Three Cases For a Single Consciousness

The brain as an appendix? Three pounds of useless fat…

Organisms come and go. Brains evolve into minor insignificant blobs—to bilateral synchronization, to the organic state of awareness. Being aware of being aware (the pinnacle of biological evolution) big brains have made humans the “chief mambas” of planet earth. But was this necessary? Is it even true?

In geologic timescale life is but an eye-blink. Upon death one constant remains—consciousness. It is in every thing. It is the background illuminating the foreground. “The entire universe is forever the same as the consciousness that dwells in every atom”—Yoga-Vasistha. When you are gone consciousness remains.

Does consciousness exists without the brain? In recent years that idea has regained traction from some unlikely sources—brain abnormalities and science.

#1. “A new research study contradicts the established view that so-called split-brain patients have a split consciousness. Instead, the researchers behind the study have found strong evidence showing that despite being characterized by little to no communication between the right and left brain hemispheres, split brain does not cause two independent conscious perceivers in one brain”

Split brain is a lay term to describe the result of a corpus callosotomy, a surgical procedure first performed in the 1940s to alleviate severe epilepsy among patients. During this procedure, the corpus callosum (a bundle of neural fibres connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres) is severed to prevent the spread of epileptic activity between the two brain halves. While mostly successful in relieving epilepsy, the procedure also virtually eliminates all communication between the cerebral hemispheres, thereby resulting in a ‘split brain’. Ref Article

Yet the patients still have one mind. The idea that consciousness originates in the brain has been sideswiped by evidence—that it’s not so clear as that. There’s more…

#2. More than 20 years ago the campus doctor at Sheffield University was treating a student of mathematics for a minor ailment. The student was bright, having an IQ of 126. The doctor noticed that the student’s head seemed a little larger than normal and he referred him to Dr Lorber for further examination.

Dr Lorber examined the boy’s head by cat scan to discover that the student had virtually no brain. The normal brain consists of two hemispheres that fill the cranial cavity, some 4.5cm deep. This student had a layer of cerebral tissue less than 1mm deep covering the top of his spinal column. Ref Article

#3. When a 44-year-old man from France started experiencing weakness in his leg, he went to the hospital. That’s when doctors told him he was missing most of his brain. The man’s skull was full of liquid, with just a thin layer of brain tissue left. Ref Article

With speech and motor coordination intact, normal societal living, average as well as above average intelligence, the above cases are good cases for consciousness existing outside the brain. Even the split brain is a single consciousness.

Where are his memories stored?

Where does thinking occur?

Where is speech and visual acuity learned and stored?

Where is the moral compass and reasoning developed?

Where does this place evolutions larger brain hypothesis to support greater intelligence?

How do the 12 cranial nerves function without a source organ?

I imagine the big brain has something to do with esthetics. A population of pinheads wouldn’t be a real eye catcher— or would it?

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Are You You, Or Are You It?

For what it’s worth—the idea that everything and everyone are separate bits and entities is an unscientific, social construct.

Everything you see is seen on the inside of your brain, while at the same time, that brain is on the inside of everything you see. Everyone else is also inside what they are seeing too (insert puddle analogy here) I know this seems rather obvious when you spell it out, so why does one feel we are individual agents of it? Why think of consciousness as an emergent property that arises from the brain—tradition, hypothesis, original sin? Why? Here’s an idea—

“The brain does not create or produce consciousness; rather, it filters it”—Peter Fenwick.

“My brain is only a receiver”—Nikola Tesla

Your brain is primarily a receiver too. Sure it has some memory and some habitual functions to conserve energy, but since birth it has received input—countless lines of opinion, indoctrination, definitions, and visual stimuli form a particular viewpoint and, occasionally can regurgitate a few lines of coherent feedback out of the mix, or pull an idea out of thin air (inspiration). How could an emergent property like a brain, developed by outside stimuli, suddenly become independent of it—unless that’s how you were taught to see it? There is no outside stimuli. You’re going through it and it’s going through you. That’s why your body is covered in little tubes. In and out, that’s what it does.

So you are inside of what you are looking at, and inside your brain we are seeing what we’re inside of. It is not outside you—it is you. The whole universe is you. It is all one thing. It’s all one process.

Our current thinking is a neat trick based mostly on a Hebrew interpretation from an authoritative culture where you are the created subject of a king—independent agents of freewill guilty of original sin, that you and your actions are somehow separate from the environment. This illusion permeates deep in our culture. You are responsible to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. You are on your own—but, “Any immutable attribute of oneself, cannot be a sin”. (1)

Maybe your brain being a receiver of consciousness is why it is so difficult to change your personality. It is 3 pounds of fat, receiving impulses and scanning for danger. How do you make it stop is the question? There are ways.

We are apertures of the entire cosmos, independent only as semi-unique physical structures—outposts in a self regulating organism where there is no freewill. Everything is a reaction to the flow of stimuli—even a well thought-out decision. Enjoy the ride!

