The Divine Principle of Uncertainty

It�s now evident that God has played a deceitful game upon His people. We call it revelation. But He gave it a new name - �revelation via deception�. The Lord was always weary of interfering with Nature and when it came to speaking His mind, He preferred a workshop model to a lecture; left believers confounded with bits and pieces of truth that they might still have homework to complete. The last thing the creator would be content with is the I-do-it-for-you style of functioning.

He could have refrained from this self-initiated mess up, even as He beautifully hid behind Nature. But the Author of Evolution had to put His signature somewhere and He started worrying if His signals would be too elementary to decipher. In fact while wanting to alert humans towards His identity, He found Himself in a serious dilemma.

�The more I reveal, the less would they discover on their own. Should I keep mum, the tiny tots would find no evidence of my existence in all of universe. The only way out is to descend in history as a blazing fire � a fire that would delude them for millennia and yet would pull them out once they put in their share of rationality.�

Having said this, the Lord systematically played havoc with all revealed religions. His designs may be understood through a dictum that echoes the Principle of Uncertainty, operative at the lower end of evolution.

Dialectics of Divine Dilemma : Greater the demonstration of god�s power and revelation in a religious system, greater the symbolism, originally leading to misconception and distortion of truth.
Stated from the other end of the spectrum: Greater the purity of human effort in a religious system, greater the possibility of truth that originally falls short of divine manifestation.


1.1 The Christian Faith:[size=3]

Of all religions surviving today, Christianity has the longest history of revelation expanding on a single, coherent theme from beginning to end. It has the top-most claim in terms of a singular incarnation and an ultimate victory over death. For this reason, believe it or not, Christianity is also the most delusive of Religions, merely pointing to the highest ideals of evolution.

Let�s begin the analysis with the opening chapters of Genesis, even if some scholars would instantly point out �they are not the essence of Christian revelation as per our own calculation�. Whether the creation accounts are of human origin or of divine, the whole lot of later revelation including the central question of redemption offered by Jesus is conveniently built on such accounts and therefore we have no choice but to begin at the beginning itself.

Read without the bias of later developments, the story of Adam and Eve appears as a simplistic, naive solution for the deepest questions of people for whom it was authored first. Some of these issues are pertinent even now and they can be listed one by one along with the �magical� answers the story props up.

Qn : How do human beings possess a high degree of knowledge to discriminate good and evil, as opposed to animals and birds?
Ans: The primordial man and woman ate of the fruit of knowledge in the garden of Eden.

Qn : Why humans are entitled to death along with other creatures, despite their remarkable sense of knowledge?
Ans: Their forefather and mother were driven out of the Garden possessing the fruit of life as well.

Qn : Why does woman undergo labor pains much more than other living creatures?
Ans: The Mother of all disobeyed God and earned the divine curse.

Qn : Why is woman subjected to the rule of man?
Ans: Woman was the first to be deceived and she goaded man into disobedience.

Qn : Why man had to sweat it out on the land?
Ans: Land is in curse, since the fall of Adam.

Qn : Why there�s enmity between snakes and human beings and the poor creatures have to crawl and bite the dust?
Ans: Snakes are under the wrath of God for engineering the fall of woman.

To present such simple answers in a convincing, coherent manner, the story even puts God in bad light. He forbad the fruit of knowledge for human beings under fears of death, a quality none would tick off as Godly. When disobedience for knowledge rightly occurred, Lord God came to be suspicious that humans would covet the fruit of life as well and begin to live for ever. Hurriedly He drove them out and posted divine security at the entrance.

A simple portrayal of God, who is petty-minded; in fact, a villainous monster to deny the deep-most aspiration of human being. The aim of the author obviously is to present some sort of rationale for the predicament of man, woman and nature and not so much to portray godly attributes. In addition, it was meant to drive fear in human beings to obey the law of God � a blind and crude form of obedience.

Biblical scholars would chip in that they learnt to take this story as a symbol many decades earlier, to be more precise since the �origin of species�. But the unresolved question is the hidden foundation it offers for all of Christian redemption.

Jesus of Nazareth is the new Adam, and he descended right from Heaven to redeem human being, the sinful inheritor of Adam. The Galilean came to conquer death and share the spoils of victory with everyone � or at least grant life to those who believe in him. Out of the disobedience of one man, death and sin entered and out of the obedience of one man, death and sin were conquered.

Theologians might again point out, �Adam merely stands for the sinful nature of human being. But the redemption of Jesus is genuine and real - historical in one word. He was obedient unto death and therefore the world sins are washed off with him�. Suppose we require them to prove their last statement, they would hide behind the necessity of faith, which in any case can move mountains on its own right. Why not forgiveness of sins in the name of any deity for that matter? But before getting into the issue of redemption, let�s ask ourselves if Jesus really conquered death. When all of evolution is striving to put forth the best surviving creature, why didn�t he take the claim of holding on to his physical form, long years after crucifixion?

