freedom develops and this
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just because of the vicious use of
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history Christian is becoming so
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powerful in the West it all starts to be
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thought about in Christian terms but I
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think we're at a stage now where we can
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just loosen and the need to claim it for
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Christianity and start seeing how
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actually it will work tap in other
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traditions as well so for example just
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the fair one will fall in there and the
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bhagavad-gita which is a is a text from
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maybe the 3rd century BC commentaries on
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the Gita is as much an important as the
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Gita itself and commentaries to start to
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develop notions of non-duality for
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example and that's who and requires a
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kind of individual consciousness and
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that can appreciate and the one and the
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many the particular in the universal and
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exists in this sort of non dual realm
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and so I think III think there is a kind
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of story that can be told and can
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actually be made to stack up as well
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it's not just like a christian
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triumphalist claim and that
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the individual with a kind of microcosm
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but then can begin to feel it it mirrors
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the macrocosm and so knows the macrocosm
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in a different way
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a different kind of consciousness
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something crystallized around these
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centuries which we call you know the
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first century of AD for example
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something does seem to have evolved
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around them and and shaped not just the
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Western world but the Eastern world as
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well what you might do that
 
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Regarding the question of the evolution of consciousness. You asked if we think it is occurring. I would say probably. I think that’s why we are here. I’m not the BIGGEST Tom Campbell guy but for my second straight Skeptiko forums post I need to reference a thought of his. He believes that the purpose of existence is to “evolve the quality of our consciousness.” And that we essentially do this through love and co-operation and by reducing fear. I think it probably does work something like that. That seems to be the info we get through the NDE/OBE/Medium data points. Although they don’t always use that language, they say things like, “we are here to grow and learn.” All the published astral travel guys seem to say the same thing. I think a more highly evolved form of consciousness has less ego and is more concerned about the whole (in fact may not even see itself as an individual), does not readily resort to fearful thoughts, loves unconditionally, and is perfectly content and non-judgemental. This is also known as “enlightenment.” I’d rather seek help from an enlightened Buddhist monk any day of the week before I’d seek help from a Psychiatrist for general depression and anxiety.

What role has Christianity played in this? Well, I think it’s clear that it’s helped it and harmed it. We need not look any further than the Saints for examples of “evolved consciousness.” And Christianity has bred plenty of charity. Of course it’s also held back gay and female rights and been the justification several wrongs. It’s also bred a LOT of judgement.
yeah, I just can't get past all the reported time anomalies... seems like we keep hearing that time isn't what we think it is... not sure how this would fit in with the idea of evolution.
 
And what it means to be Redeemed by Christ as a pre-requisite to going to Heaven, well, yes, the Christ incarnated for the salvation of the ALL, and that includes us, but also the dogs and cats, and the trees and grasses. You name it. Jesus saves.
how would do know?
 
Where does this idea of “believe in Jesus or go to Hell” come up in any NDEs, OBEs, or channeled information? I’m in several very active Facebook groups full of NDErs relaying and discussing their experiences. I’ve swallowed up all 120 accounts or so on the YouTube “NDE Accounts” page on YouTube where experiencers tell their stories, read a couple of books on the topic, read up on astral travelers and OBE experiencers (Graham Nichols, Jurgen Ziewe, Bob Monroe, Tom Campbell, Chris Kirkpatrick etc) who report experiences in these other realms often populated by dead relatives similarly to NDEs and are very consistent with each other and credible.

We have tons of channeled information studied over the past century or so, some done under strict laboratory conditions (Dr Julie Beischel is one that comes to mind), we have a ton of remarkable anecdotes from a deluge of folk who seem to be making contact with dead relatives. We have afterlife researchers who compile and present data from all of these fields. People like Victor and Wendy Zammit and Roberta Grimes etc. What comes through in this channeled information is not anything about dead relatives residing with Jesus or really anything about Jesus at all.

