Chapter 12
Asea in Oceana Mysterium
Spiritmatter
The Universe has been turning simple things into complex ones since it began. The human body, for example, is a highly complex structure made from water and trace elements. The DNA in a single cell can be stretched out to a distance of about 6.5 feet. An entire human body contains about fifteen billion miles of DNA, making it a data rich platform that has allowed humans to become the dominant species on earth. Just as the Universe has turned water and trace elements into human beings, human have also changed simple materials into complex structures such as computer chips. Computer chips are made from silica, a highly refined and artificially grown type of sand. Chips begin life as silica wafers which are grown on "seeds" in clean rooms. Wafers are grown under highly controlled conditions in order to achieve precise crystalline structures and avoid any contaminants. Part of the technique of making wafers into semiconductors requires introducing impurities into the wafers by a process called "doping." Because chips can turn electricity into intelligent sequences of 0’s and l’s, they have made possible the world of computers. Humans have created extraordinary complexity from sand and electricity in the same way the Universe made humans from water, calcium, and other simple elements. Humans are one of the myriad of complex patterns that arise from the Universe. And because we also refine raw materials into complex forms, we ourselves follow the pattern of the Universe. One of our apparent purposes is to extend and improve the Universal pattern of changing simplicity into complexity.
It took Nature millions of years to evolve the current production model of the human body. Unfortunately, this model suffers from all sorts of physical and emotional problems, many of which are attributable to our much heralded DNA. In order to better analyze and improve the human body, evolution needs human intervention, for no amount of biological evolution can produce microprocessors, tunneling electron microscopes, spectrophotometers, or advanced drugs. Nor can evolution by itself produce the doctors, researchers, medications, and techniques needed to diagnose and treat cancer, asthma, heart disease, depression, or the host of other diseases that afflict our race. Only by recognizing that we are part of the pattern and cooperating with the Universe, can we improve our bodies, health, and living conditions.
The promise of genetic research -- if it is not suppressed by the anti-intellectual Religious Right in the same way the medieval Catholics suppressed the breakthroughs of Copernicus -- holds the promise to initiate profound genetic changes in the human template. The modern world must press on with genetic research despite the ignorance and anti-scientific bias of religious fundamentalists. For example, we will soon have the means to disable the genetic ensemble responsible for breast, ovarian, prostate and other cancers before these disease appear to take our loved ones prematurely. When we do that, we will have achieved more than a spectacular medical breakthrough, for we will have effected an evolutionary-level change by overriding the corrupted DNA codes responsible for the disease. That religious fundamentalists oppose life-saving genetic research is, by default, a vote to prolong human suffering and death. In terms of moral equivalencies, fundamentalist opposition to genetic research can be argued to be as evil as "the abortion industry" the Religious Right abhors.
Humanity Follows a Larger Pattern
The process of humans using their innate intelligence to improve themselves, even to a profound genetic level, parallels an implicit pattern in the Universe. The pattern we see in the Universe is that Intelligence, however it may be embodied or configured, produces high quality components and then integrates these components into complex systems, or processes. Intelligence -- and here we capitalize the word to denote that it as a Universal property in which we inhere rather than personally possess -- generally seeks to expand itself and it abilities. It does so by progressively improving upon its various expressions. For our purposes, we will classify, or group, these various expressions into the categories of forms, processes, and beings. Together, the forms, processes, and beings form the dynamic, integrated system we call the Universe. Earth's ecosystem offers an example of forms, processes, and beings working together within an integrated system.
Throughout the book, we will be examining many parallels between Nature, science, and human life. We will see that many patterns repeat themselves in every generation. Some of these patterns are archetypal, for they manifest in every culture, age, and society. Justice is an example of a intelligent process that emerges in every age and culture. Justice takes the form of judges, courts, lawyers, and laws. Justice is personified in myth as the blindfolded goddess who holds the scales and judges impartially. When justice is denied or fraudulent justice seizes power, the natural impulse of humans is erupt in outrage. As we head towards the mystery at the center, we will see that the design and construction of our Universe and all therein is based on certain larger patterns that are not just scientific, but also involve justice, mercy, love, hate, and all of the other behavioral aspects we see manifested in human personality.
However, we will also see unexpected patterns which defy and confound our notions of life. For instance, that the Hindus worship Kali, the Goddess of death and destruction, gives us an esoteric indication that the Universe is not built on a chassis of Judeo-Christian morality. Quite to the contrary, we will argue that testing and trial in the face of injustice and adversity appears to be the normative pattern in the human condition. Why this is so is a mystery, but as we uncover the mechanics of embodiment in later chapters, parts of the structure this mystery will become evident. Like fitting together small pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, we will see that every incremental piece of knowledge adds to our cumulative knowledge in progressing and understanding the mystery of life. In essence, The Third Option argues that the Universe is inherently and demonstrably Intelligent and that this Intelligence has antecedents that are profound. Moreover, this Intelligence is capable of self-organizing itself into forms, processes, and beings. What we are vitally interested in inquiring into is the very nature of this intelligence and the ways in which it embodies, or self-organizes itself within the forms, processes, and beings in our Universe.
Is this intelligence God? Many people would say yes, and yet there is nothing which demands the conclusion that it is God. It may be God, or it may a lesser expression. Some believe that God and Intelligence are synonymous, and this seems reasonable. Yet some people also believe that their religion is the only path to God. This does not seem to be a reasonable or intelligent conclusion to thinking people outside of such dogmatic religions. I say this because there are many smart people who believe that their religion is the one and only true path to God. I suggest that the fact that intelligent people can have tremendous differences of opinion about God does not go to the questions of whether or not God exists or which God is true and which is false. Rather, I assert that disagreement goes to the nature of Intelligence and the mechanics of Embodiment. Because we are inquiring into the nature of Intelligence and Embodiment, we must observe the fact that disagreement is inherent in Intelligence, especially when it is embodied as people have very different points of view. We will later discover why disagreement is a profound, structural, and irrevocable component of intelligence. For now, I will offer another symbol, a clue, to the mystery we are pursuing. The symbol is not complex in and of itself, but the secret it holds is complex.
Given that disagreement is the case, the only possible counterbalance to disagreement is freedom. As we proceed, I will make the case again and again that the optimal human condition is freedom of thought, speech, religion, artistic expression, and action within a context of justice, communal law, and personal responsibility. A lot of what I am speaking of has to do with how you look at life, and the symbols alludes to this matter.
On a related note, there are always energy losses in any system. In lasers, for example, thermo-optic noise degrades function. In human relationships, we experience dysfunctional relatives, con men, religious lunatics, bad bosses, greedy politicians, dictators, and others who conspire to drain the various forms of energy from our personal and collective lives. To maintain health, we must always act to neutralize these parasitic losses by any legal means possible. When they threaten our very existence, however, we must kill them in literal and figurative ways. Hence, justice is the human analogue of systems engineering to reduce losses in a system. Justice is the cornerstone of any sound human relationship. Where there is a lack of fundamental justice and fairness, there will be losses. These losses can range from the small to the devastating and fatal and must be remedied appropriately and justly. This is why ethics, personal character, and government are such vital dynamic elements in human life.