Near Death Experience

Near-death experiences are reported across cultures, with written records of them dating back to ancient Greece. Not all of these experiences actually coincide with brushes with death—one study of 58 patients who recounted near-death experiences found 30 were not actually in danger of dying, although most of them thought they were. (1)

The Near Death Experience Research Foundation- nderf.org – has thousands of published experiences, but those studied must meet certain criteria to be considered ‘near death’.

One compelling case was a child born blind who, during the experience, described vivid details, colors, shapes, and patterns she had never encountered since birth. A blind person describing colors is a phenomenon alone.

Considering NDEs from both a medical perspective and logically, it should not be possible for unconscious people to often report highly lucid experiences that are clear and logically structured. Most NDErs report supernormal consciousness at the time of their NDEs. Article HERE

The Utility of Woo, Magic, and Religion

How woo, magic, and religion are simply glimpses into non-ordinary neurology. It’s all right here.

It is religion that drives certain men and women to ask real questions and find real answers to how the world operates. Thank you religion. Science has challenged the millennia long status quo—that what is occasionally seen by mystics is merely how the world would look when you mess with the wires.

Those who grew tired of being watched by a persistent deity that had no bearing on life, decided to answer a few questions on their own without postulating a god—but to find out how things actually work.

We have evolved with a certain brain configuration and perceive the world through a specific shaped eye and tactile senses. Alter these receptors any way you want and you can see the spirit world, which is this world in a non-ordinary, alternate perception of reality. This is the religious experience—attempting to maintain that different reality than what evolution has normalized as our current, best chance at survival.

Change the shape of the eye, we all may look like Jabba the Hut, but we’d still be here, and that would be normal. Mess with the optic nerve and flip the left and right lobes and voilet! Things certainly wouldn’t be like they seem now.

Understanding this, that a minor change in physiology and nothing would seem the same. I’m sure the octopus who is born knowing how to hunt and strategize it’s prey, has a completely different perception and hereditary underpinning than a human—but the octopus is still here, just a different set of lenses, and a different reality.

Enter the traumatic event or addiction.

Carry yourself deep into the difficult side of human existence, to the brink of losing family or life itself, or just play around with a little peyote? Activate those adrenals and delve into the hypoxia of a NDE and you can see god. Feel god. Feel your brain reach it’s outer limits to grasp at survival. Those unlucky enough just don’t have enough trauma in their lives, or indoctrination? It is up to them to move the planet beyond belief mode.

Freedom or Choice—Can we have Both?

Can humans think instinctively? Freedom of choice is precisely the state of not choosing. What is freedom of choice, when choice is the analyzing act of hesitation while making a decision and ignoring the instinctive action that has the backing of evolution?

While being a decisive person is considered someone who doesn’t stop to decide, a paradox in the definition itself which pauses me to examine. Why do humans approach everything backwards, abandoning instinct when they seem to know better? Thinking and words may have us spellbound.

Your mind, brain, and consciousness (whatever you want to call it) arises or evolves of the very stuff your thoughts are trying to analyze. No wonder it is such an impossible puzzle. And to examine what we consider the world outside ourselves becomes equally as frustrating, because it isn’t outside yourself either, although you’re inside it. Until one can release the duplicity of examining the world as separate and hostile, it will be utterly and increasingly futile to segment the universe, matter, and consciousness into words and formulas. Is there a more wholistic approach?

Snoqualmie Tunnel Hike today–2.3 miles each way, of course

To treat our brain differently from any other organ that functions automatically without thinking, so too, the subconscious mind functions in an amazing way, unless you try to put effort to it—that thinking, the very specific and narrow channel of conscious attention with which we identify ourselves is the most unreliable means of examining anything, because what is, is being analyzed by the most unreliable portion of the human computer.

The scientific and religious approach, from the very beginning assumes we are separate from what we know to be true—that we are stardust, and to examine what you’re made of using what you’re made of, is a daunting task that should cause a laugh with absurdity, but instead causes contention because we fail to scratch beyond the conscious attention. It has to be examined by what we’re not made of—what is not obvious on the surface.

Thinking and what “should be” is a projection of the mind that creates an illusion of separation. Thought takes time; thought is psychological time that distorts the timeless.

“But were human”, you say, “we have to live in the world we have, with the tools we have”, you say, but the very art of approach from our infancy is at odds with logic and reason, combatting instinct and the underlying reality we have been trained to ignore in modern life. Laden with changing fact and pointless claims of progress, infighting, outfighting, constantly choosing from two wrong sides of beliefs that have us exactly and forever where we don’t want to be.

But human behavior without the thinking is most often heroic, while at the same time the hero says (s)he just did what anyone would do—yes, if they didn’t stop to think about it first.

And after analyzing all the data, the best inventions come by luck, not the scientific method at all. It is used much less frequently than it is lauded, and often used in backsplaining the discovery that was made by instinctive awareness–or luck.

