Originally Posted by
HereticWacey
So God is an archaic word that represents our understanding of the conciousness of our right brain hemishpere. This consiouness has no boundries, it has no sense of self, it is like the serial processor of a computer, it is omnipresent, it "knows" without words or language, it is always turned on, it is always at peace because it has no stake in it's exsistance, it is empty, it has no center. It takes in infortmation of the sorrounding environment outside and inside the organism like the flat canvas wall displays the projected movie on it's surface. All the higher chordates expereince something like this conciousness and it could be said to be "everywhere". The conciousness of the left hemishpere is the seat of the self. It could be said to be the movie that is projected onto the screen of the right hemishpere conciouness. It is the location of language which is an important feature beacuse it is language that gives man the sense of an individual identity, or self. It is only man, with his massive prefrontal cortex that can lucidly expereince both the right and left hemishpere with complete understanding unlike all the other creatures on this earth.
This means that we can touch the divine, the divine being the peacfull, selfless or for lack of a better word soul, or holy spirit within us. The ancients called the right hemishpere conciousnnes the holy spirit, the atman, nirvana, grace, heaven, ect.. This is a place of being that lies outside the realm of self, yet by nature is the place where self is projected into.
All forms of religion speak of this knowledge of our right brains. I was interested to learn that Islam, of all religions speaks of something called jihad, a much malainged concpet that has less to do with an outer holy war, and more to do with the battle that the ego faces when trying to arrive at God, or the conciousness of our right brain hemishperes. It is this battle that is described so fasinatingly by every culture man has developed. Every way possible to come to God has been thought of by ego. Ritual, psychotropic drugs, deep suffereing, meditation, near-death expereince, art, intellectual study, spirit quests, sacrifice, ect.. are all ways in which man has attempted to see through the veil of left hemishpere ego and find home. It is home that man seeks. And it is home that man will always return. We are never separate from home, God, because like people state, He, it, nothing, emptiness, is always inside us.
Separateness is a curse as well as a great gift of human nature that developed over centuries of evolution. Who knows when we first became separate from God. The bible tells a wonderfull medafor for this very topic. Adam and Eve ate a fruit from the tree of knowledge. This tree ate beings from gave them both individual identity as separate beings from God. They were cast out by God and for the first time realized there own nakedness. Oh that first horror at seeing there own individualhood, at seeing there own smelly, naked apeness. The pain of being separate from the living life around himself, locked away forever as an Ego/body damned to live trapped by his own deeds and sins, always stuck on the great wheel of his own karma. This story is the first shame according to the christianity lineage. The first time we walked away from God and said I am me. It's an interesting twist that God gave man that choice to walk away from him. I beleive it is because in evolutionary terms, having a sense of self is actually quite nessasary for the homo sapiens. It is the ego formed by language that allows us to think and feel for ourselves and is the great tool we used to adapt to our sorroundings. Perhaps it was the sense of self that drove our ancient fathers and mothers to step outside of thier habitats and enter new land, something no living creature had mastered quite like we did. Perhaps it was our sense of selve, the conciouness of "me", "you", "us" hat gave us an unprecedneted advatage against mother nature. No longer were we bound by biotic and abiotic factors for our exsistance. We could see ourselves as outside, above the environemt and because we were above the outside world, separate from it, we could manipulate to suite our needs. Only in man is this possible because we evolved the right and left hemispheres in our prefrontal cortex to such massive proportions. We were once only a creature of God, like all other life, yet God gave only man the choice to live separate from him if he chooses to.
Mans intellect has discovered the blueprints of the history of earth and even life itself. Yet God is always there, always present, always home. It is for this reason that science and God can walk hand in hand. God is a part of lifes very nature.
In regards to sin from the OP. Sin is simply "cultural knowledge" of actions that are harmfull to the body/mind organism. They are things that are understood to be potentially harmfull to the self and society and thus "evil". They do not have any inherent wrongness/rightness, they are simply not good to do and if you do them you may expereince an even greater sense of separation from God. You may find yourself in a type of hell. It can be very difficult to come out of this hell because emotional thought patterns and memories are stored in our brains for a very long time. Yet there is hope. It is interesting to note that although our limbic system functions throughout our lifetime, it does not mature. As a result, when our emotional "buttons" are pushed, we retain the ability to react as though we were a two year old, even when we are adults. As our higher cortical cells mature and become integrated in complex networks with other neurons, we gain the ability to take "new pictures" of the present moment. When we compare the new information of our thinking mind with the automatic reactivity of our limbic mind, we can reevaluate the current situation and purposely choose a more mature response. It is said that Jesus died for our sins, in fact I think the wording is incorrect, he was trying to show that escape from sin in your mind, sin being an act that created an emotional trigger within yourself, for example suffering, is possible in ones lifetime. Each man must face God at the metaphoric pearly gates and answer for his sins. He may also find freedom from his sins. I will say that he will still need to answer for them in relevent terms such as a death penalty from his society, jail terms, ect. however enlightened his justice system is at the time of his crimes. Yet at the level of Gad and man, there is always hope for redemption. He can be punished by fellow man, and find redemption from God. Now I am talking about a reasonably healthy body/mind individual, obviously there will always be excpetions like serial killers/ rapists/ ect.
I think that the term God can actually be defined quite nicely, most especially in todays age where reason has allowed, for the most part, the majority of culture to see through superstition. Advances in neuroscience are taking us to the very edge of reality and consiouness. As I understand it, we can have God, mystery, grace, as well as reason, rationality, truth, fact at the same time.