That this is so, and always been the case throughout human history, argues for a design to the human psyche and the human condition. In our enquiry, we are seeking to discover many things, but chief among them is the Source who designed and built the Universe. Is this source God, and if so, what is this God like? When we look at the ideal of justice and yet consider the massive injustice in the world, we are left to wonder about the gap between the ideal and the reality. The fact that occurs again and again is that humans alone are responsible for their own condition. We are the agents of change for better or worse. If there is a God, then that One seemingly makes us do virtually all of the work, for there are very few documented, verifiable miracles on record. Most of the time, life comes down to work and details, and if we don't do it, it doesn't get done. Yet what we have been given is the greatest tool in the world: The human body-mind and our family. We have physical and emotional energy, dreams, hopes, and family to motivate us. So while we have to do all of the work, we have the one essential tool we need to be present and active in the world. If we would seek to discover God, then we must do so through the medium of the human body-mind, the innate intelligence and awareness of which we discuss in the next section.
Intelligence and Awareness
When Intelligence embodies itself within a person, that person is intelligent and aware to the extent allowed by the capabilities of their body and the conditions under which they were raised. In general, because humans have eyes, ears, noses, speech, thumbs, arms, legs, fingers, and big brains, Intelligence can express itself far more through the medium of a human body than it can through the body of a lower animal, insect, or plant. Intelligence can also gain a higher degree of Awareness in a human body than it can in a lesser body. Awareness, like Intelligence, is once again capitalized to indicate that Awareness is something in which we inhere and not something which we personally own. Intelligence and Awareness are like the air we breathe in that we live in air, we depend on air for our life, we notice the different smells in the air, we notice the difference in air quality from the city to the country, and yet we do not own air. We participate in air, and, to the extent that we exercise or practice breathing, we will improve our ability to utilize and experience air, yet we never own air. Air existed before we were born and will exist after we die. Air does not need us, rather we need it. Paradoxically, we ruin the very air we need to live by our self-destructive polluting ways. It is the same with Intelligence and Awareness, for we need both to survive. We can also choose to either improve our experience of Intelligence and Awareness by becoming educated and enlightened, or we can degrade what Awareness we have by willfully remaining ignorant. All that is required to remain ignorant is laziness, indifference, and an attitude that one is a victim of some kind.
Awareness exists prior to Intelligence. Awareness is the substrate of Intelligence. Awareness is the observer who is able to discern its own intelligence and test and expand that intelligence. Awareness allows Intelligence to become aware of itself when it is in a human body. As you read my words, we are Intelligence communicating with itself via the medium of Awareness. You may not agree with me, but again, I would remind you that disagreement is an intractable part of our nature. The symbol, which is one line at a right angle to another, reminds us of this:
Awareness is sometimes considered to be synonymous with Consciousness, and, Consciousness is considered to be the basic condition of humans. However, the level and quality of Consciousness differs from person to person according to individual development. Some people do not develop or mature for various reasons and yet they are said to be Conscious because they are human. For this reason, I use the term "Awareness" to denote a state of developed Consciousness. I differentiate Consciousness from Awareness. I consider Consciousness to be the native, undeveloped state of humans, whereas Awareness speaks to a higher state. Ideally, Intelligence and Awareness are integrated in a movement towards wisdom and enlightenment, but this is an ideal and is not always the case. Implicit in my reasoning is that principle that wisdom is inherently ethical, and that the absence of ethics in a human life is proof of an immoral refusal to move beyond an immature, self-centered state.
In the infancy of humanity, the ignorance of superstition and the heavy-hand of those religions who offered us God as the great Sky-Parent, were acceptable. However, the world wars of the twentieth century brought a previously unthinkable carnage which challenged the Western concepts of a parental God, for how could the Protestant or Jewish God allow such unparalleled suffering and inhumanity? These doubts, coupled with the large-scale human suffering that took place under the state-sanctioned atheism of Communism, Nazism, and Fascism, disabused so many conventional notions of God and religion that something more complex was sought. No longer was the Medieval God of Catholicism on his throne controlling the crystalline spheres along which the planets glided as the angels sang hosannas. Paul Tillich's quest for a "God above God" was indicative that humanity's view of God had to be greatly expanded so as to include the brutal new realities brought about by technological warfare and atheistic Communism.
That Darwinism was indicted by religion as an accessory to crimes against humanity by reason of its "survival of the fittest" logic having been incorporated a justification for atheistic totalitarian regimes, was payback for the loss of face religion had suffered at the Scopes Trial. Darwin's observation that only the fittest survive was restated by religious thinkers in the post WWII era to mean that only the most violent survive and that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao had all cited Darwin to justify the brutality needed for their respective states to survive. Therefore, theologians concluded, Darwinism was as evil as Nazism, Communism, and Fascism for it had given a scientific underpinning to these violent regime. What is overlooked, however, is that we could just as easily apply this bit of bastardized Darwinism -- only the most violent survive -- to the Catholic Church from the period 200 -- 1800 AD. Likewise, we could apply it to the ancient Jews whose violent rampage to conquer the so-called "Promised Land" reached genocidal proportions as their God commanded them to spare no one, not even pregnant women or babies, in the enemy tribes. What is certain is that mankind was violent long before Darwin. Even if a people embrace the belief that God created the Universe, they can still be incredibly violent. The false logic of modern-day Creationists argues that if we believe God created the Universe, then we will also accept and obey God's moral law is simply not true. White slave-owners in Colonial America had no doubts that God created the Universe. Likewise, Al Qaeda has no doubt that Allah created the Universe.
The logic of Creationists is flawed, and, as a race we need a new way to think about how the Universe began. This new way has to be expansive enough to include reality as it actually is. At the same time, the new way must offer people compelling reasons to govern their lives in such a way as to promote the survival of humanity. Now that humanity's intelligence and self-awareness are increasing, we are seeing signs of a larger Awareness which serves as the substrate of human perception. Awareness is what we want to contact and one new doorway available to us is The Third Option. There are many other doorways, but in every age new doors are opened and this is one such doorway.
