GOD

Man invents God in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it. - Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition

In all my readings on this subject, I have yet to read someone who points out that we are the sum of all living creation on Earth perhap's because it's too obvious). I early read, and was taken by, the sentence that "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Which, of course, basically means that the development of the individual from its beginning as a fertilized egg to its birth as an individual capable of living outside the womb or egg, repeats the development of that species as a whole. I'd like to suggest that we carry within us, in the structure of our genes especially, the whole development of the human race. Religion, I believe, is an attempt to retain that early awe of the universe and the need to make sense of it that, I think, is endemic to the human condition.

Of course, it is obvious that Man created God out of need, primarily to answer the question of meaning and morals; and, of course, out of fear of death. The truth, however, is that there are no meaning or morals in the universe (or God, if you will); they are needs of man, which we invented as we invented God, to get out of what is essentially an existential dilemna, namely what I have asserted. Meaning and morals have been of great evolutionary assistance to us, and have, indeed, not only helped us to survive, but to dominate, at least on the Earth. Which, of course, we are now also rapidly destroying.

To put it another way, the left-brain activity of science and its emphasis developed so strongly from its initiation (if we overlook the ancient Greeks and some of he medievalists like Roger Bacon) by Galeleo and Kepler (that is, the measuring of hypotheses against reality) that we have indeed conquered the world with our thinking; until, today (and beginning, actually, 100 and some years ago) there is an uneasiness with that exclusive dominion. As a result, there began the efforts to rely more on right-brain activity.

A book could be written on all the activies, such as Zen Buddhism (but not exclusive to religion; consider Woodstock, for example, and the proliferations of people on TV and video who are quite prepared to tell us how to live more fulfilling lives and achieve happiness and success), and attempts to get "in touch with" the irrational or creative side of life (i.e., the right brain). Of course, they're right. It's pretty obvious that to believe in complete rationality is in itself pretty irrational. I try to keep in mind what Hamlet said to Horatio: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in all your philosophies."

And in those days, keep in mind, natural philosophy meant science. I'm a very rational person myself, or so I consider myself, but I've had at least a half dozen experiences that one could call "supernatural." That is to say, strange, or unexplained. Though even there the left brain sets to work in an attempt to explain them. I have theories of my own. But Hamlet is stll right.