.Had the Nazarene presented himself in body and soul beyond a conventional forty days, lot of things would have been different. Primarily, Christianity would not struggle posing him as the savior of the world and the conqueror of death. But he disappeared a second time, even as every human being disappears through death. The net result of these two events are the same, as far as scientific perception is concerned.

His resurrection, therefore, would merely amount to a symbol, a symbol towards the deepest aspiration of man to hang on to life forever. It�s a metaphor for an ultimate stage of evolution and nothing more.


We know that scientists desire to defeat death, by arresting the process of ageing etc. No researcher would experiment raising a dead man, before exhausting all possibilities of prolonging the existing life. The part played by a living person would be all-too-important in this endeavor. Death simply means denial of human role and a resurrection that follows warrants a total intervention of God. These are purely contradictory to the basic spirit of science and psychology and the ideology of cent percent Divine intervention has taken severe beating through all major discoveries of the past. Even in the case of miracles, the scriptures themselves talk of the complementary part of a believing mind. Some kind of continuity of life based on a powerfully developed rational faith, may find some compatibility with evolution, but certainly not resurrection or the scene of Final Judgment


Preservation of life is ingrained in our cells and revelation seems to have played upon this deep-most desire of ours. Raising of all the dead on the final day, in order to give them a fresh verdict indicates an incapacity of God to include the fruit of every action within the action itself, or the fruit of a righteous life within the course of life. In our world, every effect is a natural development of a cause and therefore the final goal of mankind needs to be an accomplishment of the living and not of the dead. Jesus himself was too anachronistic to demonstrate this truth literally.

His death, resurrection and disappearance are caricatures at best. It was a dramatic display of God�s power that tricked us dramatically too - a trick inevitable to reveal the goal of evolution and yet reveal it not. An additional task of critical thinking and striving towards the highest ideal, taking the events of gospel as a pictorial model is reserved for us. We know how significant goal-setting is for any psychological achievement. Without the vision of goal, we would never be there. Inching towards it is an impossibility. God needed to set the summit of evolution through paintings and parables and it�s up to mankind to take the challenge or not. Lord God didn�t bother to reveal too many truths to people. He was content to point towards the tip. Even here He tricked us in order to respect the basic tenets of evolution.

Not an unusual game for God. He presented the Law through Moses in the midst of another set of �historic� miracles. A millennium and a half later, He sent Jesus Christ, whose mission seemed primarily to expose the literal understanding of the very same Law. Jesus was killed for this and now his own story needs to be liberated from a simplistic concept of death and resurrection. The preacher of parables has turned out to be a parable for mankind. Neither Adam disobeyed God in eating the fruit of knowledge, nor Christ ensured fruit of life through his obedience on cross. Both the events are metaphoric, even if one was mythological and the other historical.

The gratuitous acts of miracles displayed in the Nazarene are some of the highest moments of Divine Revelation, but the price we are to pay is an in-built deception, difficult to extricate ourselves from.

The blood of Jesus as the price of redemption or of forgiveness of sins is yet another case of tempting deceit. In various traditions of religions, human beings offered animal sacrifices to appease the �anger of God�. None ever questioned if God was truly angry or if the sacrifice produced any fruits. But the redemption of Jesus was neatly portrayed as the culmination of the earlier irrational rituals. His blood was equated to the price of world sins. Some even believed that blood literally washed sins.

We know that forgiveness is an act of consciousness and it is said to be total or unconditional when it doesn�t require the measure of pay back, rectification, or punishment. It�s always granted with hope that the mistake is not repeated in future and any one capable of receiving forgiveness is also worthy of understanding this desire of the forgiver.

Suppose God wants to absolve human beings and grant to them some of His best gifts, He needs neither a sacrifice nor the blood of any exalted leader. If obedience of one man cheered Him to an extent of granting gifts to all human beings, He would still be accused of capriciousness or arbitrariness. There�s no linkage of cause and effect between the blood & obedience of Jesus and the salvation of the world. The entire melodrama of the crucifixion granting forgiveness or eternal life might be appealing to human imagination, but the argument simply casts aspersions on the unconditional gifts of God. A ritual of olden days is exploited to showcase an empty redemption. The creator posing as the creature in order to atone for sins is still burdened with the concept of atonement and this can never amount to total understanding or forgiveness.

Take the claim of incarnation. Once we declare that the whole of evolution is a display of God�s power, there�s no need of Him specifically to rectify it or correct its course thereafter. In any case, no rectification or correction of course seems to have occurred through Jesus Christ. Such arguments can only undermine the inherent capacity of evolution. The laws of consciousness on their own can explain a stage, where humans and the Divine equally reach out to each other and the union of minds occurs.

But the drama of God suddenly turning into an evolving consciousness, maintaining two identities at once is totally untenable for all norms of science. You cannot know everything and yet grow up in knowledge. No one acts throughout a life-term, hiding his power and wisdom and mimicking the role of a lower being. Either you have a fuller wisdom or a lower one. It�s impossible to mix up the two.