Thoughts on Thinking

“Why is this so hard to understand? Our perceptions are flawed, don’t impress that upon reality. Sheesh!”—Steve Ruiz

The illusion is simply that reality is not what it seems to be at first glance—even after inspection. That same flawed perception leads us to believe we can correct it by saying the world is divisible into feet and inches, seconds and degrees—dividing things by regular measurement and the dividing power of thought—The same nature of thought that implies we don’t understand, but somehow can trust the measuring devices we’ve thought up—while every thing requires continued re-examination after interfering by looking—weird

Think is a unit of thought, the same way an inch is a measurement of accepted distance, or a clock can track intervals. We categorize things into boxes so we can manage “the think” about them, pretending then that the world is a collection of bits and catagories, yet is as connected and inter-related as much as a human body. Every single bit is as unexplainable as any other—and to explain one fully we must explain everything fully.

Every perception is real (normal) from a particular point of view, though some truth is a little nastier at heart than others. Imagine how distasteful the world would really be, if believers still knew with a surety that the gospel of saving souls from hell should know no limits to persuasion.

For giggles we have to ask—if reality is so illusory (not what it appears to be) how could humans evolve with our perceptive reality apart from “real” reality? If our perceptions of reality are flawed, how could natural selection point evolution the way things seem to be, versus the true nature of nature? How could brains evolve to a non natural interpretation of things? It’s almost like it is some type of game…

Limitions of Linear Thought—

Humans are limited by strictly linear thinking, being able to handle only a few variables of thought at a time. There are thousands of variables to every concern, yet the consciousness of the human brain is primarily a scanning system of a very, narrow focus of attention—and can only catalogue one line at a time by recapping the past (that’s why your basic education takes so long—miles of text must be read on a single line)

Our personality then, is to own the thoughts we think, or have been told to think are the most important thoughts of life, yet defining ourselves with such myopia is to discount every other human that have attended their focus to some other angle, which is equally worth exploration.

When we study physics we are dealing with processes that contain millions of variables we handle using statistics, which works fairly well when using extremely large numbers. But the practical problems of human life, deal in variables (lineal) in only the hundreds of thousands, and here statistical analysis is very poor. Charting it out with figures in this same limited, linear thinking is impossible.

We also try to solve our political and social problems with in the same way with total frustration—and with that same equipment we are now proposing to interfere with our genes? I digress.

The human brain however, is able to handle an enormous number of variables that are not available to our conscious attention. Your brain is now handling your blood chemistry, the secretions from your glands, and millions of cells without thinking about it—without translating what is happening into consciously reviewed words, symbols, or numbers. Translating what is going on in nature into words, numbers, and symbols, we confuse the world as it is, with what it is thought about, talked about, and figured about—while the difference between these two is vast—so we interfere.

Every human instinctively knows how to handle it all, but we then lose it in the language of discussion, primarily due to beliefs held by linear thinking.

It may be too late for solutions, but understanding is the first step. We cannot solve anything by interference. Nature will solve it all though natural selection, while human morality will try to fight it, preserve it, confront it and own it. But it is of no use. The only way to prolong humanity is to stop interfering—and we do this by understanding the founding principles of the game.

Drugs on Reality

Since truths are simply chemically enhanced perceptions that warm the synapses, altering the chemical makeup is changing reality. This is also the true efficacy of prayer.

Inside our brains, the mind is drugs making up those realities and that, is what we believe is true and real. Religion is the result of a race—who can dispense the most candy by playing on the highs and lows of human survival. More candy—more truth. More trauma, more candy. They thrive on it.

By altering what nature has limited us to see by evolving for survival, adding more fizz is simply expanding our sphere of awareness. So, no perception is anymore real than any other, just more acute—and acute translates to truth.

Heaven would be simply endless endorphins in a stupor of pleasure (for the eternal body) resurrected in its perfect state, able to dispense at-will, whatever you will.

Note On My Old God

If the ultimate, monotheistic plural god of Abraham doesn’t exist, would that mean none of the others do either?

As a believer I was so used to discrediting the other gods for so long (way to easy) I never bothered to look into them. I suppose I don’t know enough about them to believe in them, but do I know enough about them to not? Can you not believe in something you’ve never invested?

For now I’ve just let it all go. No chasing belief or fine tuning incredible imaginations to disguise my final destination. It’s really out of my hands. The Christians already control the cosmos with their prayers anyway, so what am I going to do?

“Belief is meant as a temporary waypoint to prove a premise, not a destination in itself”

How did belief become a virtue (rhetorical question) anyway? It is a worthless position of pride faith clinging to someone else’s hopeful imaginations with an argument. It’s all quite ridiculous, really.

“We will never progress as a society until we overcome belief mode and transcend the neurological trappings of faith”.

Philosophizing God

If believing in god is enough to imagine him into existence, then god is equally diminished by the arguments against him. The seesaw effect, back and forth, god, no god, poof, there he is, then gone again. There is no advantage to believing because of a cleverly worded argument that can be dismantled by reason. The real existence of a god would be an irrevocable surety. It is not, therefore he is not.