We have people having experiences with the Christ consciousness. We have people reporting the power, beauty, and love of Jesus, (in western NDE’s anyways). I posted a study on the differences between Eastern NDEs and western NDEs the other day, which showed that their experiences are typically quite different from Westerners, but data is limited. We have all this data, and I don’t find this idea of “Jesus saves” anywhere. There’s all sorts of great Jesus stuff to be had. But nothing about going to hell if you don’t believe in Jesus. Dead relatives from the other side aren’t mentioning it, and all the Christian NDErs that I’ve talked with aren’t coming back saying “believe in Jesus or you’re screwed.” Yet this is the main take home message of the New Testament IMO. The good old “believe or else” threat.

The message WE DO get back is that LOVE is what matters along with INTERCONNECTEDNESS. It’s not this message of Jesus saving your ass.

To me, the reincarnation data flies in the face of this notion as well. It is readily apparent that people sometimes do reincarnate. If you guys haven’t looked at the studies on this, you really need to. It’s essentially unassailable. Even Carl Sagan (noted debunker of anomalous phenomena) stated that the evidence in favor of reincarnation is sound and should be pursued further. Of course we can’t say that everybody always reincarnates when they die, I don’t believe that’s how it works. Regardless, this idea of needing to believe in Jesus seems even less relevant in light of the fact that somebody who is a Christian may simply very well reincarnate as a Muslim. There are plenty of good examples of cross cultural reincarnation.

What some of the best mediums and frequent OBE practitioners report (and I think that this notion is supported by NDEs as well) is that we live in a multidimensional reality that is essentially infinitely big and complex. It seems we can “incarnate” and partake in many of these systems as we continue our journey through whatever the hell it is we are doing. Of course this system involves other beings of large number and we have so called “aliens” reported all the time in these realms and of course we have ET established as a fact visiting here on Earth.

Are these aliens Christian? Are Easterners who have NDEs becoming Christian? There’s no Indication that they are. There’s a handful of accounts on Jeffry Longs NDERF page (maybe 20-30) and there’s a couple of other noteworthy studies showing that they typically have different types of experiences, with some baseline similarities. But they aren’t telling us that they learned that Jesus saves. While it’s true that some NDERs and mystical experiencers become Christian, the opposite is true as well. Many unbecome Christian after their experience.

Yes there’s clearly something to this Jesus thing. And it’s quite powerful. I was a Christian most of my life and fancied myself as an amateur apologist. I swallowed all the CS Lewis, Josh McDowell, Lee Stroebel books etc. I would debate atheists and Muslims online. But eventually I reached a point where my Christianity became so liberal I thought “what’s the point of calling myself a Christian anymore?” And that’s sort of where I’m at now. I can’t establish any indication that believing in Jesus is even remotely necessary for anything. Jesus may have walked the Earth, he might be an extraordinarily exalted and powerful form of consciousness. Is it possible that he has somehow saved us? I suppose it’s possible, but that to me is a subjective belief. There’s no talk of it from the afterlife researchers who I’m aware of who compile data from all these different areas nor do I see any indication of it from any of these areas we discuss.

We are powerful co-creators of reality. The placebo effect and quantum physics (I have to bring this point up again) show that our thoughts affect reality here. What OBErs generally tell us is that our thoughts affect our surroundings even more in these “extended consciousness realms” (as Alex puts it). Therefore, it’s no surprise to me that there seem to be cultural differences in mystical experiences and NDEs. I don’t see any reason to believe that Christianity isn’t more of a local thing which is rather irrelevant to the whole of reality and existence. Even though it’s quite relavant and Pertinent to us currently. And I do believe that people here reach spiritual fulfillment through it.