Jesus possibly had an experience of close intimacy with God and considered Him as his Father. He could have even felt that he comes directly from God, working as the foundation of his guts to claim exclusive divinity. But this uniqueness was also facilitated by the fact others in his milieu had no possibility to arrive at similar conclusions on a rational basis. The followers of Upanishads, a few thousand kilometers away, could have easily interrupted Jesus with the words �we too feel the way you feel dear Jesus; let�s thank the Father in one voice�.

In all probability, it appears God intervened specifically to formulate the mind of Jesus, his powerful deeds and words unlike the natural, philosophical approach that gained grounds in India. But the initiative of God doesn�t necessarily imply that Jesus was God incarnate in a way Evolution is not; in a way other human beings aren�t. Not even a miracle of virgin birth would indicate such a possibility. Once an exceptional fertilization happened, it was, most reasonably, subjected to the laws of evolution. The fetus within Mary wasn�t acting like the Supreme. It simply started to grow stage by stage. The life of Jesus certainly displayed many moments of God�s infinite power, but taken as a whole, his was a story of exalted prophecy � a prophecy regarding the deepest aspirations of mankind. To neutralize the high tone of Divinity in Jesus, the drama had to be clothed in an extra-ordinary form of deceit as well. A few strokes of God were sufficient to take a whole civilization for a ride.

The idea of incarnation is indicative of the fact that the Supreme Consciousness would mingle with the evolutionary world one day in a mutually respectable manner. But you cannot make one man God and all the rest scoundrels.

Despite primary illusions, the universality of a redeemer, as preached by Christianity could still be true in a totally different perspective. In our evolving world, it�s always an individual who comes up with a challenging discovery of truth and it later becomes the heritage of the world. A leader inspires the followers to cultivate a package of values, he himself molded within his specific life-context. Such a pattern may be required even more compulsorily, in the case of a leader who works out a higher level of consciousness, before communicating it to others. He could also be the one who shows the way to a mature relationship with God and possibly to a just and happy society. But no redeemer would ever take a pinch away from the glory and responsibility of other human beings.

The tie-up between a redeemer and the redeemed is best understood through the compulsions of yet another Principle of Uncertainty. The redeemer needs to be a singular representative of a singular God, perfecting the evolutionary role of scientists and leaders. Yet he would be capable of very little redemption, if humanity is to assume its own total responsibility. In fact, the word �redeem� is an anathema for evolution and human psychology. None can redeem others. Each one needs to grow into his/her maturity. With all these requirements and conditions, the best possibility of a redeemer is a passive discoverer and a despicable guide. More the glory showered upon him, less the scope for followers to work out their own knowledge and accountability.

In an evolving world, the true representative of God would combine elements of glory and repulsion in such extreme terms that recognizing him would be a matter of science and reason rather than power and appeal. The guide himself/herself might be subjected to all kinds of illness and limitations that he/she steadily converts as opportunities to develop a rational faith � a faith made of 100 per cent human effort and 100 per cent divine power.

This is possibly the hidden meaning of the suffering servant of Yahweh portrayed in Isaiah 52 & 53. Such verses refer to the Nazarene briefly but assume their full significance for a person of later days.

�by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many� (Isaiah 53: 11)

�See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him�his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness� so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand�. (Isaiah 52: 13-15)

�He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.� ( Isaiah 53: 2b - 4 )

Historical Jesus, a crowd-puller from day one of profession would hardly fit into many of these dialectics. His share of divinity has been played out in the New Testament to such an extreme, one would hardly imagine him as the servant of Yahweh. In fact a redeemer reconcilable to the spirit of evolution needs to be much more soft-spoken than the person of Jesus.

�Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.� (Isaiah 42 : 1-4 )

However, the struggles of Jesus against the literal understanding of the Law of Moses will definitely carry a direct symbolism to a full-fledged liberation the world continues to crave for.

The challenge of shaping up a new consciousness and working out the right balance between God�s gratuitous power and the role of human intellect (ability to see the unseen) will be as much to the leader as to all human beings. Hardly would God intervene, before all aspects of a new consciousness is understood by people.

The miracles of Jesus or any other saint until now are pure forms of Divine initiative and they could not spell out the role of a believing mind in all its significance. It wasn�t a natural accomplishment for Jesus, explainable under the evolutionary law of consciousness. He didn�t seem to sweat it out, like Lord Buddha for example, to attain enlightenment after struggles of search. The Holy Quron, in fact, alludes to the making of Jesus along the lines of the first man.

�The similitude of Jesus before Allah is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him: "Be". And he was.� (Holy Quron 3:59)

1.2 Islamic Revelation[size=3]:

Whatever Koran speaks of Jesus is often literally true. The holy text is a legitimate correction to the gospel of Jesus. But designing a strict code of life on the deserts of Arabia, in lines similar to the Law of Moses renews the glorious trap of blind obedience to revelation all over again. Jesus was precisely fighting against a straightjacket concept of law and hence, one could say, Gospel and Koran mutually inherit the much-needed correction to each other.