If god were real, no argument would be needed. Take any of the popular arguments for god and at first glance—quite clever. But, that’s about as far as it goes. A genuine treatise shoehorning the existence of god would in fact, be evident without persuasion, manipulating word games, sermonic hormones, and overcoming doubt, which doubt in itself should be a red-enough flag.

The bottom line is this; Religion has the audacity to think it can outwit nature. Accepting this natural order takes the fear out of life and negates the threats of death with endless suffering posed by religion. It also restores the esteem to man taken by religion. Atrophy and decay is a normal part of this experience and getting that little fact takes the decision to fear from our hands and tosses it out—the decisions surrounding death is made for you. Indigenous types all over the world accepted it as the natural course of things. Even in men’s ignorance or brilliance it mattered not. It just is and is nothing to fear. Understanding that keeps one from getting suckered by religious threat and seekers of power.

Accepting the fact we don’t know what happened before this life or what happens after is truly the only thing that could possibly excite an infinite being like myself, infiltrated with all encompassing consciousness in his natural state.

Things have lived and died long before the Abrahamic visions of the monarchical boss. For millions of years species have came and went long before “the fall”, just as the earliest hominids lived and died out, so will we. So what? Oh those poor souls for all those years before Jesus.

Testimony—Feelings, nothing more than feelings..

The only evidence Abrahamic religion has is testimony—a pesky little confirmation of hormones goaded by hope and imagination, rewarded with a backslapping “good job” by merely believing—then assimilating.

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The results of Christianity isn’t one that can be measured. It is personal conviction that struggles to put into words what the believer himself thinks is crazy, but once you believe your own “personal” story, it open up a serious can of worms. The obligatory nature of spectral evidence (testimony) now should give validity to all perceived paranormal activity. It makes it habitual, but makes it even more crazy. Humans will believe anything. See, you really can’t understand my own personal experiences with god, but you are expected to believe my own personal experience from god (unless that experience is Muslim, Hindu, or other) That’s where Satan lurks.

Testimony is a system of believing the quirks of human neurology are divinely inspired. Fact, is not only the simple answer, but also more interesting. Our galaxy of electrical neurons occasionally mis-perceive, shut-down, cleanse, reboot, reroute, imagine and dream. The grand-mal seizure, the head injury, the near-death experience, trauma, crisis, divorce, loss of a loved one, etc, all put pressure on the neurons, which is gods way of introducing jesus to unbelievers. Wouldn’t having open dialog about our neural quirks without invoking the supernatural be a good exercise in tremendous growth to answer the questions how and why.

The second, second-hand way to god is through lying. Carefully rewording any story to inspire conviction in others causes another backfire in the confusion of our own neuroniverse. Why haven’t I had a visitation? Does god not love me? Am I not chosen? Am I doing something wrong? Am I a sinner? “I am not even worthy to latchet his shoes”. So, eventually through peer pressure we wind up praying for what we want. The neurological implications of praying for what you want to believe is a near guarantee you will get the belief you want. Prayer, deep consolation, meditation, group prayer (ugh, everybody hold hands) is at first a very uncomfortable feeling. Trust that instinct. But as you see around you, the smiles, the hugs, the tears, the joy of the dervish, compels you to want more, even though it’s a sickening display of self inadequacy and recurring shipwreck.

The third second hand is the tic, tic, tic, of your life passing you by living a system created by someone else, fine tuned by someone else, for someone else. As every institution grows it becomes more flawed, more corrupt, and religion has led this way. Breaking down it naturally gets more outlandish as they try to hang on. Religion is way over due for an undo.

Dopamine—one of several inner connections to god…that is real evidence.

Aphorisms on Faith

Faith is an attachment to formative persuasions—an idea anchored by self doubt initiated by that same persuasion.

Faith is being directed into contemplating an idea, simply from hearing the questions.

Faith is pride in self deprecated belief absent of independent thought.

Faith is a solidified by the hormonal response, comforting human insecurity and the propensity to be easily deceived.

Faith is a comforting hope that elevates esteem without intellect.

With faith we build barriers between exaggerated reaction syndrome and acceptance. It allows us to blend rather than confronted with raised eyebrows—A state of beliefing though verbal and superficial physical obeisance. The idea of obedience supplants behavior.

Faith is merely stubborn pride repackaged as a virtue. Thought convictions played on insecurity without substance. Really nothing to fight over, but since beliefs are now the pinnacle of human intellect, challenging belief has become an affront to character.

Faith is a tightly held imagination your hope is true—then defending that right to hope with an argument.

Faith is what you resort to when you can’t reason your beliefs.

Faith is a state of mind that allows mediocrity to supplant achievement.

Faith is the result of fusing human limitations into cultural mediocrity. Since there is nothing a believer can do to un-fall this fallen world. Acquiescence defaults to hope.

Transcending belief mode and its limitations will be the key saving humanity. Faith allows the world to end on hope where action is needed.

