How do you define Time?

There are two forms of religion. There are the organized religions of the world, and then there is the drive in humans that lead us to them.

I like to look at this in terms of evolution and how I envision it taking place.
Before the evolution of a self aware consciousness in the creature that was to become the human being, this creature existed in oneness with the world. There was no knowledge of anything to set it apart beyond a naturally occuring instinct to survive. This creature lived in the proverbial garden of eden, one with nature and completely a part of it. Much like the mammals of today, though we already see in some of them that this change into something more has begun. They are all evolving towards self awareness.

Then came the event of awakening. I think it must have taken an immeasurable amount of years as this creature gradually attained the capacity to invent and relate to abstrac and metaphysical concepts. While this new skill was a gift to this creature it took something away as well.
The tradeoff was that a growing sense of self resulted in a diminishing sense of oneness with the world.
Religion was inevitable. It came, at first, as an attempt to include the vast realm of the inexplicable into the new realm of thought and conscious perception, since this world still affected this creature and had to be considered.

So already then religion was an attempt to re-establish the sense of belonging to nature that the sense of self takes away. Great schemes were invented in which humans had a place, and in contemplating these schemes man could feel a sense of belinging, a sense of oneness with the world.

And then there came the exploitation of this. Religions became organized, and people assumed power over others by controlling their beliefs. Whenever we think about religion today it is this form of religion; but it isn't true religion, it's a means of control and power.

True religion, as I see it, is the quest you undertake to return to the state we were in before the evolution of a sense of self. To return to the garden of eden without leaving anything that makes us human behind. To again experience the world with an animals unthinking presence, merely existing in harmony with everything, but with this new sense of self intact.

So true religion is about self exploration, about coming to the point where you are the master of your awareness. It is at this point you are truly free, truly one with everything and in perfect harmony.
And the difference between this creature now and before self awareness is that while existence in this eden before was oblivious, it isn't anomore. The true purpose of religion is to return to this garden, which is in reality a mental state of existence, only with the knowledge of being there. It would be the fullfillment of our consciousness, the final strech that a human has to travel and his consciousness is complete.

But like I said, this is how I envision it sometimes. I have no evidence to support any claims, it is merely a tale of how it may have occured, as it seems to me.

That's a pretty good analysis, and thanks for sharing your concepts.

Cyracuz, that is a great interpretation of the meaning of Man's (Adam and Eve's) expulsion from the garden of eden. I do not see that metaphorical expulsion as some kind of punishment for disobedience to God's commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I see the expulsion as an AUTOMATIC consequence (like getting sick from drinking dirty water) of Man's having taken up the habit of making distinctions, i.e., of managing the world by means of analytical distinctions in a dualistic and abstract version of reality--of taking up residence in a virtual reality.
Nietzsche rejected Rousseau's call for humanity's return to his anamalic state, even though Nietzsche emphasized our fundamentally anamalic nature--we are, he stressed, driven by biologically based instincts--but we are ALSO (as you note) more than that: we have also "evolved" to be more than what we were in Eden (our drives have undergone, for one thing, cultural sublimation).
To achieve "enlightenment in the sense of realizing the world's/Reality's unity, including our prereflective oneness with it, is to become truly religious.
As usual I agree with virtually everything you say except that my model of religion is limited to only one kind. I do not consider the institutions of churchianity true religion. Indeed, I have a sense that they are (well virtually all of them) contra-religion. Pardon my bigotry.

JL
When you say that the institutions of churchianity are contra-religion I have to say that I feel the same way.
But like I said, whenever religion is brought up in a gathering of people, it is these "religions" the word refers to in the minds of the participants of the conversation. The exceptions seem to be rare and far between.

Rare indeed; I guess that's why the so-called mystical perspective is called esoteric religion.

JLN wrote:

I really like what you say here; we are all "victims" of our culture, and are influenced by it. Our personal or individual control is almost non-existent to some degree.

Yes, C.I., victims in one sense and beneficiaries in another. We have weaved webs of meaning to make life more than just sensations and drives, yet we are caught in such webs. But as anthropologists never forget, without culture we would not only be mere animals but--lacking claws, speed and strength--we would be extinct animals.

I totally agree that there are benefits under some cultures, but the majority of humans on this planet suffer more than benefit. Government corruption is the norm - even in our country that seems to survive with all its handicaps.

C.I.

What you say here is the very reason I think religion (in it's true form, as we have discussed above) is so important. The world is actually perfect in that it inspires us to overcome suffering and injustice. But alas, the usurpers of the very concept of religion bar the way, and instead find ways to make us believe that we are supposed to accept suffering as a result of the inevitable human sin, and to live our lives in atonement of it.

As a result, all the ideals we ought to be inspired to reach for are pedestals in the distance which we worship while we mourn our faith.

But to suffer is to make the choice to suffer. It may be hard to grasp, and at times, when I am up to my neck in self indulgent misery, I tend to forget it myself. But for all the flaws of this world as a community, it is the perfect place in which we can find our individual freedom, our path back to the proverbial eden. We just have to learn to think for ourselves, and not let those who would impress their ways upon us in order to control us have their way.

I agree that "religion" is important, but not the religions of the past or of today that prescribes limited words of wisdom in some book written centuries ago. What I see in religion is the building of edifices to strangle their adherents of unnecessary responsibility to build places of worship than to help other suffering humans. The priorities of religion is misguided and wrong.

I believe some of us have become the "black" or "yellow" sheep of our family by thinking outside the normal box of culture and religion. What I find in my own life is the "freedom" to pursue what I enjoy most; world travel. My wife not only allows me to travel, but encourages me.

All my siblings are christians married to christians. I'm an atheist married to a buddhist, and our children have the freedom to become religiously active or not; their choice.

I see organized religion as a negative; many become slaves to their teachings without regards to ethics or humanity. In our country, christians promote the discrimination against gays and lesbians based on one word "marriage." I believe that is ridiculous to the extreme.

Yes, there is nothing to say to that except; I agree!

C.I., I would add to my agreement that I think your kids are lucky.

Btw.... "words of wisdom"... curious phrase..
Can wisdom come in words? Or is it rather that we can see the wisdom behind it if we already have the wisdom in ourselves?

I've been reading and learning. Thank you good people.

So, how does one guard against self-delusion, if not by comparison with empirical fact? How does one know the difference between "knowing" enlightenment and "knowing" the love of Jesus, or for that matter, "knowing" that one requires a tin-foil hat to protect one from alien rectal probing?

We translate our perceptions in words and emotion.

( One thing I like about my personal theory of everything, is that it explains the acceleration of the expansion of the universe without the need for stoopid "dark matter" )

As I see it, the best way to guard against self-delusion is to constantly challenge your own concepts, and your own understanding of them.
But in a way, all concepts are self-delusion, so perhaps it comes down to finding what you can live with and working from there...

No truer words said; we all live in our own delusions. Reality is in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, I guess the zen notion that we must not be caught by ANY of our notions, no matter how suductively logical, is the closet we come to experiencing Reality. It's not what we do but what we do not do.

JLN, I'd like to see you use this image for your avatar.


If you like, I can crop it for you.