My biggest recommended reading regarding our multidimensional reality is Jurgen Ziewes “Multi-Dimensional Man.” I feel very strongly that out of body practicioners give us the best data because their experiences repeat and are not a “one off” as NDEs are. That’s not to belittle the remarkable nature and importance of NDEs. But to me, NDEs are transcendent experiences of consciousness which are not indicative of afterlife states per se, anymore than a DMT experience is indicative of an afterlife state. I feel strongly that the consistent reports of credible astral travelers give us a better view of ultimate reality than NDEs to.
it doesn't. as we discussed with david sunfellow this is a misread dr. Jeff long's research.
 
yeah, I just can't get past all the reported time anomalies... seems like we keep hearing that time isn't what we think it is... not sure how this would fit in with the idea of evolution.

I'm not sure either ... but I think we know that ESP is not limited by time or distance, so we can surmise consciousness is not part of the physical universe and therefore is not limited by time which was created with the rest of the physical universe.
 
I've listened to half of the interview by now on video. Interesting discussion between the two of you. Here are my reactions thus far--

Psychotherapy is definitely NOT scientific. I have a BS in Psych and an MA in Counseling, and no one ever accused us therapists of being scientists. Scientists are the rat testers, the operant conditioners, the measurers of this and that, often involving electric shocks and little bits of food. The therapists are not in the least bit scientific. They are usually more akin to skilled artists or priests, depending on their therapeutic modality and innate sensitivities.

Regarding mystical experiences as a valid form of sensing the presence of God or Christ--I'm assuming that direct mystical experience counts for something around here? If only as corroborating anecdotal evidence? If so, then there are an awful lot of people who call themselves "Born Again Christians Baptized in the Holy Spirit" who have had countless mystical experiences, myself included. I wouldn't be so quick to discount the validity of their mystical encounters in this world of open-minded consciousness researchers. (read a nice little article I wrote about a vision of Jesus and the between place: https://asimpleexplanation.blogspot.com/2011/02/personal-note-childhood-dream-of-god.html )

Is it possible for the Christian mythos to be in any way truthful and factual? Sure. But I'd say the Christian mythos that most closely resembles reality as we know it would be the Gnostic mythos, and it was weeded out of the canonical Bible and thrown away in 300 AD. I used to think the Pope and Emperor weeded it out for the good of the faithful, but now I realize they weeded it out for their own power to reign supreme. Yes, they left a lot of good mythos in, as Jim Smith points out above, charity arises in humankind through Judaism and Christianity, at least as I understand it, but they weeded out the logos that makes the religion reasonable. So no wonder it looks superstitious and shallow. Thank God the Gnostic truths were buried out in the Nag Hammadi desert and resurrected during WW2. Ha--spoken like a true believer; listen to me say, my superstition is not shallow--ha.

I've been chewing this particular Gnosis over for about 50 years. See if this intrinsically coherent Gnostic Christian narrative is more satisfying to the Skeptik than the Orthodox view. I think it is, but it is no less Theistic, so if that's your quibble, I can't help you there. Here goes:

According to the Tripartite Tractate Nag Hammadi book, we start with an underlying matrix of consciousness. (So, right off the bat, this ancient book acknowledges transcendent, undifferentiated consciousness.) This illimitable consciousness thought of a particularity, which became a fractal representation of the illimitable. This first fractal is called The Son. The Son immediately fanned out like rays from a light into an infinite number of particularities. The moment the particularities became conscious, because they, too, were fractals of the illimitable consciousness, they named themselves in order to know themselves. This naming had the effect of sorting themselves into a hierarchy of names, stations, ranks, positions, and powers. These are the Aeons, also known as the Pre-existent Church and the Elect, also called the First Order of Powers. The Aeons live in a place called the Pleroma, or the ALL, or the Fullness. Altogether, the Aeons of the Fullness represent the infinity of potentialities. They are of one accord, being simply the names of the qualities of their Father, who is called the Son of the originating One. This is the entire sum of the hidden knowledge of Gnosis that so frightened the Emperor and the Pope. We can catch glimpses of this cosmology, the Father, the Son, and the Aeons, in the canonical Bible, but not enough was left intact to make sense of it. Now we know.