In chapter after chapter Holy Koran talks of the Judgment Day and we have already shown this could never be compatible with the evolving world. Symbolic meaning of a New Era in evolution is certainly possible and hence the word of God will take its validity undoubtedly. But the deceptive tone of dictation to cultivate blind obedience to a strict code of life presents a formidable difficulty in Islam � a price one necessarily pays for an exalted degree of revelation.

That the word of God takes a new level of meaning in critical junctures of history has been repeatedly indicated within scriptures themselves.

�None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?� (Holy Quron 2:106 )

�He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah.� (Holy Quron 3:7)

�I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

For I knew how stubborn you were; the sinews of your neck were iron, your forehead was bronze. Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, �My idols did them; my wooden image and metal god ordained them.� You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them? �From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, �Yes, I knew of them.� You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ear has not been open.

Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth.' (Isaiah 48 : 3-8)

�Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father.� (John 16: 25)

One can read clearly in the above verses, the compulsions of God to reveal His fore-knowledge and Lordship and yet reveal nothing until evolution itself matures.

1.3 Hindu Revelation[size=3]:

Hinduism presents lots of avatars of Vishnu, lots of interventions of Shiva in the life of His devotees and lots of other gods as well. The avatars basically arose to fulfill specific missions and they emerged victorious against personified forms of evil. All these directly relate to God�s initiative and concern through epic encounters.

But there�s no universal claim of redemption or requirement of obedience to one specific way of life. The dispersion and plurality might imply a weak form of revelation, but it also shielded Hinduism from a blind obedience to God�s word or a literal understanding of it. The mythology in itself included elements of competition and animosity between gods, hiking the need for interpretation. Every god or goddess claimed superiority over the other and they also ended up in polygamy, begetting of children, each family member becoming an additional god in his/her own right.

Despite excellent moments of god intervening in the world and redeeming human beings from specific contexts of helplessness, Hindu revelation basically included the unacceptable positions of infighting and anthropomorphism, inducing human beings not to be stuck at these levels of stories or past interventions but to look for their hidden significance. Until this day, Hinduism is known for its ability to accept plurality and it includes a spectacular range of societal as well as individualistic forms of worship. It hardly ever metamorphosed into a proselytizing culture

The multiple avatars of Hinduism signify the presence of the Ultimate in all of evolution, Its capacity and concern to intervene in specific moments and relate to human beings wherever needed. They also necessitate the obvious conclusion that the formless uniqueness of God alone would be bereft of all anthropomorphic limitations and scandals.

Mahabharata went a step further and offered a holistic scripture called Bhagavad Gita, under a spell-binding form of revelation. The text uniquely combined various stages of spirituality such as the performance of duty in detachment, the Upanishadic knowledge of expanding the identity of self and the Bhakti of surrendering to God as a devotee. A vivid representation of a highly evolved, multi-faceted consciousness, no doubt. Unlike other Hindu mythology, Gita embarked on universal statements such as the eternal program of Krishna to take avataar whenever injustice abounds on earth and the assurance that the homage paid to other gods ultimately reaches Him alone. A higher grade of revelation, so to speak.

But the context of Gita is in itself a context of awkwardness. Arjuna is hesitant to go ahead with the war that would result in the killing of relatives and clans and Lord Krishna not only unfolds a lengthy spiritual text on the battlegrounds, He hides behind a convenient theory of the imperishability of souls to goad the warrior into performing the duty of killing. This apparently triggers the entire revelation.

The teaching of Gita that souls neither originate nor die will definitely be at loggerheads with the evolutionary law of consciousness. Conquering death as a final goal of evolution or the human mind linking up with the permanent mind of God may be symbolically represented by such concepts. But literally speaking, revelation here lent itself to a questionable theory of steadfast killing on the fa�ade of the imperishability of souls. The awkwardness of the message in itself suggested the need for creative interpretations. We know that Mahabharata has evoked individual and generic interpretations at many levels and it remains a veritable treasure of human heritage for all ages.

The command of Lord Krishna did not have a simplistic impact on the life of His devotees. None ever understood the argument literally and felt encouraged to kill people, just because Gita says that souls are not being killed.



1.4 Buddhism & Upanishads:[size=3]

Buddha�s analysis of human nature doesn�t rely on premises handed down from heaven. It was fully a rational attempt and the teacher was wary of accepting anything just because a tradition did or a holy man opined. If any doctrine would withstand the acid test of scientific principles, it�s nothing but the Buddhistic claim against the possibility of �soul�. Human mind, howsoever complex its present form might be, is simply a building up of minute impressions and not a mysterious implantation of God. One could perhaps criticize Buddha that he evaded the issue of God�s existence; but none can ever fault him on his analysis of human predicament and his advice to take life in its own stride, without worrying excessively on sins, attachments and future achievements.