By choosing a prearranged faith, dogma substitutes authenticity with platitudes.

Faith in your belief turns hope into intellectual and spiritual starvation.

Faith is the evidenced in human stagnation—clinging to the past and the failure to live in self confidence

Mule stables, Fort Spokane—1880

How to Dismiss the Wrong Beliefs

With Islam overtaking Christianity through fertility rates, it must soon be the one True Faith© How can so many people have gotten it wrong, but in the process now of getting it right? The guard is changing because gods will is in control. The pendulum is finally swinging towards Mecca and there is no other explanation—except one.

Trading one wrong for another. It is belief itself that is the culprit—thought convictions so strong one would strike their own children because of them (or go to war with a neighbor) The way to know if your thought convictions are true is to apply the same criteria to your own faith as you do to others—and that they do to yours. Islam makes perfect sense…to a Muslim, while they shake their heads at the ridiculous Christians that have been duped beyond reason.

The truth is…there is no Abrahamic truth—there is only settlements of faith based on geographically bred familiarity.

Faith—dividing nations from within one believer at a time through the pulpits of propaganda and fear. It’s so obvious an atheist can see it. And that’s exactly the point.

What is Spiritual and Why it’s Not

Why do humans treat things they can’t see with more reverence than things they can? Spirituality is the act of making holy the voids in human perception through imagination.

Faith is the act of assigning honor to things you wish were real as if believing them actually meant something. Unsatisfied with Providence and what minimums it provides, we fail to live in the moment through supplemental prayer, always looking ahead and hoping because we have settled for mediocrity—belief someone or something else can make it better. Proving really, that humans can see a much better solution than the framework “god” has provided his pinnacle of creation through religion.

After careful scrutiny we find anything that persuades belief before thinking, is doctrinally sound. Anything doctrinally sound will never be settled without faith.

Who would do that but a manipulative genius who preyed on the weaknesses of human psychology? Religion is basically reverse psychology for grownups, inflicted on our youth to prevent them from becoming grownups—to lead a dependent life.

There is a difference however, between the regular, know-nothing Christian who is trying to make his way through life with tools that have been forced upon him by persuasion and fear, and the apologist who is an apologist because he knows better, but won’t face the failures of religion with integrity.

There is one good reason no man has ever seen god. Anyone want to take a shot at why?

Indian painted rocks, Spokane WA 7/20/19

Sounds of A Raindrop—Evidence or Imagination

My blanket lay at the edge of the edge of the beach, right where the sand turns to sparse grass—and the clouds, a high and milky white mess on a hazy blue background.

The forecast called 40% chance of rain today, but nothing looked imminent. I closed my eyes and the world around me started to dissolve. My senses heightened in their fading and hearing beyond the crowd to the surf, the waves blended into a monologue of eternal, blissful siesta.

A distant dog-bark echoed my direction long away through a gentle breeze. A pre-dreamy, drowsy calm invaded my physical being and time seemed a stand still—then it happened—I heard it. Like a bullet parsing through time-frozen air molecules, a shwooshing sound with the grace of a high-speed zipper in slow motion. Then, it hit me—a single rain drop on the inside of my forearm.

Wetting my stratum corneum, somatic receptors fire a signal through a thousand miles of road-map nerves at light speed, landing in my well mapped sensory cortex, eliciting a preconditioned response from an altogether, other part of my brain, the frontal cortex (which is unique to humans) Aah, god is good (from the memory banks of indoctrination—our belief)

“Beliefs originate from what we hear – and keep on hearing from others, ever since we were children“—Indian Journal of Medicine

I have no evidence it rained that day, but I felt it, I know it. The news said there was no precipitation, but I know—I even heard it gently censure me from near slumber.

This is exactly the evidence for god—because it was trained and ingrained. Did it rain and did I hear the drop coming, or in my hypnogogic, near-sleep state, did I dream it? My first response is proof something is off—I don’t even believe what still lingers from all those years, but like habits are—in the neurons like a ping-back from a children’s blog you quit enabling many years ago.

Springtime Oregon Grape. Mahonia aquifolium in juvenile yellow.

The Nucleus Accumbens

Neuroscience is continuing its advances and testing-down the exclusivity of religious convictions (feelings) and their purported source—god is losing his grip—the cat is climbing out of the bag.

“Based on fMRI scans, the researchers found that powerful spiritual feelings were reproducibly associated with activation in the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region for processing reward“.

Spirituality can be reproduced in the laboratory or academic study. An interesting note—when a challenge threatens the belief, you then endanger the source of the addiction—And the source of the religious addiction lies in your own neurons and endocrine system. Threaten any addict, sit back and hear the excuses, the lies, and the deceit. The threat in this addiction also stimulates the fight or flight—adrenaline—hence the argument—in the face of facts.

Interestingly I can reproduce the same neurological affects of religion with medication, sex, lies, meditation, junk food—and the spirit of god, of course. It’s no wonder endocrine and in-doctrine , are so similar

This article HERE has some additional insights.