The Aeons of the Fullness dream one dream that they ALL share. This is the dream of Paradise, which was the original Thought that set the whole ball rolling. The Aeons dream exactly as we dream, except they all share the same dream. This is a place we are also familiar with, we humans in our dreams. It is the foretaste of Heaven. It is the fragrance of Utopia. It is the place where we can fly. We all know it, according to the Tripartite Tractate.

Then various things happen, an Aeon overreaches and wisdom becomes presumptuous thought. The Aeon Falls from the perfection of the Fullness. The Aeon breaks apart and little pieces of it become the seed of our material universe. The Aeons above in the Fullness dream up a Second Order of Powers that carry their Aeonic traits into this material plane. All archaea of our planet are Second Order Powers. It was decided that all of the Aeons would come to earth to clean up the mess and restore perfection to this creation that occurred because of the Fall. Every thing on earth contains innumerable Aeons instantiating consciousness into the mud. Our fables and Bible stories tell fractal stories of all lives; the same stories over and over and over again. They are real and they are metaphors. We are the children of angels; we are angels. We are all Fallen and need redemption.

The Christ Consciousness, according to the Tripartite Tractate, is the Third Order of Powers. The Christ Consciousness was designed to be the correcting algorithm for the Second Order Powers who'd been ensnared in the deception of the material delusion, also called the Imitation. Imitation of what? Imitation of the Paradise dreamed by the Aeons of the Fullness. The Christ is like a computer clean-up code that must be inserted in order to do its work of Redemption. Every soul needs to remember their eternal heritage in order to shake off this material plane and return to the Fullness.

Here's where Jesus of Nazareth comes in--this was a human who carried the perfected Third Order Power of Christ into our material plane, and co-existed with the human genome donated from the mother. Fully God. Fully Human. First Adam perfectly incarnated. In this manner, all of the infinity of the ALL was at last incarnated, completing the cycle of coming one-by-one to our material plane. It wasn't so much Christ's sacrifice on the cross that took away the sins of the world, but his incarnation as a human and his personal Aeonic experience of separation, despair, and death. I think the emphasis is on the cross as a shape of top-to-bottom/spirit-to-mud and side-to-side/ALL inclusive.

And what it means to be Redeemed by Christ as a pre-requisite to going to Heaven, well, yes, the Christ incarnated for the salvation of the ALL, and that includes us, but also the dogs and cats, and the trees and grasses. You name it. Jesus saves.

So, how does this strike you? Too much for one post? You can read a much more detailed and coherent account (fully illustrated) in my own book called "The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated". It's all there.
***
"Maj. Nelson" from the "I Dream of Jeanie" TV show.... okay then, I'm also reading the Lego story... so I think I should wait & finish THOSE 2 stories before I even attempt some kind of reply.
 
Religion stunts the growth of the soul and the intellect, so very sad to see, it's a convenient comfort with no depth
 
Religion stunts the growth of the soul and the intellect, so very sad to see, it's a convenient comfort with no depth
When it comes to consciousness, religion is closer to the truth than scientific materialism. And many religions provide a better moral foundation than what preceded them. Don't blame the failings of human nature that we see with every religion and philosophy including atheism on religion.
 
When it comes to consciousness, religion is closer to the truth than scientific materialism. And many religions provide a better moral foundation than what preceded them. Don't blame the failings of human nature that we see with every religion and philosophy including atheism on religion.
You do not need religion to have morals or be a good person. In what part of religion does it touch upon consciousness, or are you going to give it your own interpretation?
You absolutely have no proof people were less moral before organized religion, you're blaming the failings of human nature before organized religion but not when religion became more organized? That sounds like a bit of a double standard. Religions were formed 100s 1000s of years after, let's say for example bhudda. Bhudda was not a bhuddist, he was a man who meditated and self actualized his humanity. He developed a personal philosophy through himself, people developed a religon around him. See how that works? Besides I find Nietschze more interesting then Jesus or bhudda. Jesus didn't even exist, Jesus is just the sun and the 12 disciples are the 12 zodiacs.
Humans are just as savage as they were then, it was easier to get away with it then now you'll likely end up in jail generally
 
Alex, David, (and anyone else who would care to reply)...