Upanishads too engaged on an analysis of consciousness and arrived at a superb conclusion that every human being ought to think of the ultimate source of life as the true self. Those who want to check the scientific validity of this conclusion are encouraged to refer the �TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS� posted under the philosophy of mind section in this website. The article spells out the inner dynamism of the evolving mind and makes it plain how Buddhism and Upanishads represent the analytic and synthetic aspects of human consciousness. The whole idea of the Divine Principle of Uncertainty is shown to match with the inner drives of Evolution through this essay. Six potentials of consciousness, expounded in mathematical terms are essential to understand how Buddhism and Upanishads are a continuation of the laws of mind and how they are free of error as opposed to the faith of other religions. Once this continuity is understood, we can happily declare: The human efforts of Religion have their reward of Truth and the divine initiatives of Religion stand for the Stupefying Wisdom of God.

Please, give us a summary of your comments above. What is the important point you are trying to make about God? What is your concept of God--theist, deist, panentheist, whatever?

I have simply stated God has willed the Evolution. He has also attempted to communicate His mind to us through revelation. Since human beings need to evolve on their own and discover the truth about God out of their own initiative and struggle, God packed up revelation in the form of metaphors alone.

The costliest mistake of mankind, in a way a deliberate design of God, is to take revelation literally and land into serious trouble. Once such mistakes are rectified, the final stage of evolution will be fulfilled in the form of a self-achievement of human race and the true meaning of revealed texts would also become evident to us.

Qn : Why woman has a rib more than a man?
Ans: God took out a rib of Adam to create Eve.

Where did you become indoctrinated with this rubbish? Have you ever seen the skeletons of men and women? Maybe it's time to read a few books and to see the real world.

This is a perfect example of why I agree with Richard Dawkins when he says that religious education of children is child abuse. It's lies and deceit, mindgames and conditioning, for who know what sinister reasons.

My concern is not to prove how many ribs man or woman has. In case they are equal, perfectly fine; I can accept it as it is.

From this attitude, it should be clear to you, I am not a child to be conditioned by indoctrination.

Perfect knowledge of all scientific facts is not something to boast of. We are simply blind to large areas of life, as yet. Our arrogance of science shouldn't close our mind to these unexplored riches of life.

the ignorance of man is infinite. Those who boast of spiritual understanding do not fool the ones in possession of it. And those in possession of it do not need to boast of it. Those who claim to be the most religious are often the most spiritually immature.

So your conviction is that a spiritually mature person can't even know that he is mature. One who asserts that he is immature is actually the most mature one.

What a fantastic contradiction as far as spirituality is concerned? And you are partly right here as well.

But who ever was boasting of spiritual maturity here? In case my article or replies gave you such impression regarding me, again I would say that you are partly right and partly wrong.

However these discussions aren't important to the thread.

It is not a matter of in case they are equal, its a simple fact. I think this is where your original post starts to lose all
credibility.





I think your post has the potential to develop into some interesting discussion.
Our blindness to to large areas of life does not mean that we should accept
a view that has obvious flaws. I would like to engage in a discussion about your
post, however am a bit lost as to what your premise is.

HH asks: Good point HH. However, in my personal experience it is possible for our young people to be educated in matters of religion without being indoctrinated. I had this good fortune.

From 1930--1947 (the year I went off to university) I was raised in a community of 10,000 people http://www.bellisland.net where all the schools were run either by the Roman Catholic church (50%), or by the other churches (Anglican, United Church, Salvation Army). Some teachers, especially the RC's and the fundamentalist Protestants (mostly the SA), did indoctrinate children with the fear of God, the hope of heaven and the dreadful fear of hell.

However, when I was about twelve years of age (1942) I had the good fortune of having a minister come to the church which I attended who taught us to how to thing about relgion, the Bible and God, not what to think. This same philosophy of education continued all through my university and seminary years, especially at the Atlantic School of Theology, Halifax, NS, and Boston University.
==========

All I'm saying is that the spiritually mature individual does need to try to convince others of their spiritual development, either directly or in indirect and subtle means. The individual who tries to convince others is not spiritually mature. Self-delusion only gets you so far. My comments were not necessarily directed to you, Raja, but were prompted by some of your generalizations and over-simplifications of various religions and the ensuing responses.

But you're right, the comments don't bear directly on the content of the thread and are largely tangential observations.

Qn : How do human beings possess a high degree of knowledge to discriminate good and evil, as opposed to animals and birds?
Ans: The primordial man and woman ate of the fruit of knowledge in the garden of Eden.

Apparently god did not want humans to discriminate good and evil. Didn't the bible indicate that he was a bit peeved when they ate the fruit? Didn't he give them a good thrashing with lightening (my artistic license) and kick them out of Eden?

Qn : Why humans are entitled to death along with other creatures, despite their remarkable sense of knowledge?
Ans: Their forefather and mother were driven out of the Garden possessing the fruit of life as well.

So god punishes the innocent progeny of Adam and Eve with death. I like this god guy. Maybe he and I could revitalise Nazism. What a plonker!

Qn : Why does woman undergo labor pains much more than other living creatures?
Ans: The Mother of all disobeyed God and earned the divine curse.

Price we pay for the size of the human brain and the postpartum strength of mother-child attachment. Pain has no intellectual quality in the process of natural selection. (I'll remind you, NS involves survival for reproduction).