It is so clear that our minds are easily manipulated by an array of influence. Best be careful out there—awareness and acceptance of these facts is a push towards reality.

Truth about God—Yes, Even That One

It doesn’t take a lifetime to figure this out. I got into this quest about two years ago and part-time have easily disproved any semblance of god, backed by the best reproducible research and study—then easily answered the hardest questions by mere observance. From all the available research and laboratories around the world—and from mere reason, there is no god or gods.

We have a problem with perception—purely bias, easily indoctrinated, deceived from the time we can breath, then required by command by people who lie to us to trust, have faith, just hang in there. For what? What has it produced but deeper conjecture and division? How long does religion deserve to prove its objectives?

Mans search to solve what are actually the quirks of neurology and perception has spent over 100 generations seeking truth since the Jesus myth, and who-knows how long before that. Impressions, dopaminergic rewards and other hormonal responses have been neatly illusive to comprehend. The fact is we are easily fooled, easily persuaded, easily gathered, and by belief in another plane of omnipotent existence we have divided humanity into groups.

The red writing in the Bible is right about one thing—faith has power. The power to overlook obvious contradiction, lies, truths, and through belief the “men of words” of the world have controlled nations—and we’ve paid them to do it.

The reality is that ever-changing neurologies and circumstance is hard to pin down. Everyone sees something different, even in the physical sense, let alone from the corner of their eye in a darkened environment—or a church hall. Humanity is unstable. Faith is too easily rewarded as shown by mans desires to believe in anything at all. Believing gets you the good-boy award for doing what can’t be helped by our physiology. If there is a god he’s laughing his ass off at his fuck-up. Life is to be lived people. There are no secrets. There are no mysteries of heaven or god. 10,000 years of the best minds have found nothing—not a damn thing! And who thinks that finally now we will find what we’ve been taught to search for, that no one else has ever found?

In the end everyone decides what kind of god they are willing to accept. Fundamentalism is pure whack job—the smug call that orthodoxy while the rest (even the normal believer) see real religion as a cancer. Water it down and at least it’s tolerable—barely.

Having the Need to Believe—Breaking the Faith Trap

Religion—only valid for those with emotional/physical needs and of course, those who desire status and dispense it. But for people normally adjusted and naturally content—the confident, it holds no truth at all. Need itself makes religion real, then, obligation perpetuates it long after confidence is restored by the group and belief refrains its senses. Those who need it cannot understand how a meaningful life can exist without it. Them that seek out religion due to overwhelming cultural pressure but don’t need it, continue to search from church to church, finally finding their way in the fringes of belief in their own, underwhelming way. It can be uncomfortable for a species expected to believe in something—to not believe in anything at all. Humans generally will believe nearly anything, so belief of any kind is more culturally acceptable than non-belief.

Christianity is now adamant is has the answers to life’s questions—questions they readily admit they have no answer for. Now relegated to god-opting scientific claims and ultimatums with no proof—but convinced we must join with them to have wisdom from a god they cannot know nor comprehend.

Christianity’s use of the endocrine system to manipulate feelings along with the subtle nuances of human neurology, perception, and need—into an almighty god whose opiums for the masses conjures naivety. The organizations that offer you hope dispenses the drug. Addiction is now propagated by a meaningless entity, no longer relevant to the whole.

How much time do we honor belief—the mere agreeance to an unfounded idea? How long shall faith be revered and cultivated as a quality, celebrating ignorance by claiming mere belief as sacred?

You are the meaning. Holding on to purpose through religion only leaves you conceited with a surety that shortchanges discovery. Your true escape from the doldrum of life naturally comes by way of accomplishment. Accomplishment that is thwarted in reliving the ills of perpetual worthlessness week after week, year after year. We have the ability to create a more meaningful existence than anyone can do for us. But those confronted with poor conditions of existence look for anything transcendent to make lives worthwhile.

Now the religion that gave people hope in their once hopeless situation has become a generational crutch, self serving its own existence in spite of the fact that it’s people have moved on.

The unproven idea of a savior is truly relegated to a set of neurons and thought. No physical change has been made, but thought is the key—and the proof that the power is generated—then manifest in and by you.

An honest religion would counsel you to leave it behind when it’s objective is met, empowering you to live your own meaningful existence on your terms. Religion is only true until you’ve found your worth and no longer need it, but they would never admit that.

An Enemy to God—The Natural Man

Being judged and sentenced by believers of god for a passive decision—a process of random inputs, neurons, billions of synapses interacting, perceptions weighed, likes and dislikes and cultural influence considered, simply for not believing a story—merely thoughts.

After having to process this information against my own choice, the ticket has popped out unbelief. What can I do to change that? What should be done to appease the masses…conform to become a natural man—gullible, trusting, yielding, herd instinctive, and fearful since birth? The desire to belong clouds judgement while the powerfully placed men of words and their yes-men apply pressure to consider the supernatural—by coercion.