What do you think "evolving consciousness" means?

It can be interpreted in different ways with respect to human culture or non-physical consciousness.

I think Mark Vernon means that the consciousness of incarnated humans has changed over time. To me that seems self evident. Modern people think differently about things (nature, self, society, government, medicine, human rights, deities etc) than people in the past did.

So if you disagree with Mark and don't think consciousness is evolving could you explain what you think "evolving consciousness" means and why you think it is not changing over time?

Mark explains what he means by "evolving consciousness" in this video starting at 5:25
There is a transcript available on the youtube page.


05:25
Barfield had a core idea which I think
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really helps us to understand how we've
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got to where we've got to and begins to
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open up how we might see spiritually
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once again he thought that human
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consciousness evolves it changes over
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time not a Darwinian evolution over many
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many many millions of years and for
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human consciousness over hundreds of
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thousands of years that no doubt occurs
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you know the brain has to develop in
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certain ways and so on but he thought
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that our experience of what it is to be
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human has evolved in a shorter period of
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time and particularly over about the
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last 3,000 years or so when you look at
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writers like Homer for example writer of
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the Iliad - the Odyssey there's clearly
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a very different perception of life
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going on when Achilles attacks Agamemnon
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for example he doesn't decide to do so
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he's influenced by the gods and when he
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stops Athena the goddess Enid literally
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appears in the Iliad and pulls back his
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head and stops him doing it this is a
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very different perception of what it is
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to be human much more fated sometimes I
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said bit like the puppets of the gods I
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think that's going a bit too far but
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something like that you know like being
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chess pieces being moved around you get
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this original participation
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as Barfield caught it and this very
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immersive sense of participating in life
06:49
when you see material objects from the
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ancient egyptian world you know go into
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any great museum go into the egyptian
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gallery stand before the figures there
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and you'll immediately get a sense that
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this was a very very different
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consciousness a very very different
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experience of what it was to be human
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that both informed the making of the
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object and perhaps is also called up
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from within you as you stand before it
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the pyramids and themselves it's now
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known that they weren't built by slaves
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they were built by people that felt they
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were taking part in and the key activity
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of the society at the time in the early
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Egyptian period and pyramids then were
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external objects and that were built and
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at the pinnacle as it were perhaps was
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the ferret was the defector deity and
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the divine presence and then as the
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pyramid moves down to its base there's a
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sense of more people you know their
07:47
place in society it's an external
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manifestation of how they would have
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felt spirituality was as a word as
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explicit to them as the pyramid is to us
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now
08:00
we tend to internalize pyramids now