Qn : Why is woman subjected to the rule of man?
Ans: Woman was the first to be deceived and she goaded man into disobedience.

It's called "dominance hierarchy". Did you ever look out of your window and see the animal world? Oh, I forgot, you have EVIDENCE that humans are not related to any animals and therefore similar principles do not apply. What a plonker. The sensible amongst us could discuss the social modification of innate (animalistic) behaviour in humans and how this has evolutionary significance for our species.

Qn : Why man had to sweat it out on the land?
Ans: Land is in curse, since the fall of Adam.

Planetary evolution, geology, climatology, meteorology. As they say, times change, except for petrified brains.

Qn : Why there�s enmity between snakes and human beings and the poor creatures have to crawl and bite the dust?
Ans: Snakes are under the wrath of God for engineering the fall of woman.

Snakes are highly evolved and successful animals. They have been around far longer than humans. Fossil EVIDENCE. Snakes are beautiful creatures. How dare you and your religious perverts suggest that they are anything but invaluable components of biodiversity and conservation keystone animals.

--
You know, you could throw all of this religious rubbish in the bin and start again. It's never too late. I encourage you to go back to school. Learn something about the fascinating and random nature of life and the universe. Become knowledgeable and independent.

Alternatively, there are good psychiatrists out there. Make an appointment. Come back in a while and tell us about your enlightenment.

So I managed to find some time to do some homework on ribs. Even Aristotle seems to have believed that humans have merely 8 sets of ribs. Nature might also come up with 11, 12 or 13 sets of ribs and doesn't seem to be fixed with one specific number.

However the point that man and woman have equal sets of ribs as a general rule is well-taken and I have removed the two lines pertaining to this misconception. But that hardly changes a speck in the tenor of the article.

My basic concern was to show that the creation stories of the Bible were simple attempts to explain a few existential questions of human beings in those days.

Ever wondered as to why God was portrayed to be splitting the mass of water into a heavenly unit and an earthly one formulating the SKY on the second day of creation? Most likely it was the early man's answer for the phenomenon of rain coming from above.

A bold and rational interpretation of revealed texts with the conviction that God perfectly nodded to the countless errors found in them for a specific evolutionary reason is all that I am stating through the post.





My premise has been stated repeatedly. I can only quote again what I wrote to Lindsay a little earlier.

"I have simply stated God has willed the Evolution. He has also attempted to communicate His mind to us through revelation. Since human beings need to evolve on their own and discover the truth about God out of their own initiative and struggle, God packed up revelation in the form of metaphors alone.

The costliest mistake of mankind, in a way a deliberate design of God, is to take revelation literally and land into serious trouble. Once such mistakes are rectified, the final stage of evolution will be fulfilled in the form of a self-achievement of human race and the true meaning of revealed texts would also become evident to us."

You needn't have tried so hard. I was merely talking of the questions and answers of the people for whom Genesis was authored. If you have made a simple conclusion that these are my views, I don't know who needs a psychiatrist.

God has willed the evolution?

As you set this topic into motion, what evidence do you have to make this claim?

The interpretation of the words are your own so you have to take responsibility for them. Also, as you have thrust these words (original [wherever they are] or yours) upon us, then I have to assume that you give them some credence. You cannot have your cake and eat it (11th commandment).

History teaches us of lots of dynasties, that we don't see today. It has its own style of evidence including written works of people living in different ages.

Religions too have their history. Their dynasty seem to continue until our own age, outliving many of the political dynasties. Much of what has happened in religions can also claim evidences similar to that of history.

When modern science contradicted some of the views of religions, overthrowing the latter is as good as throwing the baby with the tub.
We did have political revolutions too; but they resulted in replacement of monarchies with democratic govts. Governance is something one can't wish away.

Similarly the question of God is also something you can't wish away. We are caught in the midst of a GIGANTIC EVOLUTION of Time, Space and Matter. Science would never be able to go beyond a certain point of Evolution and reach the beginning of everything, if ever there was something like that. It always needs to be content with an answer, "Before this point, we don't know what really happened". Very similar to our daily comments like, "None can predict what's in store for future". Above all science would never tell you: "Why all this is happening", "Why there's growth?", "What is it growing towards, anyway?"

Hence the intuition of early philosophers and devotees that our hands on experience of the supremacy of intelligence over matter necessarily argues for the presence of the Super Intelligence behind all the evolutionary phenomena is something we would never be able to wish away.

More over this Super Intelligence seems to have made Its presence felt through the history of religions. What is needed therefore is a unifying, revolutionary new thinking of religions in accordance with science and not a overthrowing of everything connected to religions. Political revolutions have yielded a wonderful fruit called democracy, that wouldn't die off years to come. We haven't quite arrived at something similar in religions.

In this spirit, I have argued that the apparent contradictions of religion and science, or religions among themselves seems to be a definite plan of God, to allow the space for human beings to discover Truth on their own and take revelations merely as a metaphor that would finally match with his own discovery of Truth. The God of Evolution seems to have played a painful trick through revelation in order to fulfil the laws of evolution itself - read here the need for self-discovery by human beings.

