2 parts to any good religion:
1 - Existential crisis: Why is anything here?
2 - Morals: I'm here...how should I behave, what is important?

None of them solve the first one. God just pushes the question back and makes it worse...also makes no sense. Complexity comes from simplicity, not the other way around. The Void and Tao do solve it but need contemplation and meditation to "get"...too hard for most.

The second one, surprisingly, folks are generally in agreement. The 10 commandments are mostly innate in (most) humans and even monkeys and rats have some innate morality...I suspect all social animals do.

The real issue is that religion is cultural...truth and functionality are not important as compared to identity.
Functionally, it takes a secular culture to handle the modern world: Technology demands bottom up decisions and real humility (machines cannot be bullied), religious culture, if not dogma demands top-down processes if they are to remain whole.
Look at the *growth* of the wealth of nations...always associated with secular practice. Look at "dark age" phase of nations...always associated with religious control at government level. Don't believe me, study the history on this one!

Really interesting article, but like most writing mixing science and religion...mostly pointless.

Very well then Crabsy.

we'll just to wait and see if Sells has any reason that is not gobbledegook why this "proclivity" is justified in being special, rather than coopted from something mundane, and incidentally why all those just as convincingly satisfied with their own religion are wrong.

Rusty

This world IS, itself Unqualified Existence, Being, Consciousness, Intelligence, Love-Bliss, Power, Form, and Beauty.REAL Intelligence is tacit or intrinsically wordless living existence.

This world is simply the Process of Love-Bliss.

REAL Intelligence is tacit or intrinsically wordless living existence.

Reality does not think. The naturally existing world does not think. Naturally existing beings, both human and non-human do not think.

Reality IS what IS, rather than what is thought to be. Reality merely, and Always Already,IS - before time, and space, and thinker, and thought, and knower, and known, and subject, and object, and ego-"I", and other, are objectified by stress created conceptual and perceptual acts.

What do we really know?

That the fear-saturated mortal meat-body and its associated social-personality, with which we are identified is going to die.

Only what is in our direct field of perception in any and every moment - nothing more. Which is to say that we always only Consciousness mysteriously associated with an Indivisible Sphere of boundless Energy or Light.

It is also more or less common knowledge that we do not merely see what is presumed to be external to us. Our seeing is in fact a subtle electronic apparition, developed in the brain and nervous system, and projected "out there". We have no direct connection to anything "out there". We are always having a vision. A vision of a seemingly solid world.

So too with our sense of bodily existence. We are experiencing an apparition, an electronic sense of being identified with a gross physical body. The actual position in which we are experiencing perceptions is an extremely subtle position. Every thing "out there" is an electronic apparition!

Mind is not merely in the brain. Mind is the circumstance of Consciousness in its association with objects of all kinds, including the body. Mind is universal, infinite in extent.

And Sells want to prattle on about "Israel" - whenever, and wherever that could possibly be.

Ozandy,
I’m not sure about your correlation of religion and society. Some of the darkest societies we’ve seen have been avowedly atheist – Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea .... And the enlightenment values of the West have their roots in Christianity.

Crabsy
You may be a bit soft on Peter. I think he IS a Christian exclusivist based on a) his view of Christianity as being an anti-religion (not just one religion among many) and b) the importance of revelation in his theology, which tends to suggest there is only one authentic source of knowledge of God.

(Peter, I apologise if I have misrepresented you here, or grossly over-simplified. Feel free to contradict me!)

Interesting dissertation, Ho Hum.

>>It is also more or less common knowledge that we do not merely see what is presumed to be external to us. Our seeing is in fact a subtle electronic apparition, developed in the brain and nervous system, and projected "out there". We have no direct connection to anything "out there". We are always having a vision.<<

Wow, that takes me back.

Reminds me of the old man in the shack, in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Here he is, talking to his cat:

"Pussy! Pussy, pussy! Coo-chee, coo-chee, coo-chee, coo-chee! Pussy want his fish? Nice piece of fish… pussy want it? Pussy not eat his fish, pussy get thin and waste away…

I think.

I imagine this is what will happen, but how can I tell? I think it’s better if I don’t get involved.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

Ahh, you’re eating it. Fish come from far away - or so I’m told - or so I imagine I am told. When the men come - or when in my mind the men come in their six black, shiny ships, do they come in your mind too?

What do you see pussy?

And when I hear their questions, all their many questions, do you hear questions? Perhaps you just think they’re singing songs to you. Perhaps they are singing songs to you and I just think they’re asking me questions.

Do you think they came today? …I do. There’s mud on the floor, cigarettes and whiskey on my table, fish in your plate, and a memory of them in my mind. And, look what else they’ve left me!: Crosswords… dictionaries, and a calculator.

I think I must be right in thinking they ask me questions. To come all that way and leave all these things just for the privilege of singing songs to you would be very strange behaviour - or so it seems to me.

Who can tell? Who can tell?"

RIP Douglas Adams.

Pericles. That adapted quote was taken from this essay on the Cosmic Mandala

http://www.healer-crystals.com/CosmicM1.html

The other bits of my posting were pastiches of other writings by the same author on the nature of Ultimate Reality. All of which is summarized in a book titled Reality Is All the God There Is published by Inner Traditions