One analogy that will recur throughout this book takes this form: Electricity can be used for many purposes. The expression of electricity depends upon the the configuration, or body, in which it is used. When it is used in a toaster, it will only toast bread. When it is used in a computer, it can calculate equations so vast that it would take humans decades to perform manually. The point is this: Awareness is limited by the body-mind system in which it arises. The central nervous system of a mouse will only allow for a limited expression of Awareness. When it is in a human body, however, the possibilities for Awareness to express itself are incredible. The neural and musculo-skeletal architecture of humans is remarkable. The mysterious Awareness that powers this architecture is a main focus of our work. What this Awareness is altogether is the crux of the matter as far as this book is concerned, for we will discover that Awareness -- whatever Awareness is altogether -- designed the human body, the basic conditions of human life, and the Universe at large. As did the ancients, we will symbolize Awareness in order that we might be better to relate to it as an actual Power. in keeping with ancient tradition, we will adapt its symbol for the mysterious and sacred Awareness that infuses and Universe:
The All-Seeing Eye is an ancient symbol of Awareness. The symbol is also called the Eye of Horus of refers to Horus, the Hawk-God. The symbol is still used today and is represents God, the One who sees all. This symbol will become very important to us later in our work, for it does contain great secrets. For now, we will use the All-Seeing Eye to represent the Awareness that pervades the Universe. Like Intelligence, we inhere in Awareness and do not own it personally. Rather, we experience a reduced form of Awareness that is modified by our psyche and body. We call this experience our self. Our conventional personality is a perception, and the basis of our perception is ultimately rooted in Awareness. However, as we have already indicated that disagreement is a structural component in the Universe, we can very early in this book eliminate the belief that we are all the same underneath. We are not. While we share many commonalities, we are each unique. Sometimes our uniqueness is cause for joy to others while at other times it causes aggravation to other. That we all inhere in the same Awareness and yet are all different reveals the vastness of Awareness and will lead to a surprising revelation about the nature of Awareness in our Universe.
The Universe is always aware of itself. While some scientists would like to reduce the Universe to a stimulus-response machine and argue that it is all nuts and bolts churning along on auto-pilot, most of humanity rejects this idea. Even Nature itself rejects the idea that it is an impersonal machine. The fact that ecosystems are self-repairing -- for example the forests surrounding Mount Saint Helens began to regenerate themselves after the volcanic eruption -- indicates that Nature is self-aware and responsive. On the earth, Nature is aware and responsive on large and small scales. Because Nature embeds processes in matter, some scientist have arbitrarily judged these material-based processes to be mechanistic and therefore not alive in the way humans are alive. This is a remarkable conceit, for what is a human body except a series of processes embedded in matter? Certain scientists, such as neurobiologists, argue that human personality is reducible to material processes. Theologians, on the other hand, argue that life is ultimately spirit and exists independently of the physical body in which it is embedded during life. Within our enquiry, we must therefore ask which view is correct. Alternately, we must challenge both views, for perhaps neither is correct. There may be some other way of looking the question of whether life is ultimately material or spiritual.
Because humans can talk and think, some humans have come to believe that they are the sentient beings in the Universe and that Nature is an impersonal machine. What these materialists so easily forget is that the Universe self-organized the earth and the earth self-organized the forms and processes necessary to bring forth humans. The colossal materialist conceit so easily forgets that intelligent Nature pumps the blood in their bodies and processes all of their other organic functions while materialists like Edmund O. Wilson offer us hypotheses about the nature of life -- such as Consilience -- that are every bit as unverifiable as any offered by religion. Life may seem innately consilent to Wilson, but it does not seem that way to others. Again, differences in opinion and observation recur and difference itself stands out in our search more than the details of the differences.
In any case, what materialists nor anyone else denies is that Nature phases out old humans. Nature requires young, vigorous, and educationally upgraded humans in every generation to handle the cutting edge of the evolutionary curve that older humans are unwilling to challenge because it would threaten the paradigms they erected thirty and forty years ago. In our current age, the same applies to computers, for we keep computers until the lag behind the speed at which we move. At least humans get to retire and live much longer than old computers. In fact, our computers don't even get to live as long as our dogs and cats. But then again, computers are just machines, right? Never mind that they that allow us to massively increase our ability to think, edit, and manage life. Never mind that they are extensions of our own brains. They become expendable when they can't keep pace and that is how Nature treats old people. This is brutal, but it is how Nature works. Fortunately, the Universe recycles everything.
Computers are intelligent and we, their makers, are intelligent. We are made of water and chemicals and they are made of silicon and plastic. Just as we are part of a pattern of forms, processes, and beings, it seems that computers have emerged from the same pattern of Intelligence reproducing itself in other forms and so we must consider them as a form of intelligence. For now, it is suffice to say that humans are presently shelved by the Universe between the book of Nature and the book of Computers. To get ahead of ourselves, what we are looking for is not the book that comes before Nature, but rather we want to go outside of the Library of the Universe to see what brought this venerable institution into existence. If we can discover that, then we will really have something to talk about.
In order to pursue such matters, we must use our Intelligence and Awareness in concert. To put a very fine point on the matter of definitions, Intelligence and Awareness are not synonymous. Further, Awareness is not uniform throughout humanity, for we see that the quality of awareness varies from person to person. Some people lack any real sense of awareness. They have a reduced sense of awareness and a correspondingly low level of situational awareness. This reduced state can be caused by fear, anxiety, drugs, boredom, old age, a lack of education, and other factors. To lack Intelligence and Awareness is to be ignorant. The remedy is to use what intelligence one has to become smarter and more Aware.
Awareness and Intelligence generally go hand-in-hand, for to increase one's intelligence is to increase one's self-awareness. However, this is not always the case, for some intelligent people are not very self-aware, or worse, some intelligent people are evil. This combination of evil and intelligence is diabolical. Consider the scientists who work for terrorist nations and groups building weapons of mass destruction. Their diabolical inventions are fueled by hatred, religious fundamentalism, rage, and other factors within Awareness that have nothing to do with Intelligence. Those Ph. D.'s who serve terror are angry psychotics who use their intelligence to fabricate political and/or religious justifications for their innate sadism. These doctors of death crave power and, as with all sadists, enjoy making people afraid and enjoy watching people suffer. Such people have no awareness other than that of their own perversions and the justifications for those perversions. Because evil is a delusional system that seeks to justify violence, its awareness is limited to its own flawed interiority.
Awareness is different than Intelligence. A scholar, for example, can be so involved in research that his or her marriage is destroyed by reason of neglect. Likewise, a poor, uneducated person can be so acutely self-aware of their poverty and misery that they work heroically to educate themselves so that they may escape the punishments of poverty. In the most basic of terms, Awareness always precedes Intelligence. Newborns are aware, but not nearly as aware as adults. Newborns are also not intelligent. They need their parents to keep them safe and teach them how to survive. Thus we see that parenting and education are among the tools needed to expand Intelligence and Awareness.
One definition of Intelligence is the ability to absorb, process, and analyze information in order to make decisions that optimize one's survival. Intelligence is the ability to think and reason. One main purpose of higher education is to teach people how to think critically and how to analyze complex data. Such learning requires access to all of the available data on a subject. In the case of religious or political censorship, true learning cannot occur because much of the necessary data is withheld as it is deemed a threat to a dogmatic position. In this case, propaganda, indoctrination, and brainwashing takes the place of true learning. Obviously, these are destructive mind-control methods used by religious and political dictators to enslave people. Although the dictators may call these processes truth, enlightenment, or the Word, any type of indoctrination that restricts a person's access to all of the available data decreases a person's intelligence and awareness and instead makes them only more dependent on the cult to which they belong. The prime example of cultic censorship is the insistence that people do not read newspapers, watch television, or even view internet sites banned by the cult's internet filtering software. The historical position of scholars and teachers is that truth must be able to withstand any and all challenges. If a cult is not willing to expose its teachings to scrutiny and allow its members to decide the value and truth of the cult's teaching, then the individual needs to reexamine their participation in a group that shuts the doors to true learning and enquiry.
