Cognitive Science + Religion = Confusion

(Click image for full size)

Credit goes to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Oneness

On religion: Its all the same light reflected off a different wall.

“All religions, all this singing, one song. The differences are just illusion and vanity. Sunlight looks slightly different on this wall than it does on that wall and a lot different on this other one, but it is still one light.”

-Rumi

Aliens

I figured it was time for a little silliness after all the seriousness around this place, so heres a funny little comic I stumbled upon (literally) recently:

Samir

"Yet even as I spoke, I was flooded with a scary mixed feeling of both remorse and fear, and I prayed to God that Samir would beg me to changed my mind so that I would not lose face. And, lo and behold, he did. 'But Fatima,' Samir said, 'God is the only one who creates beauty. It is not by applying henna, ghassoul - that vulgar clay - or any of those other dirty concoctions, that you'll transform yourself into the moon."

One of my favorite quotes from a book I've been reading recently:

Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi
Said by Samir, a 9 year old boy living in a Muslim Harem in Fez, Morocco

William Butler Yeats - The Magi

OW as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,

In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones

Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky

With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,

And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,

And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,

Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Religious Allusion and Societal Criticism in William Butler Yeats’ The Magi

The Magi employs masterful use of symbolic language to reveal religious allusion within the context of a societal commentary. William Butler Yeats, the author of the poem, was an Irish poet apparently deeply fascinated with the spiritual, the religious, and the occult. Yeats wrote The Magi during the tail end of his career (1914 – Yeats passed away in 1939), which may explain the seeming reminiscent tones toward the “ancient faces” presented in the poem (line 4).

Yeats begins the poem by immediately establishing that his experience is an abstract one. While this abstract nature originates in the experience of the speaker, Yeats points to an objective truth inherent in the way in which he describes the “old men in the sky” (the magi). He describes their clothes and and their state of mind in a way that objectively judges the motives of the magi. The juxtaposition of “stiff, painted clothes” and “pale, unsatisfied ones” is not a mistake on the part of Yeats, but intentionally a judgement of the material grasping of the “ancient faces” in the sky (lines 2, 4). The trend to criticize the material continues immediately following, as Yeats then follows “faces like rain-beaten stones” with “and all their helms of silver hovering side by side.” The speaker establishes here a sense of correlation between the worn down and the glimmering, metallic hat.

Despite the prescence of the lavish hat and colorful clothes, the subject of criticism remains detached from the delusional beauty of these material things. The hat “hovers” instead of crowns, the clothes are “stiff” instead of flowing and comfortable (lines 2, 5). Even more importantly, despite the presence of these very material things, the ancient faces “appear and disappear”, not holding a strong physical appearance despite “...all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more…the uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.” The ancient faces are trying their hardest to grasp and hold onto the material yet are failing, not only in their own quest but in failing to maintain both their own happiness and their own presence. This failure most likely points to Yeats’ criticism of the attempt to maintain a firm hold in the realm of the physical world through the pursuit of material goods. The quest to be immortal only ends in unhappiness for eternity, an immortal state surely contrary to the original intent of the pursuers.

Within the poem, Yeats’ tone passes from truthful, nostalgic, transcendent and heaven-like to falsely hopeful, rough, turbulent, and hell-like. This may point to Yeats attempt to degrade the status of the magi due to their groveling for things and failure to recognize the true beauty inherent in the world (as shown by “the blue depth of the sky” in line 3). Yeats’ presents a sharp contrast not only through the change in style in his poetry as shown by the revealing of the true nature of the magi but additionally through the biblical tones established throughout the work.

The first of these occurs in the title itself, “The Magi.” The Magi were the three “wise men” who visited Jesus as a newborn child, presenting him with three gifts (as they truly believed he was the messiah). The “ancient faces” in the story appear to be manifestations of the Magi to the extreme – rather than being the bearer of gifts to Jesus, they are the takers away of gifts, the purely physically grasping. Yeats solidifies this possibility through his use of the line, “being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied” (line 7). Calvary, in its capital form, literally points to the place at which Jesus was crucified. This solidifies Yeats’ view of the “ancient faces”, he has denounced them as not appeased by the ultimate act of saving – Jesus’ death and resurrection. He shows that despite their unhappiness, they still yearn for the “bestial floor” of what seems to be earth (line 8). The men in the sky, the materially obsessed, simply cannot let go of what they once had, what the livelihood of their physical clothing once brought forth. The description of the earth as a “bestial floor” indicates that Yeats believed that much of his contemporary society emulated the behavior of materialism as exhibited by the “pale unsatisfied ones” in the sky. Labeling them as ungrateful for Jesus’ saving grace and unwilling to give up physical gifts as the Magi did is the ultimate disownment.