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we'll think about our needs for example
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and at the base of the pyramid or our
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basic needs for security for food for
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water and then as you rise up the
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pyramids and you come to higher needs
08:15
like the need for education friendship
08:17
love and then maybe at the top there's a
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need for self-actualization
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more spiritual concern so we have a kind
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of internal pyramid where as a thinking
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this earlier experience of what it was
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to be human there was quite literally
08:30
external pyramids that told you about
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your place and that you contributed to
08:35
in the building of society that was this
08:38
original participation in Barfield
08:40
schema it makes sense of magic - if the
08:45
life force comes to you from the outside
08:47
in then magic works because you can take
08:50
a part of your body for example in a bit
08:54
of hair and influence someone
08:57
externally that way that there's a much
08:59
more porous sense of what it is to be
09:00
human so magic is a very common feature
09:03
of these ancient societies you can look
09:06
at other facets too and for example and
09:09
body parts are seen to have a kind of
09:12
vitality all of their own and there's
09:14
not a gathered sense of the individual
09:17
such as we have because there's not a
09:19
gathered sense of inner life that then
09:22
as it were speaks outward from the
09:24
individual instead your body parts were
09:27
kind of gathered vitality is gathered
09:31
spirited entities and that moved around
09:33
and you would have related yourself by
09:36
relating to the deities that were to do
09:39
with the particular body part and the
09:41
Eye of Horus um is one of the best-known
09:43
examples of that your eyes were had a
09:47
life of its own that you had to learn
09:49
how to relate to in this earlier
09:51
experience of consciousness so it's the
09:54
spirit of consciousness where life moves
09:57
from the outside in there's not such a
09:59
keen sense of what's me and not me
10:01
between mortals and immortals there's a
10:04
kind of flow of meaning a flow of life
10:06
and that changes Barfield argued that
10:10
changes there's a kind of step back from
10:12
this immersion and a gap opens up and
10:16
that gap is both a great blessing but
10:19
also a great challenge and it's a
10:21
blessing because a sense of the
10:22
individual can really begin to form you
10:26
see this in the move from the Egyptian
10:28
period into the Greek period the ancient
10:30
Greek philosophers like Socrates like
10:33
Plato and so on I think that they still
10:35
speak to us now because they begin to
10:37
formulate the sense of what it is to be
10:40
an individual and ask the questions of
10:42
meaning that are still our own ones you
10:44
don't find in homer for example or in
10:47
ancient Egypt the problem then wasn't
10:49
what's the meaning of life the problem
10:50
then was there was just the flow of
10:52
meaning continuously that you had to
10:54
navigate your way through so this gap
10:56
opens up between us and the external
10:59
world which has the upside that we begin
11:01
to get a sense of our own inner life
11:03
being able to find our way make
11:06
decisions things like free will in
11:08
concerts
11:09
conscience start to be talked about at
11:11
this time but it also creates a problem
11:14
because you have the problem of how
11:17
we're going to relate to this external
11:20
world that's slightly distant from us
11:22
now and so questions of spirituality
11:24
start to become really important about
11:27
this time and that in a way is still our
11:31
particular now our challenge now I think
11:33
it's taking an extra twist in the modern
11:36
world around the time of the
11:38
Enlightenment around the time of the
11:39
Scientific Revolution where the world
11:42
didn't just seem to be slightly separate
11:45
and distant from us that we had to
11:46
somehow reach out to it and learn to
11:48
relate to it through ritual through
11:50
religious techniques and so on through
11:52
spiritual trainings which people in
11:55
their medieval world underwent with the
11:57
material world we've even got the idea
11:59
that the universe is like a mechanism
12:02
that actually has no inner life it has
12:05
no implicit inner meaning this model has
12:08
been very successful in many ways it's
12:10
given us technology and many comforts
12:13
and secure features of modern life but
12:16
it's left us with the sense that we're
12:17
not sure how to connect with it once
12:19
again and we've kind of lost that innate
12:23
sense there is a meaning to connect to
12:25
we're not sure about that anymore and
12:27
with it goes the wisdom about how to
12:29
really develop that sense and the wisdom
12:32
that would have been held in the great
12:33
spiritual traditions be at the
12:34
monasteries and religious houses in
12:37
other parts of the world in different
12:39
contexts I actually think the
12:41
psychotherapy has arisen in the modern
12:43
world to try and fill this gap this is
12:46
this vacuum we want to work on our inner
12:48
lives again aren't quite sure how to do
12:51
that and often find ourselves stumbling
12:53
over pathologies and so on in the effort
12:55
to do so but nonetheless this is our
12:58
challenge this is how we become perhaps
13:02
cut off from spiritual perception
13:04
through this great evolution of
13:05
consciousness from a time about 3000
13:09
years ago and when it really wasn't an
13:10
issue spirits and gods were felt to be
13:13
all around nature was felt to be alive
13:16
we've come through these various stages
13:18

If you disagree with Mark can you explain where you think he is wrong?