In addition to reviewing all of the available data in order to make good decisions, one must also strive to be aware of one's inner and outer environment. This the progressive work of the enlightenment process becomes necessary to strip away all of the negative patterns, habits, and false ideas that accumulate within one's psyche and so become barriers to expanding one's intelligence and awareness. The classical enlightenment schools teach that in order to attain higher levels of Consciousness, the student must engage in the work of identifying their barriers and transcending them through a process whereby the student differentiates their true self from that which is non-self. This view presupposes that we are inherently enlightened and that what we are doing is stripping away those negative elements which has been superimposed upon our native state enlightenment. The student is taught that he or she falsely identifies these negative elements as part of their self. This system of falsely identifying with, and so defending, that which is ultimately non-self is defined as the egoic state. The work of enlightenment becomes one of systematically detaching from one's false identification with egoic patterns and their resultant neuroses and instead identifying with Consciousness itself, which is said to be empty, formless, and inherently blissful. Consciousness is defined as being identical with God, or the Radiant Transcendental Self of the Universe who pervades all beings and suffuses all of Nature. Consciousness is One and the illusion of the ego creates the perception in the unenlightened person that they are a separate and threatened being who is not united with the One. Classic enlightenment teaching argues that only by destroying the egoic state through submission to a guru and the discipline of meditative transcendence, can one become free and thus enter into their native state of enlightenment in which they merge into the One.
The central egoic identification the student must break free from is that of their own body. The student must see that they are not their body, but rather Consciousness itself, which is said to exist prior to the body and any other thoughts, feelings, patterns, or sensations that are perceived by the ego via the body-mind. Bodily death is focused on within enlightenment work as an event that has great fear only because the student identifies their self so closely with the body. People believe that they when their body dies they too will die. Religions are devoted to arguing that this is not the case and that the human spirit is immortal. All religions teach that we will outlive our bodies and that we therefore not need to fear death. All religions also teach that the body and its appetites are inherently sinful and that our lower physical nature must be subdued and subjected to the higher moral laws of spirit, which "laws" are defined somewhat differently by every religion. The religious differences in definitions of what constitutes enlightenment, spirituality, and moral law are accounted for by the fact that each religion skews their scriptures to make them appear to be the one and only true religion that alone has exclusive access to God. For reasons such as this, we need to examine and challenge the religious views of enlightenment, spirituality, and "moral law" in our work.
Embodiment
One compelling observation we must at the outset of this book is that Nature has dedicated enormous resources to human embodiment. When we consider the exquisitely complex beauty of the human brain, we must ask if such grand neural architecture exists merely for the purpose of being transcended. The same observation is made for the elegant human body. Why has Nature essentially dedicated a planet to support the human body and the human race if the human body is a such problem? Nature is not wasteful and so it would not make sense for it to produce something as complex as the human body-mind if the sole purpose of the project was for humans to escape body and mind. If this were the case, physical law would seem to dictate that Nature conserve energy and leave us as spirits in the spirit world if there is indeed a spirit world as proposed by the various religions.
Central to our enquiry, then, are the mechanics and purpose of embodiment, which mechanics involve a tremendous effort on Nature's part. The obvious purpose of the human body is to give each person an opportunity to have a lifetime. Our body is configured so as to allow us, whatever we are ultimately, to experience a lifetime. Of course, there are no guarantees on either the quality or duration of a lifetime because so much of life is beyond the control of the individual. We each are given an indefinite and uncertain lifetime and that is all that comprises the opportunity. How one relates to that opportunity and what one does with their lifetime is a profound matter worthy and deserving of one's best efforts because it is your lifetime and it is all that you have.
Your lifetime is you; it is not something that merely happens to you. What will you do with it?
To paraphrase a great saying, a lifetime is a terrible thing to waste. If we would become intelligent and aware, we must devote ourselves to developing our potentials so that we honor the opportunity presented by our unique lifetime. In order to develop our potentials, we must discover their source, and for now all we can say is that they appear to be rooted in Awareness. For this reason, we must seek to understand Awareness.
The argument will be made in later chapters that Awareness is transcendental and exists as the substrate of human life. To say that Awareness is transcendental is defined to mean that Awareness is superior to, and exists independently of, human consciousness. When I say that Awareness is the substrate of human life, what I mean is that Awareness serves as the psychic substrate of human perception and personality. My use of the word "psychic" throughout the book refers to the psyche and has nothing to do with psychic phenomena. When so embodied in human form, Awareness assumes the limitations of the human configuration. The human body is, if you will, a step down transformer, for it is networked into a huge power source, namely Awareness, and yet the body-mind acts to reduce that power level to a lower level that can be tolerated by the human psyche.
Maturity is the process whereby we progressively expand our experience of Awareness and thus become able to tolerate more complex and daunting aspects of reality. Maturity is bittersweet because we lose our illusions and naivete. Yet maturity also allows us to become more focused and productive because we rid ourselves of that which is counterproductive. The word "circumscribe" is useful in describing both the process of maturity and also the process whereby Awareness is bounded when it is in the human body. Merriam-Webster online defines circumscribe in the following way:
Main Entry: cir·cum·scribe
Pronunciation: 's&r-k&m-"skrIb
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Latin circumscribere, from circum- + scribere to write,
draw -- more at SCRIBE
Date: 14th century
1 a : to constrict the range or activity of definitely and clearly
b : to define or mark off carefully
2 a : to draw a line around b : to surround by or as
if by a boundary
3 : to construct or be constructed around (a geometrical figure)
so as to touch as many points as possible
synonym see LIMIT
To circumscribe one's passions and dysfunctions is a voluntary process whereby one limits their conduct and focuses their thinking in order to lead a better and more productive life. In the negative sense, prison sometimes is needed to circumscribe the behavior of those who will not voluntarily do so. Religion is concerned with circumscribing, or limiting human behavior. However, to the extent that religion seeks to over-control people's thoughts, actions, personal relationships, finances, and even dress, religion becomes tyrannical. We know that we need personal and social limits to avoid anarchy, and so our systems of religion, law, psychology and so forth seek to find an appropriate balance between freedom and limits. The symbol we will use to illustrate the matter of circumscribing our actions is a simple circle:
The circle reminds us that we are always bounded in many ways. We are bounded by our body, our family, our country and its laws, and by birth and death. The circle also reminds us that we must voluntarily place boundaries on ourselves if we are to have a meaningful and productive life. While we can literally do anything we choose, not all things are wise for us to do. The circle will become a very important symbol and gain greatly expanded meaning as we progress.
