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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« … nobody denies that you are you or that you are the one who experienced whatever your experiences were, but it seems that you misunderstood … my statement.

Whatever you perceive through your senses, you can tell that it exists and you can even tell that you are able to influence its movements, but you cannot tell that it is you. The specific perception I was referring to was of your homo sapiens mammal body whose movements you are able to influence … rather than … the experiencer »
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I understand what you are saying, Yuyutsu. But we oàbviously have different world-views.

You indicated earlier that “you are what you are, neither a body nor a soul”. Whereas, I answered that I see no reason to believe that I am anything other than a mammal of the homo sapiens species. Of course, the common term is a “person”, which, according to the OED, is “a human being regarded as an individual”. I consider that I am the “person” whom you refer to as “the experiencer”.

However, if I understand you correctly, you have difficulty accepting the idea that a “person” is no more than a physical body.

I understand your scepticism and see no reason to criticize it. But until somebody comes up with a better explanation of what constitutes a “person”, based on verifiable (or should I say “falsifiable”) evidence, I see no justification for affirming that I (or anybody else for that matter) am “neither a body or a soul”.

Biology is still in its infancy and we still have a lot to learn. Who knows, perhaps one day we shall manage to unravel the mystery of life and how the mind works without having recourse to all the usual supernatural subterfuges.

But, I’m afraid we’re still a long way off, Yuyutsu. Unfortunately, it probably won’t happen during our lifetime.

So, play on Pied-Piper, play on …

http://www.hameln.com/_mediafiles/90-tourismus-rattenfaengerlied.mp3

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Dear Banjo,

«However, if I understand you correctly, you have difficulty accepting the idea that a “person” is no more than a physical body.»

The word 'person' comes from the Latin 'persona", or theatrical-mask.

While to complicate things I believe that we wear at least two such masks on top of each other - our body on top of our soul, it makes no real difference if you believe either that it is all just one mask; or that soul does not even exist. Science may indeed discover more regarding what a person consists of and indeed it will not likely happen in our lifetime, but these are mere details that are not crucial for differentiating the wearer from the worn.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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I overlooked a question you raised in your previous post :

« … religion and deities were never meant to explain anything … why should they? »
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I understand that we human beings branched off from our common ancestor with the chimpanzees about five to seven million years ago. Life in those early days must have been quite terrifying, not only before we developed intellectual faculties superior to other biological species, but even long after we were able to employ them. Nature, for no apparent reason, often became terribly aggressive. We found ourselves subjected to violent hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanos, droughts, snow storms, bush fires, as well as the occasional devastating meteorite. We had no warning and no explanation for any of it.

It is not surprising that little by little, due to the development of our intellectual capacity to conceptualise, we gradually replaced our instinctive reaction of terror to these natural phenomena with logical, supernatural explanations. Animist religions, which continue to be largely present today, attributed a god or spirit to each of earth’s physical features as well as to each of the terrifying manifestations of nature. The concept of anthropomorphic gods soon followed. Human characteristics such as reason, motivation, personality and the possibility to communicate were attributed to the animist gods.

Having invented the supernatural, we elaborated a strategy for survival based on this concept. The strategy consisted in contacting whichever god we had attributed to a particular natural phenomenon and begging him to spare us from his wrath and protect us from harm. If prayers, worship and acts of submission failed to produce the desired result, we offered animal and human sacrifice.

This strategy for survival is what we call religion today. The person or animal we offered to the gods in exchange for the salvation of the rest of the community is now reputed to be a scapegoat. The Christian religions integrated the concept into their dogma.

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(Continued ...)

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(Continued ...)

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The concept of religion and deity has evolved with the sociocultural and demographic evolution of mankind, in all its diversity, throughout the world :

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

On the purely personal level, in addition to the sociocultural and demographic factors just mentioned, I suspect that a certain number of psychological factors also play an important role in determining the disposition of individuals to religious belief.

Parental influence, lack of self-confidence, hope, fear, in particular, come to my mind.

Perhaps some are just waiting for the miracle to come :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-etRm4cN8

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Dear Banjo,

«I understand that we human beings branched off from our common ancestor with the chimpanzees...»

All fine apart for the word "we". This elaborate description of origin and behaviour is all about humans, not about us.

Yes, humans do all sorts of things that are driven as you stated by all manners of motivations, including fears and hopes: Just because a particular behaviour prevails as part of human culture does not necessarily make it religious. The indiscriminate categorisation of any ritual and any supernatural belief as "religious" is sloppy at best.

The purpose of a deity is not to relieve one's fears and grant their desires. The purpose of a deity is to help focus the worshipper's attention away from their obsession on the mundane. If one is disturbed by mundane fears and desires, then it is often proper to offer and instruct them in the valid technique of praying and/or believing that a given deity will solve that problem. That way they will focus their attention more and more on the deity and less and less on their mundane fears/hopes.

It is easy to see how outsiders who have no understanding of the religious process might mistakenly get the false impression as if that deity is indeed supposed to solve that mundane problem. It may then occur that such outsiders imitate the religious by starting to propitiate that deity (because they consider it a practical solution to their problems), similar to a monkey pushing buttons on a phone because it saw humans doing it, without true understanding why they did so.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« This elaborate description of origin and behaviour is all about humans, not about us »
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I don’t wish to disappoint you, Yuyutsu, but I’m afraid I have to confess that I am what is known as a “person”, i.e., “a human being regarded as an individual” (OED definition). If you care to check it out, you will see that I did actually mention it in my post to you on the top of p.11 of this thread.

On the other hand, I was totally unaware of the fact that you are not of the same species as myself. Please forgive me but I honestly can’t recall your ever having mentioned it before this. Your command of the English language is excellent !

You also wrote :

« The purpose of a deity is not to relieve one's fears and grant their desires »
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That may be so in today’s context, but it was certainly not the case five to seven million years ago. As I explained in my previous post, faith was the strategy that primeval man devised to pacify his early hostile environment. It brought him hope and comfort when he was terrified by the ferocity of natural phenomena that he could neither understand nor control. He invented gods, worshipped them and offered them sacrifices in exchange for their pacification and benevolence.

No doubt the new purpose that, as you say, modern man has deemed more appropriate to assign to deity in the 21st century is quite different. We are now several million years further on. Times have changed. There has been a tremendous evolution since those early beginnings.

Having said that, I am somewhat dubious about the change of attitude you announce in today’s religious followers, whose prayers have almost invariably been in the form of a request for some favour or other, and rarely a simple act of worship of deity without some ulterior motive.

But I’m willing to believe that you can read the hearts and minds of religious believers better than I can, Yuyutsu.

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