A Typical AIM Conversation

Poor Soul who had to deal with my rambling (9:20:35 PM): Yo man, sweet quote.

---

Auto Response from irugee (9:20:35 PM):
"We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have—for their usefulness."

-My boy Thomas Merton.

---

Poor Soul (9:20:51 PM): I like to be.

Poor Soul (9:20:55 PM): I like being a lot.

irugee (9:21:28 PM): haha thanks man! being is quite awesome i have to say. damn you would have been an awesome addition to my theology class like we were saying a while back, we talked about being all the time.

Poor Soul (9:21:41 PM): That's awesome.

Poor Soul (9:22:08 PM): and eating animals right? cause they're not self aware. they don't get "be" so they must be munched on!

Poor Soul (9:24:28 PM): I'm still for the theory that we're all victim to chemical reactions, and that fate is more of an equation then a destiny.

irugee (9:26:46 PM): really? im not sure that i believe in fate...though that may be myself being insecure and not wanting to give up "control" of my life. a part of me wants to say i dont believe in it though. like, aside from the ultimate fate of earthly death. (that sounds so gloomy but idk what else to really say)

irugee (9:29:01 PM): i wouldnt say that we are victim to chemical reactions though , like iwould say that some of our realm is biological but there is also a metaphysical element (for me, being a Christian, it being God)

irugee (9:29:10 PM): i apologize for going all philosophical on yo ass

Poor Soul (9:29:24 PM): nah man, i go philosophical on my own ass.

Poor Soul (9:30:00 PM): And i totally get what your saying, i just think because we can explain emotions and thoughts and feelings through science, that there's really no room for anything metaphysical.

irugee (9:37:29 PM): thats where i would disagree, i dont believe we can explain the totality of those things through science (though science is, i agree, an extremely helpful tool in understanding those things. the thing some dont understand that it is a tool, its authority is so great that some no longer realize its only a tool for understanding the purely physical. the biggest authorities are shrouded by the fact that one cannot even realize the totality of the authority due to its large sphere of influence) . anyway as iwas saying haha , the totality of those things i cannot believe be explained through science because, well, who are you? who am i? is there a mini me inside of me which i can pinpoint and declare with certainty : this is I, this is me, and nothing else, i know with certainty that this entity is the reason for my consciousness? i dont believe we can pinpoint this "bedrock" of existence to any one physical portion of the self, pointing towards something higher, or at the least, the inadequacy of science to explain the fullness of the world. truth has become "fact" instead of truth, the power comes in the fact or that which can be realized in the sole realm of the empirical. in fact science(if the only pure authority present in the world) basically works off the premise that the only "real" things in the world are derived from the emperical, the only true things can be verified from the emperical. the only thing is...that very premise cannot be verified by the emperical and thus contradicts itself, rendering science as the purely one and only authority null. though as i said i believe it to be an extremely amazing tool for understanding the world. espceially when it comes tosaving lives/medicine, things like that. holy crap, long as hell.

Poor Soul (9:40:22 PM): so wait, your beef is the whole "i am me" thing?

Poor Soul (9:40:26 PM): super short version.

irugee (9:42:13 PM): well, kind of, not really. thats kind of a main example i used to show that, at least right now, science cannot purely be used to explain neuroscience/psychology/cognitive science and the links between being/consciousness and the chemical workings of the brain. my main beef i would say would be the use of science as the only authority in todays world, basically the only truth. and the fact that , if science is the only authority...it contradicts itself.

Poor Soul (9:43:27 PM): i, um, wiv,. ,va;nureigeh;gfadsaah fuiew. my head is like 4 hrs behind my body right now.

Poor Soul (9:43:55 PM): How does science being the only truth contradict itself now?