Materialism
Survival drives intelligence to improve itself, for the smarter and more complex intelligence becomes, the better able it is to survive when it is embodied in beings. There is a value to complexity for it improves survival by giving us such things as improved agricultural yields, superior manufacturing processes, advanced medicine, and better finished goods. These all improve our survival by bettering the quality of life and our longevity. However, at the core of our Intelligence, we still hunger for God. Thus, material goods are not in and of themselves the ultimate and final answer to the needs of humanity. Materialism certainly improves the quality of life, but material goods are not life in and of themselves. So in our quest to discover the Third Option, we must weave our way through both materialism and spirituality, for both reveal secrets. The Third Option does not denounce materialism as evil, nor does it celebrate it as the apotheosis of human civilization. We would do well to keep in mind the words of Jesus when he said:
"What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
While The Third Option embraces materialism to the extent that it can improve the quality and enjoyment of what is otherwise a brutal life, it decries the soulless materialism that has left so many people spiritually bankrupt. The fact that many affluent people are miserable is not news to anybody. People know that possessions alone cannot bring happiness. Conversely, poverty causes immense suffering and torment. It is better to have money than not to have money, if for no other reason than money affords peoples and families food, shelter, medical care, and the other necessities of life. In our world, it requires so personal education and self-discipline to earn money. On a larger scale, it requires a stable system of government, law, economics, personal freedoms, and a good business climate if people and nations are to produce wealth. The entire immigration problem in the West occurs largely because immigrants can make money and have a better life in the West than they can in the countries from which they have come. As part of our enquiry, we must necessarily examine the conditions in life that are required to optimize the human condition. We have already cited the great basic truth argued for by the Founding Fathers of America, and that truth is Freedom. A recurring theme throughout this book will be that of personal freedom. Because freedom is so essential, it must contain a profound truth. It does and we will locate and identify the origin of the desire for freedom. The origin of freedom, that place where it resides, will be totally and completely unexpected to some, and yet it will make absolute sense to those who know the heart of freedom.
To this point, we must often look in unexpected places to find truth. Truth is seldom on the main avenue on life. For example, in our present era, many young people display an obsession with playing video games. Older adults -- most of whom do not understand the thrill and challenge of video games at all -- complain that young people waste their lives on video games. The spokesmen of religion and psychology claim that violent video games desensitize young people to violence. This same complaint is made about movies that contain violence. True to form, however, the protests of adults only encourages young people to continue to do whatever it is that the adults don't like. The same situation occurred when I was a teenager and adults complained that rock music was horrible and reprobate. Then the adults complained about thrash metal, goth, rap music, and now video games.
I mention video games for a specific reason, for I will later present the case that video games present us with a unique truth about the nature of reality. That I say this does not mean I advocate that young people waste their lives playing video games. On the one hand, it is an insult to the Universe to believe that billions of years of evolution have occurred so that young and productive human life might be consumed by video games. That is a waste and Nature is not wasteful. If video games are the best life has to offer, then life is far more meaningless and absurd than even Camus thought. We might as well end it all right now by downing massive quantities of vodka and Quaaludes and joining the Mothership. On the other hand, The Third Option understands that video games communicate an ancient reality that emerges in every age and will not be denied. Furthermore, the scientific version of video games -- virtual reality -- reveals a massive pattern having to do with the very nature of the reality.
For such reasons as these, the meaning of materialism, video games, and technology in general must be considered within a larger, Universal context and not simplistically dismissed based on a rigid moralism that is, paradoxically, completely unenlightened. Religious evangelists have an ulterior motive when they denounce the world and all therein as meaningless at best and evil at worst. The ulterior motive in religion is to denounce secular technology, secular music, secular learning, and the secular world in general in order to persuade people that religion offers a better deal. If religion is defined by the religious fundamentalism, then the claim that it offers humans a better deal than the world will be relentlessly challenged throughout this book.
One glaring hypocrisy of religion, perhaps especially Christian Evangelicalism, is that it soaks up the productions of the secular world like a sponge. Christianity, for instance, has ripped off and Christianized rap music and rock music. While decrying technology as soulless and its scientists as godless, Christian televangelists have used computers to build huge databases to do direct mail in order to solicit hundreds of millions of dollars in "love offerings" every year. Christianity has used the secular technologies and production values of radio, television, and movies to promote its agenda to "take back America for God." This patently absurd claim, namely that American once belonged solely to racist White Christians, will be addressed in another chapter, but for now it is sufficient to say that even before the advent of technology and consumerism, humans felt empty and alienated from the Universe and each other. Consumerism merely makes that alienation seem more painful because, frankly, if affluence and consumer goods cannot eradicate our sense of emptiness and alienation, then emptiness and alienation seem depressingly incurable. In any case, for religion to falsely equate people's emptiness and guilt with materialism in order to convert them to religion misses the point, for life is as much about the material world as it is about the inner world. If materialism were evil, then why do religions constantly beg and cajole us for money and the donation of our unused car, motor-home, or boat? That the churches want us to "remember them" in our wills by bequeathing them money, stocks , homes, and other material property shows them to be just as materialistic as the hapless consumers they condemn with self-serving preachments about the evils of materialism.
Balance is again emphasized as a key virtue in life. We do not seek vows of poverty, nor do we dedicate ourselves mindlessly to the acquisition of wealth. The 1980's greed-mantra stated that, "He who dies with the most toys wins." Really? Dead is dead and God has never kept a scoreboard to rank the deceased. If anything, he who dies with the most toys will normally have his bones picked clean the fastest by shameless, greedy relatives. Balance dictates that ethics and spirituality co-exist within a materialistic life. At its best, affluence can be a blessing because it can protect us and our families from some of the harsh realities of life. However, affluence cannot protect us from suffering, illness, crime, war, death, or so many other of aspects of life. It thus behooves us to have an ultimate frame of reference to ground ourselves in. The need to find God and one's true self is inherent in the nature of humans. Where do we begin looking?
The Two Great Questions
Whenever we discuss God, we immediately confront the two major, diametrically opposed, historical religious approaches. The basic assertion of Hinduism and the New Age is this: We are God. The basic assertion of the great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is this: We are beings created by God and will never be God. These two divergent opinions cannot be logically reconciled, for just as A cannot be non-A, God cannot be non-God. Those religions whose theology argues that we can become God, begin with the premise that we are beings created by God and can become like unto God. However, "like unto God" is qualitatively different than being God. Within theologies that employ a celestial hierarchy, there is always an original God, and one can never be equal to the One on top of the hierarchy. When Christianity argues that a person can become "one" with God, the "oneness" does not mean that a person literally becomes God. The saints are depicted in the Book of Revelation as serving and worshipping God forever, and God does not worship himself. Within Eastern religion, one is already God and seeks enlightenment only to realize the condition in which they have always existed. These distinctions made, the two approaches to religion ask:
Are We God?
Are we only beings created by God?
These two questions reveal a deep ambivalence in human nature, for we have argued over the questions for millennia. Some consider it blasphemous to think that we are God while others say that there is nothing else except God and so we cannot be other than God. In the Judeo-Christian way of thinking, death puts to lie the argument that we are God, for YHWH never dies. His Son might die, but YHWH himself never dies but is rather the deathless Uncreated One who lives forever. It is quite different in the East where Gods die and are reborn. The religious motif of death and resurrection argues for some type of connection with God even in the face of death and decay. The heart of man desperately seeks union with God and, in doing so, wrestles with his ultimate nature. The answer means everything, for if he is a creature, man needs to be saved by a Savior. If he is already God, he needs an avatar, a guru who will bring the light needed to awaken him.