Thanks
 
You do not need religion to have morals or be a good person.
I agree.
In what part of religion does it touch upon consciousness, or are you going to give it your own interpretation?
Where it touches on the afterlife it indicates consciousness continues after death.
You absolutely have no proof people were less moral before organized religion, you're blaming the failings of human nature before organized religion but not when religion became more organized? That sounds like a bit of a double standard. Religions were formed 100s 1000s of years after, let's say for example bhudda. Bhudda was not a bhuddist, he was a man who meditated and self actualized his humanity. He developed a personal philosophy through himself, people developed a religon around him. See how that works? Besides I find Nietschze more interesting then Jesus or bhudda. Jesus didn't even exist, Jesus is just the sun and the 12 disciples are the 12 zodiacs.
Humans are just as savage as they were then, it was easier to get away with it then now you'll likely end up in jail generally

I agree. Religion has not done any harm.
 
Religion has provided immense benefits to humankind ....

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/video-lecture-by-john-lennox-explains.html#lennox_civilization
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.”


Viktor Frankl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl), a former Auschwitz inmate wrote in The Doctor and the Soul, that the source for much of the 20th Century’s inhumanity has come from the very origins being discussed here.
“If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone.​
“I became acquainted with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment; or as the Nazi liked to say, ‘of Blood and Soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers [emphasis added].”​

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/04/video-john-lennox-on-problem-of-evil_7.html

Dennis Prager
...
I asked Samuel Oliner, "Knowing all you now know about who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, if you had to return as a Jew to Poland and you could knock on the door of only one person in the hope that they would rescue you, would you knock on the door of a Polish lawyer, a Polish doctor, a Polish artist or a Polish priest?"
Without hesitation, he said, "a Polish priest."
...​
To put this as clearly as possible: If there is no God who says, "Do not murder," murder is not wrong. Many people or societies may agree that it is wrong. But so what? Morality does not derive from the opinion of the masses. If it did, then apartheid was right; murdering Jews in Nazi Germany was right; the history of slavery throughout the world was right; and clitoridectomies and honor killings are right in various Muslims societies.​
So, then, without God, why is murder wrong?​
Is it, as Dawkins argues, because reason says so?​
My reason says murder is wrong, just as Dawkins's reason does. But, again, so what? The pre-Christian Germanic tribes of Europe regarded the Church's teaching that murder was wrong as preposterous. They reasoned that killing innocent people was acceptable and normal because the strong should do whatever they wanted.​
In addition, reason alone without God is pretty weak in leading to moral behavior. When self-interest and reason collide, reason usually loses. That's why we have the word "rationalize" -- to use reason to argue for what is wrong. ...​
In that regard, let's go to the empirical argument.?​
Years ago, I interviewed Pearl and Sam Oliner, two professors of sociology at California State University at Humboldt and the authors of one of the most highly-regarded works on altruism, The Altruistic Personality. The book was the product of the Oliners' lifetime of study of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.​
The Oliners, it should be noted, are secular, not religious, Jews; they had no religious agenda.​
I asked Samuel Oliner, "Knowing all you now know about who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, if you had to return as a Jew to Poland and you could knock on the door of only one person in the hope that they would rescue you, would you knock on the door of a Polish lawyer, a Polish doctor, a Polish artist or a Polish priest?"​
Without hesitation, he said, "a Polish priest."​
...​

Richard Taylor

“The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well. Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights, are morally wrong, and they imagine that they have said something true and significant. Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion. He concludes, Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning.”​

Czeslaw Milosz

“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged.”​



Good point.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articl...ect.html#articles_by_subject_benefits_meaning
Andrew Sims, past president of Royal College of Psychiatrists: "The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. ... In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks. ...​
Belief in religion and the afterlife eases grief and fear of death. It deters suicide, and helps people cope with adversity such as unemployment and divorce. People who find meaning in life are healthier, but pseudoskeptics espouse materialism which says that life is meaningless.​
Materialism: Meaning is an illusion. Science: People need meaning to thrive.​
Belief in religion and spirituality gives meaning to life in a way that atheism cannot.​
Belief in religion and spirituality is enormously beneficial to the individual.​
Religion provides a solid foundation for ethics and morality in a way that atheism and materialism cannot.​
 
While I’m not against religion, I think this is a bit of a stretch Jim.