Poor Soul (9:44:06 PM): and don't use the word emperical unless you by me a dictionary.

irugee (9:44:56 PM): hahah thats fine dude, i apologize for kinda going out of control . its just stuff like this i get really into, in fact i plan to major in cog sci/neurosci in college to try to better understand the links between the chemical brain and the consciousness of being. and ooo emperical means "based on the five senses"

irugee (9:45:24 PM): so like, anything you can experience physically through the five senses

irugee (9:46:08 PM): so what im saying is

irugee (9:46:51 PM): if science becomes the only authority, it says this: The only things that are true are those things with a basis/proof/experience through the five senses.

irugee (9:47:51 PM): Im saying that if that is the premise, it contradicts itself, because the premise itself holds no basis whatsoever in the realm of the five senses, thus contradicting exactly what it attempted to establish

irugee (9:56:10 PM): haha sorry if i seem like im trying to go over your head or wahtever, i just get really into this stuff

Poor Soul (10:14:44 PM): sorry, my mom was reading my paper.

irugee (10:15:12 PM): no problemo at all

Poor Soul (10:15:12 PM): But nah it's cool. i feel like if i better understood what you were saying i might be willing to debate, but i'm all kinds of confused.

Poor Soul (10:15:20 PM): That's neat that you want to major in it though.

I figured I would post this just to show that well, I'm kind of really into religion/science and that sort of thing. I actually do talk to people normally, I swear...

The Curiosity of the Human Condition in the Modern World

Today, we live in a world of the nearly entirely technological, a world which exists almost solely on an impersonal level. The media appeals to the masses, a substitute for the truth in actuality, an abstract construct which subtly influences the minds of each and every human being attached in some way, shape or form to society. In this society, this mass media, the core of the human being is lost, or at least eludes most. I believe the core of the human being to be love and relation, relations which stretch from family love to friendly love and even all the way to love of all things natural. This love, though, the very core of being itself, becomes lost in the business of everyday life and the sheath which the mass media creates over human nature itself.

The problem lies not entirely in the entity performing the blinding, though, it additionally lies in those who are rendered blind by the issue. For these individuals are not entirely blinded but choose to be blinded, choose to ignore blatant issues at hand. They try not to see through the masks of politics and the media but embrace those masks as the truth. In this very acceptance of falsehood, the ignorant and continually ignoring human denies real issues at hand in the world today, those of poverty, lack of love and what I would call subservient approval of the masses.

There are those who choose to act and those who choose not to act. I will do everything in my power to enlighten those humans dethroned by the false head of the American media. I, proudly, am an actor (or so I like to think). Put away your cell phone, get off your computer (as I write this on a computer...), set aside your work and forget about fashion. Love your fellow individual – love all.

The Yin Yang as an icon of God

“Without physical substance, the nature (of man and things) cannot be complete. Without nature, physical substance cannot be produced. The yang has the yin as its physical substance and the yin has the yang as its nature. Nature is active but physical substance is tranquil. In heaven, yang is active while yin is tranquil, whereas in earth yang is tranquil while yin is active. When nature is given physical substance, it becomes tranquil. As physical substance follows nature, it becomes active. Hence yang is at ease with itself but yin is fast moving without control” (Shao Yong). In the search for a manifestation of art to adequately describe, assess and symbolize God, I came up short. Behind every piece of art exists an artist, and if the premise is taken that God paints then who could thus adequately paint the painter? While I realize that the assignment posed was not designed to be taken literally but rather used as a symbolization of the nature of God, I believe that the nature of God can most adequately be described in the seeming goodness and awe of his very creations. By his creations, I mean to specifically point out the human issue when confronted with the issue of the Church, the very Church attempting to continually uphold the word of God. The one symbol which I believe can adequately describe the picture as painted by the painter is the Yin Yang.

The Yin Yang? The Yin Yang more immediately represents eastern philosophy and religion, a seemingly inappropriate symbol in a discussion dealing with the Christian God, Yahweh, the Father, the Lord. I see the symbol, though, as a message and manifestation of the balance of God’s creation and what man must accomplish and realize before he truly comes to understand God and theology. I’m not saying that God should or can be reduced to such a symbol but that, quite ironically, this black and white circle of the East represents the utter wholeness and oneness of the world that we live in today.

First of all, before delving into what the Yin Yang represents, we must understand the very nature of the archetypical representation of the Yin Yang. In this case, I am assuming the image to exist in a perfect circular harmony, an ever-conflicting yet ever balancing series of black and white, of light and darkness. The black, though, should not be mistaken for evil, but rather be embraced as a necessary counterpart to its other equal half. Even in the fullness of the black, a perfect circle of white harmony exists (and vice-versa), a consistent reminder of the inherent balance of the Yin Yang. I believe that this very balance overrides the conflict of the symbol, that the symbol signifies absolutely perfect coexistence. This very coexistence can be found in the world which God so gracefully created for the realm of man.