Much of our trouble is we have not focused on our own consciousness as a new phenomenon born out of matter. We don't study it in the way we study matter under its own properties of waves, weight, length etc. Once we learn to study consciousness by merely focusing on it and accepting it as a higher realm born of matter, a somewhat independent realm of its own, we can also take it forward towards God, Brahman or Niravana that religions basically talk of.

To return to your question: The evidence of God willing the Evolution includes all the evidence of evolution that we see, all the evidence of its incomplete answers, all the evidence of religious histories and all the evidence of a revolution needed in religions to resolve their contradictions with science and among themselves.

The story of Adam and Eve was helpful for many generations to give out easy anwers for the difficult questions of life. Since it played this role beautifully, it also passed off conveniently as a factual statement on creation. The christians would even interpret the enmity between serpent and the seed of woman as a precursor of the victory of Jesus over death. A neat linkage of the first Adam and the last one; a linkage of early paradise and the new paradise achieved by Jesus is part of the faith of christians. I had to break all this myth.

My intention was to show that the pressing questions of early man prompted the story of Adam and Eve and not the other way around. The questions created the story; it's not the story that created the universe; in other words it doesn't explain creation. It was neither an actual statement of creation nor a prophecy on Christ nor a simplistic revelation of God, to be taken literally word for word. However I do maintain, it has lots of symbolic statements on the victory over death that mankind would finally achieve through evolution.

Now perhaps you would see how I eat the cake and have it too.

religious revelation is all a bunch of crap, a way for people to find meaning in their shallow lives through delusion. Wake up already!

Procreation and longevity prior to a painless death is a much better alternative. Allows for compassion and yet still scope for variation to meet changing environments. Extreme longevity in the short to medium term (next several 1000 years) is unsustainable. Incidentally evolution requires death otherwise there can be no effective selective pressure and the universe is one big selective pressure!

WHAT ARE REVEALED RELIGIONS?
I would be interested in taking a poll of those who read and write in this and other related threads:

How many of you actually believe that there is a perfect superbeing called God who has revealed to us what the true religion really is?

MY PERSONAL THEOLOGY
For the record: Even though I am not an atheist neither am I a traditional theist, or deist. If you are interested, go to my profile. There I give a summary of my theology, at this point in time. I like what I find in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology
It is not always easy to keep track of who believes what. It would be very helpful if posters gave a summary in their profiles.



There is , also, helpful information here:
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/reli...pe_revealed.htm

I would never go with any humble expectations for EVOLUTION. After all 2 million years back, no animal would have ever held a conference on the emerging reality and decided upon the wonder of human being.

Evolution adopts immensely new techniques; not merely the procreation, the selection pressures and the survival mechanisms. These largely belong to the animal world and they would explain hardly above one millionth of the human progress and civilization already achieved.

How much more for future? Who are we to limit it in any sense?

I woke up and wrote the article "God, the deceitful"

You and I have very different perspectives on evolution. But then again, I'm just a mere biologist with evidence that humans ARE animals! BTW, if we (humans) are not simply attempting to survive and reproduce, then what else are we doing?

I agree completely. There are so many human behaviors that can be explained if we look in the light of the animal kingdom & evolution.

'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins is a great book. I've only read some of it, but I plan to finish it one day in the near future. I'm a big advocate for evolution, so I may be slightly biased (but then again, who isn't?).

Recently in
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthrea...age=0#Post20612
a poster named Ellis worte and said:

===========================
I responded: "I agree with you, Ellis. And I will add, here is how I imagine god: I imagine G�D--(Orthodox Jews use G-d)--as encompassing all that we call existence and whatever more there is. I use my special symbol and the term 'panentheism, to make this point clear.

I do not insist that others have to believe as I do. I just find that it works for me.

BTW, I have no objection to those who prefer to use the traditional spelling, God. But let us be clear as to what we mean by the term.

How many theists actually think of God as a masculine, human-like and objective being somewhere out there looking down on us? I suspect only very few.

I also suspect that this is what atheists have in mind when they they say: "There is no evidence that there is a God. People who believe there is one are deluded."

Atheists may think of conscious existence as depressing, as being meaningless and absurd, and that non-existence is to be prefered. But I can't imagine any atheist ever saying: "There is no evidence for existence." Can you?

In my opinion: The fact of existence, for better or for worse, and my consciousness of it is all the evidence I need to say: I BELIEVE IN G�D. Existence is good (G�D), and we call all help to make it better until, eventually, it becomes the best. Like the old rhyme goes:

GOOD BETTER BEST, NEVER LET IT REST, 'TILL THE GOOD IS BETTER AND THE BETTER BEST.
===================="

Do you have the ability to conceptualise 2 million years? 730000000 days? Over a time span like that, with simple evolution in survival mechanisms, selection pressures and considering the size of of our brains its easy to understand the progress mankind has achieved. Ill go as far to say that perhaps one could be disappointed we have not evolved more.