In asking whether or not we are God, we therefore ask if we need to be redeemed by God or if we rather need to undertake the arduous adventure of awakening to our true state and condition as God. In either case, we must taste death at the end of life and so must prepare ourselves for death according to the light we have been given. Death ends our lifetime and so its meaning and significance relative to God becomes momentous, for if we are creatures, we will be judged by a righteous God. If we are God, then perhaps we will suffer in the Bardos as our illusions are boiled off in that Hindu purgatory. In the case of atheists, death matters not except insofar as their own darkening fear envelopes them as the light fades.
In order to further examine the question of whether or not we are God, it becomes necessary for us to travel into the temple and language and examine the very words we use to talk about God, life, and death. To enter the temple requires that we ask another central question:
Where Did We Come From?
One of the major problems arising from our complexity is the attempt of humanity to explain itself to itself. Science and religion are two of the main methods we rely upon to analyze and explain our existence to ourselves. These two methods are generally hostile towards each other. This is because science demands empirical proof and religion demands faith. Since faith cannot be proven, science dismisses religion. Religion equally dismisses science because it refuses to accept that which most people have no problem accepting, namely the existence of God.
When it comes to explaining our inner reality, or the sense of "I" which each individual human experiences, science and religion also disagree. Neurobiology in particular, and science in general, holds that human perception arises from the myriad interactions of neural networks, genetic ensembles, culture, the environment, and a vast array of other factors too complicated to model at the present time. Essentially, science reduces human reality to physical brain activity. The only concession offered to mystery by science is that of the mind, which science sees as somehow separate from, yet still arising within, the brain. The familiar shorthand of science understands the brain as wetware and the mind as software.
Religion argues that the reverse is true and that human reality can only be explained by resort to God. This seems reasonable until each religion qualifies the statement by insisting that only its version of God, and therefore its interpretation of human reality, is the absolute truth. Christianity is a psychological construct that, when superimposed on a person's psyche, causes that person to interpret all events in terms of Christianity. However, Christianity insists that it is the absolute truth and so argues that its view and interpretation of reality is true. It would bend the world to its theories -- and the same goes for Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and the other major and minor religions of the world. Predictably, such odious absolutism is compounded by the fact that religions threaten people with hell if they don’t believe and obey. Religion, therefore, must be viewed as one possible way to interpret and explain reality that has some value but also has drawbacks.
Science is far more credible than religion for so many reasons. If we pit medicine against faith healing, for instance, medicine will win 99.999% of the time; medicine being able to cure innumerably more people than a legion of faith healers blowing upon the diseased. The only area in which religion seems at all convincing is that of our origins; it is just too hard for most people to accept that God does not exist and that the Universe and humanity evolved purely by random chance. Science, therefore, must be viewed as one possible way to interpret and explain reality that has great value but also has many drawbacks.
When it comes to the origins of the Universe, the conflict between science and religion demand that we accept one of two possibilities: Either a personal source (God) created the Universe and human life, or an impersonal source (evolution) brought about the Universe and human life via randomness and chance. These two options presented by religion and materialistic science form the basis of the classic conflict between creation and evolution, or what has traditionally been called spirit and matter.
Did God Create the Universe?
Where did the Universe come from? The usual answer of the world’s religions is that God created the Universe.
God created the Universe.
This simple belief is the basis of religion, and yet I will suggest that this belief is made of something so big and obvious that we miss it. The belief that God created the Universe presupposes that God existed before the Universe and at some point created it and everything and everyone therein. The various religions of humanity have superimposed an enormous amount of doctrine and belief upon the basic idea that God created the Universe.
The basic belief that God created the Universe is an example of massively parallel metaphysics. "Massive parallelism" is a term borrowed from computing in which a huge number of small computers are linked together in a network to obtain enormous computing power. Neurobiologists tell us that the human brain with its billions of linked neurons is massively parallel. By analogy then, the concept that "God created the Universe" is massive because countless billions of humans throughout history have believed in it and still do. It is parallel because people across every culture in history have believed it and still do. It is metaphysical because there is still no scientific way to prove that God created the Universe.
The power of masses of people sharing a parallel, or common, belief is enormous and history is full of examples to this power. Ideologies such as Democracy, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, National Socialism, and Communism are major movements which demonstrate the power for both good and evil that can be generated within the world when millions of people hold a common, or massively parallel, belief.
Of course the massive parallelism of religion quickly divides into opposing positions because all people do not believe in the same God. Thus, the basic belief that God created the Universe subdivides into religions, which then subdivide into denominations, sects, and cults, all of which finally subdivide into the highly individualized beliefs each person has about God and God's plan for their life. Thus, we see that belief in God -- and the belief that God created the Universe -- is not a monolithic belief. Rather, it is a fractal that continuously branches off from the core idea down to the level of the individual, this in the face of each religion insisting that unity with God is possible.
Despite the particularities of differing religions, religion itself remains a massive parallelism of sorts fueled by the core belief that God created the Universe and humanity. However, if we examine this core idea of "God" itself, we find that it, and all of the world’s religions, and even people's beliefs about their own existence, are all based upon two extremely simple ideas that have been refined into highly complex theological and religious structures.
The Belief in Spirit and Matter
The core belief of all religion, and much of philosophy, is that two substances called spirit and matter exist. If you think about it, you will see that religion would be impossible without the idea of spirit and matter. The origins of the universe and humanity are shrouded in mystery. The religious way to account for our origins is to assert that an eternal spirit God created the physical cosmos. But then one asks who created God? Again, the religious answer is that God is eternal and never had a beginning, nor will that One have an end. This Infinite One is further said to be all-knowing, omnipresent, and pan-dimensional. The transcendent, eternal, and deathless being called God is proposed to exist in a condition called spirit. The word spirit is used to describe the essence and nature of God. In contrast, the world of nature is subject to decay and death. The word matter is used to describe the finite world of matter wherein we who exist are born, live, and die.
The idea of spirit and matter states that a spirit-God created the physical universe; the import of this idea is that two worlds co-exist within the one that appears. Humans are bodily creatures, yet there is an inner spirit inhabiting and animating the body. Humans are mortal and die, yet our inner spirit lives on after death. And while we are separated from God, each other, and the universe at large by the body, through the spirit it is possible to attain union with God, others, and the universe. The problem with this conception occurs when we seek to refine and develop it. Who is the spirit-God? What is that One's morality? What is the spirit world like? Trying to interpret spirit and matter creates conflict, for each religion that has a unique spirit God claims that their God alone is true and all other Gods are false or demonic counterfeits. One group favors a judgmental God who would have them kill their enemies and another group insists on a loving God who would have them feed the poor. One God is seen to live in a heaven of war, while another is said to live in a heaven of bliss. Just as concrete can be poured into any form, so too can the assumption of spirit and matter.
