No Religion

I am not interested in obsessing in the transitions from life to death. I am not interested in the state of consciousness that my mind cannot connect with in life, I am not interested in some unknowable conception of the afterlife or the transition my consciousness will take when my body transcends life. I am interested in the power of the present and it’s the present’s ability to transform my consciousness into a state of absolute harmony with the now. I am not interested in knowing what will happen to my consciousness when my body transcends life. I am interested in knowing what will happen to my body when my consciousness is fused with the power of the moment.

            So often in life we obsess about the unknowable, I tend to think of this as an inherent defect of unbridled inquisitiveness. I know that so many times in my life I have asked questions that were far beyond the realm of human comprehension and I felt and ensuing pain and sense of loss when my questions weren’t answered. This of course can be an addicting and unfulfilling conquest. Despite the fact that asking these unknowable questions was an infinite pursuit, the question in and of itself frequently brought to light understanding in other aspects of life and therefore, I cannot be ungrateful for my obsession with the unknowable. In seeking the infinite or in seeking god, I have found that I find life and not some unknowable creature of infinitely unknowable proportions. I have come to the conclusion as a result of these findings and that is, that either god is too infinite to be known or that god is simply just that, life and probably both. I am amazed at the complete overwhelming feelings of harmony and tranquility that I feel when I consider that all life, all existence, all matter, and every energy system, from the power of the sun to the beauty of a microorganism, is in fact an expression of god, that all is god. For some reason this concept is far more compelling that any other conception of that infinite and unknowable equation of who is god? This explanation of the creator being the created, of life and death, of darkness and light, of pain and love, all being infinite components of that infinite being, the universe, god, is so powerfully simple and knowable in my limited perspective. All is god. Perhaps that is a better way of describing god than just the universe; perhaps that intimate love being is simply All.

            At this point you might be wondering how the first and last paragraph could possible be related, we’ll I will tell you how they are intimately connected. Both are actually my interpretation of religion. The first is relating to the afterlife, and the second is referring to god. These two components make up the basic construct of all religion. Who is god, and what happens to us when we die, are the unknowable questions that religion seeks to answer? If you surpass these questions then you no longer need religion to guide you into the unknowable.  If you surpass these questions you are not finding resolution or answers, rather the opposite you are transcending the unknowable and finding peace with what you do know the power of living life in the moment. This appears to many simpletons as a powerless proposition, on the contrary, it is the most powerful thing a thinking being can do.  How powerless is the individual who accept someone else’s construct of these notions? How powerless and unfulfilled is the individual who refuses to do the work of knowing peace in unknowing? How powerless is the individual who accepts some knowledge of god without asking who god is? Furthermore, I propose the simple argument of if we were truly meant to know more than the moment then wouldn’t we? If we were meant to surpass the moment to all dimensions of time and being, past present and future then wouldn’t we? I believe that what is meant, or designed or even what we are fated to know is nothing more than what we do know which is the present, the moment. And I challenge you to find fulfillment in simply this, the power of the present. 

On Suicide

Before I ever started studying sociology I had ideas on the nature of suicide some of which are based on second person experiences on the subject and others on the biology and sociobiology that I studied before switching my major. If you look at suicide from a strictly biological standpoint then it is the most impossible gene to possess if the act is committed before procreation. A species cannot pass on their specific genetic code if they die before procreation and therefore it is impossible for an individual to possess that specific mutation or even more so for a species. Think about it from this perspective; if an individual was born with a mutation that caused them to self terminate before they were able to pass on that trait then that trait, “suicide,” would never be passed on. 