If we’re talking about what motivates people to harm others, I think religion must rank quite highly. No?

Yes, religion has been used to justify atrocities but if you take away the religion you get an order or magnitude more atrocities.

My original point is that you should not blame religion for the failings of human nature. Whatever type of society or philosophy or religion or atheism, you look at you can find atrocities. People will warp whatever is convenient to suit their (evil) needs.

The number of people murdered in religious societies is a tiny fraction of the number murdered by materialistic (socialist - Nazi, Soviet, Communist China) societies. So when you look at the data, religion looks pretty good compared to the alternative.

The right question to ask is: which type of culture is best at constraining the human propensity for atrocities? I think the answer based on empirical evidence is that religious societies do the best. If you get many tens of millions of murders from atheist societies reduced to several million from religious societies, I think it is fair to say that religion has helped (ie not done any harm).
 
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Take out of context maybe, but in the context of how I was replying I think it is right - I was summarizing what I thought one could conclude from the bit I quoted.

My originsl point is that you should not blame religion for the failings of human nature. Whatever type of society or philosophy or religion or atheism, you look at you can find atrocities. People will warp whatever is convenient to suit their (evil) needs.
Yes, but that is really just equating religion with other corrupt human organisations!
The number of people murdered in religious societies is a tiny fraction of the number murdered by materialistic (socialist - Nazi, Soviet, Communist China) societies. So when you look at the data, religion looks pretty good compared to the alternative.

The right question to ask is: which type of culture is best at constraining the human propensity for atrocities? I think the answer based on empirical evidence is that religious societies do the best.
That might be hard to quantify, because in truth religion merged with some of those organisations. Also Christianity spawned the Crusades. I guess fewer people were around then, so the absolute number killed was obviously less.

I mean what exactly are we arguing about. Obviously all sorts of inventions, ideas, political movements change consciousness. However if the term "evolution of consciousness" is to mean something, it simply has to mean a lot more than that.

Are we a better society than we were? I don't really know, because collectively we tolerate the idea that we 'protect' ourselves by building more and more nuclear weapons, that could in one stroke create more misery, death, and destruction than can be found in the whole of recorded history.

I'd say that in recent years the biggest change in consciousness has come from the internet, plus earlier developments in communications.

David
 
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Yes, but that is really just equating religion with other corrupt human organisations!

That might be hard to quantify, because in truth religion merged with some of those organisations. Also Christianity spawned the Crusades. I guess fewer people were around then, so the absolute number killed was obviously less.
The population of Russia and China did not magically increase when materialist atheist communists took power and started murdering people.

The total number of people executed by the Spanish Inquisition was probably less than 5000.

I mean what exactly are we arguing about. Obviously all sorts of inventions, ideas, political movements change consciousness. However if the term "evolution of consciousness" is to mean something, it simply has to mean a lot more than that.
You argued that Mark Vernon has no evidence. I tried to show that he did. If you think his point is trivial that is a different criticism than "he has no evidence".
Are we a better society than we were? I don't really know, because collectively we tolerate the idea that we 'protect' ourselves by building more and more nuclear weapons, that could in one stroke create more misery, death, and destruction than can be found in the whole of recorded history.

David

Overall I think the standard of living is highest at the present than at any time in the past.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove
The world is actually safer than ever. And here's the data to prove that

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steved...is-getting-better-why-hardly-anyone-knows-it/
Why The World Is Getting Better And Why Hardly Anyone Knows It
https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fstevedenning%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F11%2Fworld-data-1-poverty.jpg


https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fstevedenning%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F11%2FWorld-data-2-literacy.jpg


https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fstevedenning%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F11%2Fworld-data-3-health.jpg


https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fstevedenning%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F11%2Fworld-data-4-freedom.jpg

https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fstevedenning%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F11%2Fworld-data-5-population.jpg
 
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