Meaning beyond Molecules and Hubris: A Gross Case Supporting the General Religious Belief Package and Some Critical Perspectives

Abstract

Any meaningful investigation into the potential validity of religious beliefs-including God-should prominently include their innate presence in children. That presence offers an enormous challenge to the scientific perspective and appears to be more relevant than established arguments. As an initial backdrop to discussions here, I begin with some quotes conveying the import of the contemporary scientific vision of life, as well as quotes conferring that vision's underlying DNA reliance. The article will then briefly argue that that confident vision-and in particular, its DNA reliance-is clearly flawed. The main discussions then consider the mysterious phenomenon of terminal lucidity before moving on to a focus on the plausibility of a DNA-based evolutionary explanation for the fact that "[t]he universal themes of religion are not learned" since they arrive as our natural religion. As an example of our increasingly secular era, the paper pauses to note Western Buddhism's divorce from religious and/or deeper perspectives. Subsequent closing discussions critically consider the questionable state of neuroscience and the limitations of the existing approaches to supporting religious perspectives. For those wondering about deeper aspects of life-with or without an affiliation to an official religion-then I suggest digging in for yourself. Hubris aside, the natural sciences do not have a monopoly on understanding life, and the contrary assumption has caused big problems.

Enlightenment, Meaning, and the Religion versus Science-Academia Divide: Waking up versus “Waking up”

“…The idea that such molecular-only dynamics constitute something sacred or meaningful is certainly debatable. In a similar vein earlier work questioned the presumed sacred nature of black hole dynamics (Christopher, 2022b). Furthermore, earlier work presented some particular and also general problems facing that scientific vision of life (Christopher, 2020;Sheldrake, 2012;Christopher, 2022a).…”

“…That framework or package, termed our "natural religion" in Barrett, was previously discussed here. That such a belief package showed up stored in DNA as some kind of fallout from evolution is quite difficult to imagine (Christopher, 2022b).…”

“…That is respectively, what sets up the conditions and also what the conditions physically entail. For the presumed genetically driven conditions, schizophrenia and autism, as discussed in previous works the genetic searches appear to have failed; and for all three, perhaps even more remarkably-neuroscience still seems to be grasping at models in order to describe what is going on in the brain with these conditions (Moshbergen, 2022;Kosik, 2020;Christopher, 2022b).…”

“…Particularly noteworthy to spiritual or religious points of view is that investigations of young children has determined that we show up with gross dualistic beliefs (Barrett, 2012;Christopher, 2022b). As one researcher, Justin Barrett, put it "children are prone to believe in supernatural beings such as spirits, ghosts, angels, devils, and gods during the first four years of life" (Barrett, 2012: p. 3).…”

“…As adults we are probably much much more grooved into our mental me-ruts or -perspectives. For additional perspective here, young children could be relatively close to our innate dualistic state (Barrett, 2012;Christopher, 2022b) from which a shift to the enlightened perspective might be a modest one.…”