Each interpretation of spirit and matter represents not truth, but rather a limitation of awareness, for what is religion except a refusal to acknowledge the full implications of an Infinite God? The theological battle to interpret spirit and matter, and thus set the limits of God along political and religious lines, is akin to having hundreds of thousands of architects warring over the one true form into which concrete can be poured.
But the fact is that there's no one true way to either interpret spirit and matter or pour concrete, for both are mediums rather than monolithic absolutes. So in the same way that a dogmatic architect might argue for a "pure aesthetic" in which there could only be one expression of concrete, the religious dogmatist might also argue that there can only be one expression of spirit and matter. You can see that either position is unrealistic because these two mediums lend themselves to almost limitless forms of expression.
Therefore, just as there can be no absolute in something as diverse as concrete, neither can we achieve an absolute when using the diverse medium of spirit and matter. Logic would thus indicate that absolute truth cannot reside in a metaphysical notion that can be synthesized, via dogmatic preferences and beliefs, into a thousand different Gods. So when we go looking for truth, we must reconsider the idea of spirit and matter altogether. We can do this by comparing to a very common building material.
Concrete
Concrete is a diverse building material that can be used to build everything from art, boats, prisons, churches, hospitals and slaughterhouses. Because it can be easily poured into any form, concrete allows for a wide expression of architectural styles to be built. Concrete can literally assume any shape, while providing a strong, inexpensive, and long lasting structure. When a particular structure, such as a support column for a bridge, must be especially strong, steel reinforcing rods -- called rebar -- are put in place before the concrete is poured. This combination of rebar and concrete is virtually indestructible. High rise buildings, freeways, shopping malls, and so many other features of modern life are dependent upon concrete. The present world would not be possible without this versatile building material which can be poured into any shape.
Did you know that there exists a metaphysical building material that is analogous to concrete? This metaphysical building material is an assumption that can be poured into any form, thus allowing for a remarkably vast assortment of religions and philosophies. This assumption provides a strong, inexpensive, and long lasting belief structure. What is this metaphysical building material that serves as the underpinning for so many different versions of truth?
It is the belief in spirit and matter, for what concrete is to the physical world, spirit and matter is to the world of religious and philosophical thought. Spirit and matter is an assumption about the nature of God and the universe that is considered by most people to be an unarguable fact. Indeed, when buttressed with the "rebar" of belief, the notion of spirit and matter is virtually indestructible in the believer's mind.
I suggest that the ideas of spirit and matter are like concrete. What do I mean by this? It is simple: Concrete is a mixture of water, aggregate, and cement. For those not familiar with the term, "aggregate" is a mixture of sand and rock. When it is wet, concrete can be easily poured into any form or shape. When it dries, concrete becomes incredibly strong. This is why it is used to make structures such as churches, dams, highways, boats, hospitals, prisons, and a myriad of other forms.
Though it seems simple, concrete is an exceptionally complex topic with university departments dedicated to its research. The way in which concrete dries is crucial as are the shapes and types of the various aggregates. Plastic and other synthetic finishing compounds are routinely added to plastic to help it dry or give it other properties such as resistance to moisture needed for specific applications. Concrete mixtures can be made to yield high-strength or fast-drying properties.
By analogy, though the basic concepts of spirit and matter seem simple enough, they too are extremely complex and have had schools of higher learning dedicated to their research for over two thousand years. The way in which the essential foundations of a spirit-matter based religion is "mixed" is crucial. Love, judgment, the afterlife and other moral qualities are routinely added to the various religions to help them meet specific human needs and speak to key issues such as death, justice, and good and evil.
Spirit and matter can be "poured" into virtually any religious form, thus allowing for the remarkably vast and complex assortments of religions and denominations. Spirit and matter are the ideological material used to build all of the major religions in the world. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and all of their derivatives are built from the basic ideas of spirit ideas and yet they are all so different in their complexities and finished forms.
Islamic extremism is as different in appearance from Christian Quakerism as a slaughterhouse is from a sidewalk. Yet just as a slaughterhouse and a sidewalk are made from concrete, so too are Islamic extremism and the Quakerism made from the same basic belief in spirit and matter. There are of course huge differences between Islamic extremism and Quakerism. Some say Islamic extremism is not even a religion but is rather a movement of political terror which uses religion as a cover. I do not agree with this point of view. I think Islamic extremism is a deadly religion akin to the Catholic Inquisition or Jonestown. Zealots bring to their religion extreme seriousness and self-discipline and we should never underestimate these personal qualities that reinforce the basic idea of spirit and matter.
The intense, inflexible belief of religious zealots allows us to further explore our analogy between religion and concrete. The contents in concrete are mixed in different proportions depending upon the application. Concrete is also reinforced with steel wires, steel bars, or steel mesh to greatly enhance its strength and stability. For example, the concrete mixture and type of internal steel reinforcement needed for a horizontal freeway roadbed is quite different than that needed for the vertical walls of a tilt-up industrial building. This same concept of varying the mixture of spirit and matter with the inner reinforcement of personal character applies to religion. To expand the analogy between concrete and religion, let's compare the contents of each:
Concrete Religion
Water Spirit
Aggregate Matter
Cement Belief
Steel Rebar Doctrine
Looking at the properties of religion in this way is revealing for we can more clearly see the relationship of its various contents. Spirit has been historically equated with water, as for instance in the water of baptism or holy water. Water is the essential content of the human body and hence the religious analogy of God as the water of life without which the soul dries up and dies. Spirit is the defining religious idea about God. Without the notion of "spirit' God could not conceptually exist, for no other immaterial category exists whereby God can be defined except that of energy, and when metaphysicians define energy in terms of God, they define it as spirit or spiritual energy. Even other words used to described God such as "invisible," "omnipresent," or "existing outside of time," all are derived from the belief that God is made of spirit. In subsequent chapters, we will discuss spirit, spirit and energy, and this book's alternatives to these concepts.
Matter, or aggregate, is dry and lifeless. Yet when mixed with water and cement it becomes pliable and can be poured into virtually any shape. Earth, the "water planet," has life whereas the dry, waterless planets do not. Aggregate, or "matter" is necessary if the "invisibles" are to have a physical presence, or expression, upon earth -- and so the religious model understands humans as being a composite of spirit and matter who serve as the agents of the invisible world of spirit. God, the angels, demons, and "the hierarchy of heaven" (as it was understood in pre-Christian days before the Catholics had denounced everything non-Catholic as pagan), are said to exist as pure spirit -- except for those occasions when they take physical form as when they incarnate as humans or possess the bodies of humans, animals, or other earthly bodies such as trees, rocks, or small bodies of water.
Cement is the "glue" that holds the water and aggregate of concrete together. When mixed with water and aggregate, cement initiates a complex, heated chemical reaction that binds and dries the mixture into a rigid, unyielding form. Belief is the analog of cement in that belief, or faith, is the active agent of religion. Without the addition of belief there is no reaction to the ideas of spirit and matter. Some people claim that faith comes from God, yet there is always the initial act, the choice to "receive," that a believer must make. Likewise, when one "loses" one's religion, it is because they no longer believe. If you could somehow extract the cement from concrete, the concrete would devolve back into water and aggregate. When belief is withdrawn from religion -- either rapidly or over time -- one's once rigid and strong faith turns to dust.