The image of the Yin Yang, I think, is more important today as a reasonable image of God due to the increasing secularization and calculation of everyday life. Particularly throughout the depths of the institutionalization of man, man makes a call to logic and the physical, the tangible over all else. Positivism reigns supreme, and science, while only a tool for discovery (and a valuable one, at that), leaps its bounds. Science in the current world exceeds its boundaries, as its authority ironically transcends the senses of the individuals transfixed with its very reliance on the tangible alone. Man’s utter submittal to a science-ridden dominance of everyday thought and activity eliminates the spiritual aspect of life.

The quote aforementioned appears to attack and assess this problem to its very roots, though. The Yin Yang, in however strange a guise, may be able to solve the consistently occurring issue of the secular versus the spiritual (and subsequently, tradition versus progress). As expressed by Yong, the yang portion of the Yin Yang represents the [spiritual] nature of all things, a nature without which the physical would be unable to thrive. The issue lies not in the yin (the physical) itself but the tendency of man to either ignore or place second the yang (the spiritual) when each should be placed on an identical plane even when seemingly only within the realm of the yin. Because the yang is at ease with itself and doesn’t manifest until present within its own world (heaven), individuals tend to lean towards the yin due to its active nature within its own physical world. The Yin Yang’s beauty, though, lies in its recognition of each portion of its being (yin and yang, physical and spiritual) as equal, no matter the “world.” Sure, each manifests itself through a different method depending upon setting, but each bears equal importance. It could even be argued that it is a natural reaction for man to consider the yin of immensely more importance, as the yin is what essentially maintains survival upon earth. Particularly in today’s Capitalist society, because the yang neither upholds life nor brings forth material prosper, it is ignored. I believe this ignorance and ignoring of the yang can explain why it is so difficult for man to simultaneously accept Jesus for who he was: both man and messiah, both Jesus and Christ.

In Jesus, God sent a perfect symbol of the Yin Yang as a representation of himself, a manifestation of the fullness of both yin and yang, for Jesus was both divine and human. Humankind, though, rejected Jesus for nearly the same reason why the yin yang (or at least the yang) has been rejected in the current day. The people didn’t like the idea of a messiah ruining politics and religion, they could not cope with the yang manifesting itself in an active manner amidst the yin, as the yang’s tendency tends towards passivity amidst the physical. Jesus was the exception, though, he represented the ideal symbol of the Yin Yang, the perfect harmony of physical and spiritual. The people could not understand this because they figured that both the yin and the yang could not exist in perfect harmony, that a figure such as Jesus was a ridiculously far fetched ideal. They believed (and some still believe today) that the perfection of the divine could never be manifested through a supposedly imperfect, sin-ridden being such as man. I believe he was rejected for the same reason that Western culture usually rejects the yin yang – how can a seemingly perfect white (yang) coexist without conflict amidst an imperfect, seemingly evil blackness (yin). In particular, people question Jesus’ ability to save himself, the question of the yang overcoming the yin and the light overcoming the darkness.

What they do not realize is that God sent Jesus knowing his second nature and knowing the inevitability of an end to human life. The point of Jesus life was, in fact, to die for the cause of humankind despite its inherent reliance on the yin. Rather than embrace Jesus as both Christ and Jesus (divine and human), individuals tend to separate the two natures, looking at him in scientific or historic context and then, completely separately, as God. Jesus embodied each simultaneously, though a direct symbol of the yin yang and what it truly means to balance two seemingly staggering opposites. I believe that once the human race accepts the ironically balancing dichotomy of Jesus Christ and thus subsequently, both God and the world as a whole will be understood to a much greater level.

I say this particularly due to the reliance of man today on logic and calculation. Due to this nature of thinking, the yin yang splits itself into two parts – the yin and the yang rather than the Yin Yang. Due to a singular method of thought, individuals emphasize one and only one part of the Yin Yang. What people do not realize is that each is a necessary and equally importance piece of the perfect whole. I actually believe that understanding the Yin Yang means to understand coexistence in racial, social, mental, emotional and physical harmony and understanding. Once we understand the Yin Yang, I believe we can gather together our differences in celebration rather than polarize them in opposition.

