Purple is not a light-wave frequency or neurons firing at a certain frequency. Without consciousness, purple doesn’t exist. This is where I diverge from my critique of religion as a literal concept into accepting there is a reality entangled but separate from that which is traditionally described by scientists. I am not a biochemical machine. I feel. I am conscious. I am a sentient being merely entangled with my physical body. I do believe there is a spirit independent of the reality I can describe in terms of physics and medicine. I don’t believe it is energy. That is mere the expansion of motion and it’s stored potential. I’m not so sure energy itself exists in the physical sense. I don’t believe I am energy, but I think to reduce life to purely a physical construct is overly simplistic. There is similarity here. I reach a point of irreducibility quickly when it comes to separating consciousness from the brain. It’s where psychology gets interesting, and it’s certainly possible that there is a 100% physical quality that is entangled with every aspect of my consciousness. There may or may not be extra quala I use to ponder, beyond the physical mechanics of my brain. Eitherway, I think; at least I think I think. It doesn’t negate that my cognizant and sentient nature is relative, but separate, from the physical reality of my body. It doesn’t bring forth the possibility of the supernatural to me, but it does make for the possibility that there are other dimensions of entanglement in the universe beyond what we understand and/or perceive thus far.
Despite being under the care of a psychiatrist, I am not ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ I believe life has value, especially as it approaches some complex states of sentience like cognition, and the ability to perceive one’s own emotions and separate out the different states with psycholinguistics. I am soft hearted, because I value the state of compassion. It is inherently merciful, when it can be. Life also supports itself by consuming other life. It seems likely there would be a level of atrophy there, and I am concerned just how callous beings of a more complex sentient state can dismiss acts like torture on utilitarian merits. Perhaps morality is to be more determined by the pit in our stomach than clever logic of Philosophical Ethicists.
Religion can be metaphorical relations of extreme importance in how people communicate bound to the limitations of language, knowledge, and the intellectual capabilities of the brain itself. When a community agrees to certain values and rules, they create a social understanding of right and wrong. What one does when no one is looking though is the actual belief of the individual. The person critical of the athlete who doesn’t stand for the national anthem may not stand for it at 3 am when it is played on certain TV channels in the privacy of their home. That tells me that the moral principle at hand isn’t the patriotic symbolism of the song, but the importance to conform. When forced disproportionally upon a subcultural demographic in anger when it is not followed at the privacy of the home, it is beyond clear and evident that the issue is the adherence to the racial hierarchy in order to play the sport typically dominated by the demographic more prone to protest. It’s pretty easy to see how public ethics don’t always match actual individual perceptions of reality.
My interest is what is described by the metaphorical actions of the religion that mesh with the actual behavior of members at all times. I think a lot of people feel pressured to testify to that which they don’t believe in and those people are quick to agree with ethical guidelines as an informal social contract that internally has alternate motives. Often it is just to be part of the group. We all want to belong. However, is the purpose merely to declare what to do and pretend to believe? I think the reason many churches are in decline is because of exactly that problem. Instead, we should search for a group that helps us actualize our mutual values and individual existential purpose as we find ourselves in cooperation to persist into. To pretend to be one thing, when we know we are something else is cognitively dissonant, even during attempts to be socially constructive if not benevolent. What values do I have, rather than think I should have? It is not about what we pretend to believe, or what we understand metaphysically, but as to what our individual and group purpose is in life. Where do I find the people who can complexly complete each other towards the most meaningful purpose? Accordingly how do we deal with conflict between competing interests. This is where factions come in and why groups often go to war.
Joker's Wild 