A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised—1 Corinthians 2:14-15

Au contraire! A neat trick of religion and the biblicants is defining terms to suit their purpose. The natural man is actually the believing man as evidenced in the obvious. Everyone wants a belief. Since birth we are lied to, fearized, pressured, goaded—and though living in a society of liars we believe nearly everything that we are persuaded to believe. That, is the natural man. Either the believer is the enemy of god as the Bible says, or the Bible has decriminalized our natural tendencies and labeled the unnatural, independent-minded as the enemy. I am not the natural man. Having eyes that have opened through a struggle of librarial pursuit and observation, followed by the unpleasant task of unbelief, integrity will not undo this fact.

The strongest faith can’t protect us once we know the truth. Protection comes through conformity and abandoning honest virtue—integrity comes at a price. We now sit on the fringes of society writing anonymous blogs. Natural man? I’ll leave that to the churches where it’s modern version originated.

Where Thoughts Come From

It takes a long time to sound like yourself—Miles Davis (then it may take a year or two to get used to it)—Jimoeba

I have to wonder if any of my own ideas are mine, minds, or an amalgam of the matrix. Here’s where the dividing line emerges between acceptance or rejection of a thought—heavily influenced by religious and politicus “men of words” and passionate believers in belief. How do we break from traditions of old to think for ourselves? By unbelief…

Is an idea mine, or submitting to authority of a majority influence? Was the idea put there by an unknown source, or a known source? As Dan Dennett might say, who has hijacked your mind? Who have you allowed to influence you? Either by passive learning, genuine curiosity, or indoctrination, we acquire information, often through chasing rabbits, but the thoughts we nurture or entertain—initiated often by suggestion from an unknown, is our choice. Where we go from there is up to us.

Trying to go somewhere while focusing on the past, hoping the future ends, leaves religion in a muddle of mediocre progress. It hasn’t gone anywhere, produced any results, or fulfilled its promised bliss—ever. We’re still waiting…

Scientific studies of natural history and origins is used to advance the knowledge base, while religion seeks a beginning to justify current and past behavior—then clings to it. All the answers sought by religion have been answered quite nicely. Only by faith—the absence of knowledge, can belief thrive or is considered. The greatest challenge to modern belief is the greatest of all time—to continue faith in the face of fact.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask”—Jim Morrison

Your own thoughts often come out of the blue, even if our core is in disagreement with those thoughts. This Psychology Today article offers more to ponder. Who you allow to have voice in your life certainly influences you’re decisions, but also much of religion and racism is based on evolutionary defenses.

Whether an idea is yours or not, one big idea can change the course of humanity. Waiting for god to return to fix our problems is a free pass from acting responsibly now.

Ten Reasons To Question Belief—In Anything

A lot has been said here over the past year. 352 posts and over 13,000 comments (thank you) since this all started. I have learned a lot from all of you ‘common atheists’, and that was my goal; To find the truth, not be told what to believe. To share with you all what I’ve learned, not what I’ve been schooled by professionals with a stake in it. With deeper understanding comes change, and with that change I’ve learned that exposing the blatant inadequacy of religion and the faith/belief numbing that has enveloped the human family is built on ten psycho-neuro premises. There are more, but these will do to persuade any reasonable person of the gullibility and delicate nature of human neurology and perceptions of truth.

We have traveled but a short distance in a great journey. We have honed our skills and perfected reason beyond the walls of religion. We have hammered on the fallacy of faith, fallibility of scripture, where it comes from, how it starts—the tricks of the preachers trade—while the duped are now running the con, and against all reason by way of contradiction, it’s a societal expectation…to believe. Why? What is the pressure inside most everybody to rush to believe—anything!

But, it is with little understanding of their own condition that they perpetuate the hoax on the unsuspecting gullibles, newborns, children, adults taking sides, and those human-herd tendencies that condition us to follow. To fit-in to a group based on belief that will turn on us over mere unbelief. It’s borderline c.r.a.z.y (sometimes you just gotta spell it out)

We don’t believe because we want to. We just do—everything! Always just believing what we are told (look at the success of fake news) Humans aren’t trustworthy with their own minds! Here they are in no particular order—for everyone, not just the other guy!

1. Cognitive Dissonance

2. Illusory Truth Syndrome

3. Confirmation Bias

4. Pluralistic Ignorance

5. Logical Fallacies

6. Neurotheology

7. Contradictions

8. Fear Appeal

9. Dunning-Kruger

10. Reason.

Please be aware of your own human condition, including the foibles and quirks of perception and neurology—before believing anything! (including shadow people). We can break the faith trap through awareness of humanism.

Palinopsia—The Aftertaste of Imagery

The human brain is a fascinating organ, but is very susceptible to input based on your output (what you already think you know). We see what we are programmed to see, what we expect to see, often seeing what is not there at all. The quirks of human perception must be understood before one decides where they stand—on any subject. Palinopsia is when you see that residual image after you remove the original from view. Most of us have seen these demonstrations at one point or another where you stare intently at an ink blot or photo, then take it away and close your eyes. The image reappears.