This is a very detached way of viewing the subject but for people to see that it cannot be biological factor you have to view this emotionally crippling subject in biological terms. In America, the majority of suicide is committed by younger adults, who have not passed on their genes. So the whole argument of nature vs. nurture is just not logically applicable in the case of suicide. A single generation could be eliminated if just half of those individuals possessed this gene. If suicide is not a biological cause then it must be a environmental or social cause. Of course Emile Durkheim’s Suicide was controversial on the subject that was later proven true with a plethora of scientific evidence. The number of deaths as a result of suicide can be seen as an indicator of how well that specific social construct is serving its individuals, its people. Meaning that if a society is fully serving all the emotional and physical needs of its individuals then the suicide rate will be none existent. From a biological perspective we see that our species is highly social and adaptive to a variety of social environments. 

However, there are limitations to extent that the human psyche can fully develop cognitively, emotionally, and intellectually and an absence of development can actually trigger genes that in our early history would encourage survival but in our modern social environment lead to depression, the main cause of suicide. Our sociobiological genetic needs were developed in a culture of deep emotional connectivity and interdependence upon our peers. Or to put it simply people need to feel loved to survive and so do most species as science has shown. In my opinion when individuals in a society experience a sense of importance and feelings of love through all stages of development, childhood being the most important, through old age, then the suicide rate will be nearly nonexistent. Of course there exists a variety of reasons and causes to each specific incident and there is always exceptions to every generalization. My heart goes out to the loved ones this horrific act leaves behind. 

I would definitively agree that suicide is primarily the cause of mental illness.

However, I believe that the majority of mental illness is caused by social problems. To simplify the argument we can say that either the body or mind of the individual or the life experiences or both causes mental illness.  I think that the majority of the time it is in fact both circumstances.

However, sociobiology has shown us that certain psychological conditions are the results of environment effects. For example recent social psychological research has shown that there is in fact a serial killer gene, however, individuals who have been raised in nurturing non-violent homes are peaceful without any violent tendencies, whereas the individuals with the gene are at a high risk for sociopathic behavior. Refer to this link http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127888976

            This is a very simple example how the environment triggers an emotional disorder. Therefore if a person with the serial killer gene lived a happy normal life then they would be a happy normal person and conversely a person with the serial killer gene who lived a violent life is very likely to be violent. This is an example of how the environment or society is the factor. The human mind is an amazing thing that was designed to adapt to a variety of social environments and if the environment is the final executor of a genetic code then it needs to be the first line of consideration. This means that the environment has the final say, that the society that one is raised will cause them to be depressed, ADHD, diabetic, schizophrenic etc.. I see the degree of depression that a society suffers from as a indicator of how well that society is fulfilling its deign. Meaning that society is a group of people and the constructs, government, religion it employees to control its members can be measured for its efficiency. One of the best measurements of how well a society is performing is by how many people opt out, how many people would rather cease to exist rather than exist in any given society.  In all reality I would make the argument that all suicide caused by depression can be blamed on society, because in one way or another the society failed that individual, more than likely during the primary imperative psychological growth period of birth to five years old.  During this period the brain is developing the cortex and neurological receptors that enable serotonin reception and creation amongst many other hormones that contribute to emotional wellbeing. Therefore, if a child isn’t shown love then they grow up and don’t have that part of their brain developed for receiving love. How on earth can a person say it is that child’s fault? It’s the fault of the parents and the bigger picture the family that raised those parents and even bigger picture the culture that raised that family and even bigger picture the norms, ideas, traditions that fostered that culture.I call this the society and we see that if we step back after examining the individual that it was created by the culture and that as much as we want to feel that we are individual in control of our own thoughts and actions is a very real way we are all products of our environment.

 “And so every person, at every stage of his growth, is free or unfree in proportion as he does or does not find himself in the midst of conditions conducive to full and harmonious personal development. So far was children are ill nurtured or ill-taught, as family training is bad, the schools inefficient, the local government ill-administered, public libraries lacking, or private associations for various sorts of culture deficient, in so far as the people are unfree. A child born in a slum, brought up in a demoralized family, and put at some confining and mentally deadening work when ten or twelve years old, is no more free to be healthy, wise and moral. Every social ill involves the enslavement of individuals,” Charles Horton Cooley.