Take the very nature of the Yin Yang, for example. It consists of black and white, of the seeming symbols of good versus evil. Rather than emphasize their differences, the Yin Yang demonstrates the ability for each to understand each other, for each to come together upon a line of objective goodness. Even if one cannot find the “line” between the yin and the yang, though, the yang is found within the yin, and the yin within the yang. Even if one becomes entrenched in the depths of one side, the other side brings the individual back to “reality.” For example, if one lives a live consisting of only mysticism, religion and meditative isolation (a heavy reliance on the yang in a world where it is passive), the struggles of everyday physical life remind of the yin’s presence. On the other hand, just when man feels like he is on top of the (material) world (a heavy reliance on the yin in a world where the yang is hidden yet still present), a war or catastrophic event reminds the individual of the utter futility of the yin despite its active part in everyday life.

Once I discovered the Yin Yang as a meaningful and accurate symbol of God, my view of the world changed. I realized the inherent truth of many aspects of the Church: The Holy Trinity (and the coexisting balance of it), the divinity versus the humanity of Christ and the ever conflicting nature of tradition versus progress. I understood why exactly it is so difficult for humankind to accept what the Church says is true because of the very activity of the yin. The man should not be expected to uphold a sense of the yang in a world within which it upholds passivity. In fact, human nature tends towards the security, physicality and tangibility inherent in the nature of yin. Thus, as nature calls man to tend towards the yin, I certainly do not blame him.

However, on the other hand, I challenge him. I challenge the average man, the man tending towards the yin to, once he matures, realize that the yang actually does have a place in the material world. I believe it should be the responsibility of a mature individual to realize the yang at a reasonable point in time because I truly believe the yang will eventually reveal itself either through the yin or even without the aid of the yin. The issue with humankind lies in the continual reliance upon the yin despite the call of the yang – an ignoring of an equally important essence of God, an equally importance essence of the whole Yin Yang. Only through an embracing and understanding of the yang can one understand the yin and subsequently the entirety of the Yin Yang. Similarly, only through an embracing and understanding of the spiritual can one understand the physical and subsequently the entirety of God and his world.

Science AS Religion (and vice versa)?

What I was trying to say was not that "ALL explanations of the world around us, on some level, are inherently the same because they are simply stories that we tell ourselves to make sense of our surroundings?", though I understand where that might have been implied. Rather, I meant that this "search for truth" was a common base for both science and religion at their origins. The seeming point of religion, to me, is to search out the truth (which, in the case of religion, is God who equals universe). The seeming point of science, to me, is to search out the truth (which, in the case of religion, is "fact/findings" through experimentation, which equal universe). I would agree with you in that we are trying to make sense of our surroundings through these constructs, but in this attempt we have a divergence of motive and ends (in science and religion). This divergence has become seemingly impossible to permeate in the modern culture of today, which seems to tend towards extremes rather than the acceptance of multiple views or theories (the idea of an absolute truth being manifested in one and ONLY one of these systems).

I (personally) see each as a jettison to the "truth" of the universe. I believe they can coexist without constantly contradicting each other. The issue exists, though, in that some people do not recognize this similarity of motive in each system (and, in addition, an eventual similar ends if such a universal truth exists). Rather than seeing this quest for truth, they see only the means of science and the means of religion expressed whilst attempting to reach this "end" of truth.

On Science versus Religion

For clarification, this similar plane of development which I
refer to is a "search for the 'truth.'"

I disagree that we should separate the two. I base this primarily on the grounds that science and religion were a co-creation - each early constructs of man which have developed separately, yet were constructed on extremely similar planes. The issue with science for me lies in that individuals cannot, will not or do not recognize the fact that it is a man made construction. Instead, the scientist or atheist (or it even could be argued that the average American) usually dismisses religion on the grounds that "only the empirical is the true (and subsequently, the real)." The issue with the said statement, though, is that the very statement has no empirical basis and thus should be considered invalid based simply on contradiction. I believe that religion and science can live in union but this very possible union depends upon the capabilities of man to recognize each as a (similar) social construct. Unfortunately, in today's society, the spiritual and metaphysical, despite originating from a similar plane as the physical, exist as completely separate from the physical. Their coexistence depends upon man's interpretation of each, and what the "truth" actually means.

Albert Einstein was truly a genius

"I don't try to imagine a God; it suffices to stand in awe of the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it"

-Albert Einstein

I love this quote. Anyone have any thoughts?