Citizenschallenge: It’s not a “Body-Mind problem” it’s an “Ego-God issue.” (4-5)

Who is “God,” but a creation of our unique complex human minds dealing with our day to days?

Think about it, because that really is the most fundamental answer to The Grand Questions of God.
The who, what, where, why, how of God that people have been grappling with since forever.
It’s such a profoundly simple answer, yet people avoid it with an amazing alacrity and endless dog-chasing-tail rhetorical gymnastics that never arrive at any conclusion(s).

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It’s not a “Body-Mind problem” it’s an “Ego-God issue.”

Perhaps the most interesting lesson I’ve learned from my Hoffman adventure is that as I’ve followed the philosophical roots of “dualism” back through Descartes (1600s) and on past Anselm (1000s), one thing has become clear is that the entire philosophical edifice of this Mind-Body “Problem” was formed out of religious god fearing thinking, (What I've come to call the Abrahamic Mindset that gave us the three major religions - to be explained in more detail in a later post.), with their self-serving patriarchal mentality, heaven and hell, male domination, female subserviency, along with branding Dualism’s hard boundaries and its need for a sense of certitude into our minds and onto our expectations.

A need for certainty that allows for assumption to be paraded as facts, rather than being satisfied with acknowledging our limits and that today's mysteries can be resolved as future evidence comes to light.

This Abrahamic worldview perceives people as isolated objects, not only from this planet, but each other, even from ourselves. The other creatures we live with and the landscapes we exist within, are treated with contempt and wanton disregard.

Regarding the “Mind-Body Problem,”

Dr. Solms makes a wonderful analogy that highlights the error being made:

Question: Was it the lightning or thunder that killed the golfer?

It’s a meaningless question.

Lightning and thunder are simply different aspects of the same phenomena.

Our Mind and consciousness is the interior reflection of our living body/brain (both its interior happenings and external interaction with the environment). We simply cannot have one without the other.

We are embedded within an interconnected web of life. We are creatures who are the direct products of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution. Why isn’t that reflected in modern philosophical discourse?

Appreciating the divide between our thoughts and physical reality we live in. Learning to appreciate the Deep-Time happenings during Earth's Evolution puts an entirely different richer light upon our interior experience. An awareness that encompasses the whole of time, and this planet that created us, and the pageant of creatures that preceded us.

It gives us a deeper (solid) appreciation for our relationship not just with Earth but also the continuity of life on a grand scale. Life is good, life is precious, but death is no enemy, painful though it may be. Death is part of the cycle that brings forth new life.

Revel in the pageant you are blessed enough to be witnessing while you can!

As for God?

Who is “God,” but a creation of our unique complex human minds dealing with our day to days?

Where did God come from?

From within the human mind, from curiosity and wonder. From puzzling over observations, contemplating questions, seeking answers. From love and hunger and fears in the night along with glorying in the warming sunrise.

From contemplating the suddenly dead carcass of a loved one From buried memories of being coddled within mom’s loving protective bosom and mourning those who are gone.

From our need for someone truly personal, who’s always there, never dying, ready to listen to our constant chatter, ideas, complaints, fears, longings, wishes, all of it in complete confidence.

Think about it, our relationship with our God is the most intimate relationship of our lives and reflects our ego in every way. All of it, happening within our mind, or more descriptively, within our Mindscape.

What about the Biblical ‘Passion of Jesus' and the promise of everlasting Salvation?

Look around your world and history, nothing is everlasting. Why should it be, time is change, why wish for the impossible? Besides bet you’d find it an unspeakable horror were you ever trapped within a “forever” that actually never ends.

There is only the heaven and hell we create for ourselves, or that people inflict upon others.

We don’t need a key to life after life, the sacred secret is that Jesus is an amalgam of the best the human spirit has to offer.

That's why his story touches so many.

Jesus can be seen as saint, a spiritual guide within our mindscapes and a teacher who can help many through our own personal trials & tribulations right here on Earth. Though he's certainly not the only way, there are as many ways to "god" as there are people.

Jesus isn't my way, but I understand him and appreciate him and the example his Passion Play did offer some guidance during my own trials and tribulations.

The spiritual challenge is about facing our own failings and sins and achieving a willingness to accept blame where blame is due, to burn on the cross of our own making while seeking redemption.

Going through those trials and tribulations with honesty in your heart - then one awakens with a reborn awareness that guides one to a healthier more constructive outlook within oneself and with life in general.

Humans are the product of our Earth - God is the product of our human mind.

That’s why our conceptions of God always wind up being driven by our own Egos, not by any outside force. Nothing wrong with that, if only we could bring ourselves to explicitly recognize as much.

For some people these realities are jarring and resented, but that doesn’t make it any less the reality humans exist within. For others, if these ideas resonate, take comfort, stay true to your heart and your gut instinct. Do your homework, you’ll get there.