Karl Marx had is wrong. It is prosperity, not religion, which is the opiate of the masses. The United States has experienced decades of surefire prosperity. Most have lived their whole lives accustomed to what is actually a historically rare era of unusual affluence.
Now, much of the population is going ‘cold turkey’, unwillingly sobering up without knowing the deeper causes for the withdrawal symptoms they now feel. I’ve found prosperity has a real dark side linked to desire and pleasure— not surprisingly. (1) Continue reading ‘Opiate of the Masses’
Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of talk about what is natural or unnatural in regards to human behavior. I suppose it all depends on which part of the elephant one currently perceives. Beyond that though, I see this like layers of an onion—an emergent property situation. I’ll take a stab at sorting this out…
Humans are naturally (and usually) inclined to take the easy way, go for pleasure and avoid pain. In the wild this bio-hoodwink usually works out well. Human culture has been driven by this primary instinctive drive shared by all animals, from ants to duck to dogs to people. Consider the human highway on the left and the ant highway on the right (photo left). Both species are just trying to make life easier and more efficient. As I pointed out in Ants are Us, the similarities are striking. Continue reading ‘Naturally Unnatural, Naturally!’
King Sahura c.2487-2475 B.C.E.
This morning lightning struck. I got a great ideal for a book. Even so, it is a book I’ll never write. Still, I have a provocative working title, Why Man Is King, or perhaps, Why Man is King, is God. I’m not even keen on writing a post addressing this, or at least addressing all of ‘this’. As it turns out, the end of the book would dovetail right into a recent post Ant Are Us, so I just have to say something, otherwise this will haunt me for the rest of the day.
Up until now, civilization has done everything possible to put Man at the top, and Woman at the bottom of culture’s hierarchical structure. I always attributed this to simple social zoology where the ‘alpha male’ heads the group. That may still be a major reason for the main origins of human cultural biases. However, I realized another source as I was pondering the dynamics of male-female relationships… what keeps them either working or leads to their demise. Continue reading ‘Why Man is King’
The BBC aired an excellent six part series on India recently. The other night we watched part two, The story of India (part 2). The first half hour retells the life of Buddha. Incorporating present day video footage of India with the story makes this telling especially good. The end of the segment stood out to me. To quote:
Buddha (around the age of 80, 486bc) felt his time nearing the end, traveled North towards the land of his childhood. The Buddha reached a little town on the edge of the Ganges plane where he fell ill. Continue reading ‘“… Strive On Diligently”’
Well actually it’s “Don’t trust any elephant under 60“. This Science News’ article is about elephants, but it applies to people, and all species I’d imagine.
Our choices for what to look for in a leader runs the gamut, as this excerpt from the Science News’ article puts it:
“There is an interesting trade-off here, which certainly applies to humans and maybe elephants as well,” van Vugt says. “The group might want a young, fit and aggressive leader to defend the group — the Schwarzenegger type — but at the same time might want an older, more experienced leader — the Merkel type — to make an accurate assessment of the dangers in the situation.” Continue reading ‘Don’t trust anyone under 60′
I’m not sure where to begin when writing about this observation. Like many things in life, there are multi-faceted and multi-layered aspects to the ‘big picture’. Oh well, I’ll just plunge in…
We, like all social species, always have some form of governance. Social species need their ‘alpha male’ (even if that’s the queen bee in a bee hive).
Being a more complicated species than bees, hierarchical governance is multi-layered. Even within our species though, the more ’sophisticated’ the culture/civilization, the more layers. Hunter gather groups have the simplest – no courts, parliaments, congresses, or special interest clubs. Continue reading ‘Democracy as Myth’
Jungle church in Malaya
Well, why not! But seriously, this is a question I have not heard asked much… if at all(1) Debates mostly focus on whose God is best, the nature of God, or does God even existence. Asking “why do we believe in God” is more of a zoological approach to this issue. That is the place to begin; after all, we are animals first.
I’ve long see the God idea as an emergent property of our social need for leadership, i.e., ‘alpha male’, the decider. All social primate groups have some individual serving this unifying role. Being a thinking ape, it is natural that we would image the existence of a super-leader in a super-home (heaven). Being social apes, it is also nature that we’d enjoy gathering to share the experience. A recent article in Science News, Connected at church, happy with life, offered some support for the why of it all. Continue reading ‘Why God?’
While twisting myself in the odd yoga shapes the morning I thought, this is nuts! No normal animal on the planet would do this. In fact, no other animal can be found doing most of the things our species does. Working, resting, and engaging in the basic biological functions is all that we have in common with other species. And we even go out of our way to embellishing those aspects. Just consider the fancy bathrooms we have (photo below).
The common view is to see all this as being what makes us unique, special, superior, advanced… “higher beings” no less. Looking at this from a symptoms point of view helps me avoid such a “pat myself on the back” biases. Continue reading ‘The Nutty Things We Do’
I am a bit amused by how frustrated people are with Obama. It is a classic example of how one’s expectations are the seeds of one’s disappointments. It also shows people’s depth of maturity.
Maturity, as I see it, is simply how gracefully I can accept a reality that doesn’t match my expectations. Children get their hopes up for this or that, and when life goes the other way they crash – lack of maturity(1). This is what we expect from children. But adults? This shows how little difference there is between children and adults – we’re just big children struggling to ‘look adult’. Continue reading ‘Change we can believe in?’
I am struck by how obvious, yet secret, the relationship between science, religion and truth are. This could be another example of ’words very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice‘. There is, I’ve found, profound spiritual meaning in core scientific laws (truths). Why then the battle between religion and science. The problem begin with definition. There is the blatantly partisan side of religion, and the common humble spiritual truth from which religion spring. The Latin root, religare (”to reconnect,”) says it all (the prefix re “again” + ligare “bind, connect”). The war we see, are battles between the religious partisans and science. These passionate adherents are religious in name mostly. Continue reading ‘Science, Religion, Truth’
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