Below is the checkerboard illusion. Look at squares A and B. They are in fact the same shade of grey, but your preconditioned expectation of what the checkerboard looks like, will not even allow you spot see it correctly, even when it’s pointed out to you.

Look closely. Your brain is playing a trick on you, but the puzzle is cleverly designed to do just that. Here below, a strip in the same color is laid between the two squares. This bridge confirms the illusion, but look at the top pic again and the trick remains.

This is just the tip of the neurological iceberg when it comes to perception.

“Attention is what steers your perception, it’s what controls your reality, it’s the gateway to the mind. If you don’t attend to something, you can’t be aware of it”—Apollo Robbins, The Art of Misderection (9 min TED)

But if you only attend to it, you miss the best of reality—Enter religion

Christianity and Islam demand all your attention, all your devotion “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might—not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord”

My attention today is to open your mind to the possibility that that focus is a misdirection. A hijacking of your self empowered life.

L’esprit de l’escalier

At the end of every debate we all have moments where we wished we’d remembered to say one final thing—that final nail in the coffin. If only... The French call it stairwell humor—L’esprit de l’escalier, or what you thought to say after the door closed. English doesn’t have a precise word for after the fact, so we’re allowed to borrow from time to time.

We each have unique experiences that led us to here and now. Mine is different from yours, although all equally valid to diffuse the soldered neurons we no longer accept. We literally have a hundred different reasons for abandoning belief.

In debate, some say what we wish we had said—why didn’t I think of that? And others, (including our own statements from time to time) we sigh, look away from the screen, feel the implosion of dumb after hitting the send key, even if it’s just a typo. But, have you ever heard the opposition fall short of convincing, only to know that if they had thought just one step further, they would have had you dead to rights—like an opponent in chess missing his easy checkmate?

This was the feeling yesterday. Loy (as several other before him) had one more line he could have used to hands-down win the argument. It was synthesis of a subtly abrupt clause, one that would automatically turn every atheist into Loy’s corner, but he failed to seal the deal. One time (possibly in his entire life) he had the the opportunity, but chose an aposiopesis of thought, one that could change his life forever, unwinding years of neuronal fixation, causing every comment to be reread in full—I don’t know, you win! Have you ever heard such a thing?

Christianity is the ultimate example of the Tagalog word Layogenic: from far away, it’s OK, but up close it’s a big old mess, leading us to what the Germans say—Fremdschämen (a cousin to Schadenfreude) meaning vicarious embarrassment. I feel for the wasted potential of a life in servitude to an imagination revealed by those in power. Those who have never lived within its regulations themselves. One win that was easily won, and got away.

aposiopesis–

The Bad Part

“It’s a faulty neuroswitch sir, about a two dollar part from most traders”. “Replace them all forthright”, grumbled the captain. “We haven’t got all day”. “Who’s going to pay for this good sir? It’s nearly eight billion nano’s, not including neurofrequncy modulators for delivery”. “Eight billion“? questioned the captain with surprise. “What have they been doing, or dare I ask? We left the two of them to look around and watch the place a week ago—and all they’ve done is breed? All we warned is they not eat the flowering sildenafil*, and they go ahead and eat everything in sight?”

“Well sir, to them it’s been 6000 years. They are no longer familiar with the paradoxical quandaries of time travel”. The faulty switch has made breeding a priority, and they think we’re gods because if it. It’s really quite amusing, if it wasn’t such a mess, captain. It may be too late if we wait even one more day. That would be another 1000 years sir. We’ll have no planet left the way they’re breeding.

“Something else has gone wrong as well sir”. What is it Cohen? Don’t keep me guessing”. “There are over forty thousand different religions all worshipping gods they’ve created themselves, and to top it all, they fight and war with one another because of it. It’s more than one bad circuit sir—we need to make a call.

*sildenafil

Making Neural Con ections

Missing part of the story is what we do as humans. No worries, we can fill in the __________ fairly easily with our imaginations. Even with ideas a bit more complex, a normal person will assume conclusions. In writing, drawing conclusions for your audience is un-engaging. For maximum _________, its best to leave some gaps in the story, even implied gaps.

Leaving blank spaces that have multiple possibilities is even more effective, stimulating the most possible conjecture. Intensional gapping works best with religious faith. Its ability to generate the highest levels of presupposition is unmatched by any other topic. Whenever an author can get the audience to fill in the blanks for him, the missing information can stir a life of circuitous inquiry—prime spawning ground for deeper religious conviction and faith. The more holes the better. Even more effective is multiple versions with varying gaps (the gospels) where differing audiences can fill the holes masterfully as inspiration the imagination allows.

While there are many holes, some have been philosophically filled with more ambiguity. The ecumenical councils are heralded as founding precepts of faith, while all along the first meeting took place to ultimately define the nature of god. Why? They didn’t know. