Starting the Discussion

We need to understand the words we use if we are to understand what we want to discuss. I just opened a new blanket for Margaret. It is stamped: Single. It is huge for the daybed. I just now looked at the sheet that I bought a couple of weeks ago: Twin. Our king sized sleep number bed is composed of two twin beds. The day bed is a twin, not a single! But only one single person can sleep on it.

[One day later: The blanket is stamped Twin!!!! I had “single” in mind and therefore saw Single. I have had this problem for years. I must always edit, sometimes several times, what I write and listen to what I am saying.]

The above mix-up occurred in two days. This discussion will cover over just the last 2,000 years of a biological history that extends over millions of years. Yet each day was, at one time, today. Our physical environment has been changing. Our bodies have been changing. It is valid to view the same thing differently at different times.

There is a common set of relationships, over time, in what, how, and when we choose to believe:

Follow or Copy Belief	Choose to Believe	Modify Belief
Growing Up or Learning in Stable Environment		Changing Environment

There is also a common practice to limit a belief for the benefit of the person or person’s in charge. The cell phone with camera and the Internet are removing these old limits. Are whites, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, uneducated, educated, rich, poor, illegal aliens or Native Americans the “enemy” or is the “enemy” mainly a mutual ignorance of life in general and the lack of will to provide for the common good of all groups? Schooling must be more than job training.

The meditation class at Provision Living provides an insight into how to actually do this. Chair yoga and tai chi provide additional connections between physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions. Fitness classes provide a new useful awareness of body including strength and balance.

I now know when I am sitting up correctly. I can now be at the center of the world (almost pain free) without needing to be in-pain, stressed, and in charge.

A recent example for all of this is the answer to the question, “What is a modern day (today in 2017) Jew? This maligned group of people can no longer be defined as a race by blood (because of intermarriage and conversion), as a single belief in God (about half in Israel are secular), or as mostly living in a nation. The realities of history no longer fit them into classical European nations with defined boarders.

The Unites States of America is no longer a nation of classical European nation immigrants. Margaret and I found San Antonio, Texas, a bit puzzling. Several groups of Mexican descent live there: Recent wealth from Mexico was building in the Northwest; poor lived in the Southeast, old families and new arrivals.

In summary, it is very difficult to say anything about religion, economics, and politics that covers more than a small specific situation. Each strongly influences the other. With this in mind, I will start working on a meaningful discussion (for me) on the foundation of current practice and understanding of religious beliefs.

I continue to accept the idea that a God does exist: acts of God. These remain things we insure against that we do not understand or understand but have little if any control over. We understand hurricanes, tornadoes, flood plains, and seat belts. We are only beginning to understand addiction: drugs (including tobacco).

I continue to accept that one should be thankful for being alive. Without a belief in the immortality of the sole our life after death is the same as before we were conceived: a monarch butterfly or a milkweed plant.

I continue to accept that the process by which God created the current state of affairs will continue for millenniums. The more we learn, the more miraculous it becomes. This also applies to the human brain and to God talking to man.

There was a time before God spoke to man. The human brain developed two lobes, that function much alike, on top of the ancient brain of “lower” mammals. The two lobes communicated with connective fibers. This is still more the case with women than men.

Then the right lobe started taking a new function. Speech and writing remained in the left lobe. This, it is posited, made space in the right lobe to develop the process of making useful the sensory inputs that did not have be to conscious.

We are not conscious of most mental activity. The right lobe became a command center. It used words to alert the left lobe to do something.

Commands heard from the group leader were acted upon before introspection was possible. In time, the right lobe became the source of commands. External commands were replaced by internal commands.

There was no questioning of these commands: external or internal. Now God spoke through these internal commands.

With further development of the brain and the ability to be introspective, the voice of God receded. Only prophets and then oracles were receptive. Then silence.

The brain as we know it now has been created by a God, over a million years, that various religions populate with a myriad of powers and intentions.

The founding fathers of the United States of America believed in a God that created the universe and everything in it, but did not micromanage things. They were adamant that church be separated from state. Theocrats had no privilege in standing or ability to run a nation over other citizens.

I can agree with this, after visiting our granddaughter attending the University of Virginia. I learned that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were classified as Deists: “God gave us reason, not religion.” They believed in the moral teachings of Jesus but not his divinity. George Washington is reported to be a mix of Deism and Christian beliefs. I can agree with that.

How can I agree? Because what we choose to believe, is what is, on faith alone. Hypnotism is now believed to be mostly a matter of faith in the hypnotist. The same goes for the illusionist. Margaret and I watched elephants vanish before our eyes in Los Vegas. Suicide also narrows vision and concern to a minute point weakly connected to reality.

Belief can overpower reason, knowledge, understanding and pain. When my back pain again started to increase last month, just a bit each day, I then stopped all activity the past couple of weeks related to pain and worked only on fitness exercises that made me feel good. Once again, I feel good on leaving each class, I believe in part, because I want to feel good rather than to respond to (paint out) pain. [Painting out pain was a great idea but it did not last.]

Christ asked for complete faith, as a child. Trust me. I am the only way. He has not returned in 2000 years. As a child I believed, as my parents, friends and acquaintances did.

Margaret and I were approached by a man as we left a grocery store. He had a $2000 check that he needed to cash. If we would give him $500 for expenses, he would cash the check and split with us. He wanted to give us something so we could trust he would return. We did not believe, as we knew something about banking, and we had two boxes of butter pecan ice cream melting in the cart.

Christ asked for our trust on faith alone. No other conditions. The conman felt the need to bribe us.

The church sold indulgences in the Middle Ages to finance building the cathedrals in Europe. Time off purgatory can now also be earned on the Internet.

What the common folk believe, and the brain needed for that belief, still needs to be isolated and described. I do know it will not be a one-size-fits-all answer.

I hope to find it in (or generate it from) the mix of views from the books I have been reading mentioned earlier: brain anatomy, development, and function; feeling and emotion; two origins of consciousness; and Judeo-Christian holy books.