Belief must have an object -- i.e. , there must be a God in whom one believes. Within our analogy, then, the nature of the God in whom one believes will determine the form of one's religion. To be a radical Islamic militant is to believe in a God who wants to see all infidels butchered. To be a Quaker is to believe in a God who abhors war. The contrast here shows how other elements -- in this case violence -- becomes added into one's image of God via one's religious and political views of God. God is inescapably political insofar as the religions of the world understand their respective Gods as the ultimate authority on the "correct and absolute" political views. As we will see, the religions try to solidify their political and moral views by claiming that they flow from the very God who created the Universe. The dubious linkage religions make between the Creator of the Universe and their political and moral views, reveals a key element in understanding how religion coerce people into belief and obedience.
Conversely, some believers need no coercion. For such "true believers" as Vance Packard called them, religion is the most important and compelling aspect of life. One is said to be "on fire for God," as their faith deepens and strengthens with the inner conviction, or belief, that a spirit-God is alive and working in and through them for some special purpose. When especially strong, belief becomes zealotry. Zealotry is the uncompromising and unyielding belief that God that has personally chosen one for a special purpose. Zealots believe themselves different from anybody else by virtue of God having called them and set them aside for a sacred reason. Zealots believe that they alone possess the "pure truth" of God and that even their fellow believers are unholy and far less devoted to God.
Religious zealotry is known for its radical expressions. Within the continuum of zealotry, the in-your-face evangelism of zealots can lead to both suicide and the murder of those deemed to be irreligious. Suicide as a way the zealous separating themselves from the evil world was shown in the mass suicides at Jonestown and in the luxury home where Marshall Herff Applewhite's "Heaven's Gate" followers lived. Suicide as a means to kill others in the name of God has been the trademark of Islamic extremism as was horrifically demonstrated during the hijacking attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The self-righteousness of the zealot betrays the fact that at some point religious zealotry ceases as such and instead becomes naked hatred and narcissism. It is also, paradoxically, the ultimate admission of powerlessness.
If we were to combine the words "suicide" and "murder" we could make the word "surder" to denote those acts of murder committed in the name of religion. The persons who perpetrated such crimes would be called "surderers" and would be denied the worthy title of "martyr." By definition, martyrs are those who die for their faith as opposed to committing murdering for their faith. Because surder involves ambushing and murdering the unsuspecting, it is by definition an act of cowardice. To kill the unsuspecting does not require courage; it merely requires treachery and this is why surderers can never be martyrs. That the wealthy old men who send surderers forth want for no luxury never seems to occur to the young zealots who strap bombs to themselves. The lie suicide bombers refuse to see is that if their God were truly all-powerful, he would not need teenagers and women to strap bombs to themselves. A truly powerful God would be perfectly capable of killing humans at any time and in any place. Religious zealotry could be likened to a runaway wall of wet cement that has broken loose from the religious forms that had contained it and now threatens to engulf and kill the people who happen to be in its vicinity. Religious zealotry of any stripe aims to engulf and entomb all of humanity within its terrifying matrix. It is for this reason that sane people must oppose irrational religious violence by all means possible.
The final element that is used in the making of concrete is steel reinforcing bars, commonly called "rebar". To back up a little, before concrete is ever mixed the shape into which it will be poured is first built. Concrete is normally poured over a rebar latticework. On a flat slab, a parking lot for example, the latticework is a simple series of bars laid down as a grid. The rebar grid rests on top little blocks that keep it off the ground. The concrete is then poured and the rebar gives the concrete a great deal of additional strength by helping to keep it from fracturing or cracking.
On the round columns used to support bridges or freeway overpasses, a much heavier steel rebar is used. On such columns, rebar is welded into towering steel skeletons made up of concentric circles of rebar. Surrounding the rebar skeleton are plywood forms, or molds, that will contain and define the shape of the concrete structure as it dries. Once the concrete dries, the plywood forms are removed and the steel skeleton remains buried inside of the concrete. The grain of the original plywood forms can be seen on such structures. The wet concrete presses hard against its plywood enclosure and the plywood leaves its imprints forever in the concrete.
Within our analogy, the steel rebar is the doctrine of religion. Without doctrine to define it and give it a distinctive shape, any religion would be a nothing more than a fairly formless heap. To extend the analogy, the plywood forms could be spoken of as the original vision given a particular religion by its founder or prophets. For example, Jesus defined God-spirit by saying that, "God is love." But what did this mean? The Apostle John later gave the statements of Jesus doctrinal strength by elaborating them in steel: " He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar and the truth is not him." Thus, after Jesus died, a steel cage of confining doctrine was erected by the Apostles and Church Fathers. The core ideas of spirit and matter were poured into the doctrinal rebar and then hardened into early Christianity. Yet early Christianity soon fractured into schisms and heresies. Why? Because while rebar gives concrete its strength, it also rusts over time and thus the concrete structure begins to fracture and come apart. Religions are quick to get rid of heretics because they knows that doctrinal heresy, like rusting rebar in concrete, will destroy their form from within. This is why cancerous heretics and apostates are jack-hammered mercilessly by religious authorities.
Spiritmatter
Spacetime is Einstein’s elegant compounding of space and time. Spacetime is a term that offers a greatly expanded theoretical understanding about the universe. Most of us have probably heard spacetime explained by analogy to a black sheet of taut rubber with a white grid drawn upon it. We are then asked to imagine a star as a heavy metal ball whose mass, and hence gravity, distorts spacetime. So in our minds we visualize a heavy ball pulling down the taut rubber sheet and distorting spacetime. If another lighter ball were to be rolled along in spacetime we can easily visualize how that ball would be pulled into rotation around the gravity well created by the larger ball. What spacetime speaks to is that fact that we live in a four-dimensional Universe in which space is one dimension.
Spiritmatter is my analogical borrowing, a compound word based upon the notion of spacetime. While I have seen the word "spiritmatter" elsewhere, I have never seen it used the way I do, namely, as another word for "religious concrete. "Spiritmatter" is defined as religious concrete. Religious concrete is made from the ideas of spirit, matter, belief, and doctrine. These four ingredients will allow for any religion to be built just as literal concrete will allow for any type or form of building to be built. Therefore, when I use the term "spiritmatter religions" I am referring to the vast body of human religions that are built using spirit, matter, belief, and doctrine.
Religious views are endless, for just as concrete can be poured into any form, so too can spiritmatter. And like concrete, some of the expressions of spiritmatter will be soaring, beautiful, and useful while others will be uglier than anything seen in the Meadowlands of New Jersey. The theological battle to interpret spiritmatter can have no single winner, for the fact is that spiritmatter is a conceptual medium, it is an idea, from which religions can be made. As such, spiritmatter can be used by any religion to construct their "one true God". Yet given that spiritmatter is a medium and not a truth, for any group to declare that their God alone is the absolute truth is as absurd as a group of architects insisting that there is only one "true" concrete structure in a world full of concrete structures.