Is this your first revelation since awakening?
If so how do you view what you have written in terms of who you are and who God the deceitful is?
Do you see any similarity between yourself and God in this revelation?

It's the brain I was alluding to when I talked of the level of human evolution, compared to the animal evolution. I was merely stating animals couldn't have imagined what was to come. Similarly the humans possibly can't imagine what is to come.

You spontaneously desired more evolution by now. What limits would you give for the future of evolution, then? Given the fact that progress gets accelerated with time, where would you really stop the survival mechanisms and the victory of human brain?

Perfectly. I am also equally deceitful like my God. The other day, my daughter, 6 yr old, insisted only the mom gave birth to her, I better keep quiet.

I had to tell her I put my half-cell into mom's womb. She was relentless. "How did you do that?'', she enquired. "I took mom to the doctor and he did it clinically". And She continues to believe this now.

A few years later, she would get to know, I cheated her for a definite purpose; yet she would pat me for making at least one point clear from her childhood onwards, namely I had a positive role in her physical constitution.

This is exactly the kind of deceit, I have been talking of with regard to God.

I am not a biologist; though I have learnt a lot from them. I am a sensible human being with lots of evidence that we are something more than animals. The simplest evidence: we too are talking lot of sense via binary code. I didn't do this in order to reproduce.

To survive ... possibly in some remote shade. In fact, it's this survival desire, I have extended to its logical conclusion ... immortality with no time limit set for evolution. I have my own basis and trickles of evidence for the same.

But people couldn't even react when I detailed the existing laws of conscious experience. All of them are conscious. But they are not able to recognize the nature of consciousness. They can't even look at their own consciousness intently and see the vast potentials it has contributed to the evolution of man.

Volumes of evidence revolve out of them every moment. But they need merely fossil evidence or a neuro-biological one.

I for one didn't write the above posting with the help of a brain-mapping machine. And still I have sufficient evidence that these thoughts occurred precisely in my awareness.

Wakiing up to yourself and your creation is a good start to awakening to God.

No you did it so that the human race could.

No, you did it so that the human race could.

Worse than the theistic belief everything is done for the glory of God.

Thankyou, the enlightened.

You're welcome

Usually, fairy stories are for going to sleep not waking up.

wake up calls could be lulling as well.

Raja, one liners will not help your cause.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but present it as dogma and few or none will take the bait. I find your analysis superficial and adolescent. Have you even read the Mahabharata, much less the Gita? Do you know that the Upanishads are a part of Hinduism, and that Buddhism was derived from Hinduism (so why you lump the Upanishads and Buddhism together and separate them from Hinduism is beyond me)?

Lucid, I have no plans to achieve anything through this discussion. I did have something when I entered the forum.

But my expectation was people would appreciate my analysis of conscious experience. For me it appears as a science. But the learned ones who have the capacity to have conscious experience do not want to look at it as a phenomenon in itself and check if the primary laws I stated correspond to their own inner evidence.

My scientific understanding of God is way beyond these initial laws. Hence I have no illusion people would see eye to eye.

You definitely have some knowledge of religions. But you are still preoccupied with little divisions in them, while my analysis is concerned with a unitary spirit for all religions put together.

Want to know why I lumped Upanishads and Buddhism, as a distinct topic from Hinduism? Look for my attempt to line up all religious experience from pure human effort at one end and greater divine participation at another end.

again this is only a shorter version of the long article entitled Ten Commandments of Consciousness, where there's no strict division with specific religions.

God made you do it. I like that.

Or actually God tricked you into it without any knowledge of why. That's what a deceitful God would do...



I take it your appreciation includes the opposition, or the appreciation in a form of the analysis of your personal idea about your experience of consciousness, and self created measurement and referral process.
i.e. the reflection of your own consciousness.

God (being a deceitful God) you gotta keep an eye on'em. He's a tricky sombitch.

BEWARE OF SOPHISM.
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism
The above site is very helpful in understanding the above posts.

I repeat myself: In all our discussion, beware of sophism!

A sophism is a confusing, fallacious, illogical, or insincere argument used for deceiving someone. Making heavy use of such arguments is pejoratively called sophistry.

The term originates from Greek sophistes, meaning "wise-ist", one who "does" wisdom, one who makes a business out of wisdom (soph�s means "wise man").

In ancient Greece, sophists were teachers of philosophy and rhetoric. Most of these sophists are known today primarily through the writings of their opponents (specifically Plato and Aristotle), which makes it difficult to formulate a complete view of the sophists' beliefs.

Sophism is essentially getting people to believe you regardless of what you believe to be the truth. They value being correct and not making mistakes by convincing others they are right, rather than seeking the truth.

I know truth is an opinion and sophism is about getting people to believe you regardless of if you are right or not.

Yes from time to time people do seem to berate the same ideas into the rest of our heads in some vain effort to get us to go along with their ideals. However we also have the right to eqaully berate an opposing view and to disagree with them, sometimes with great zeal.

It all balances out really, because were all free to speak our minds here.

Paranoia strikes deep!!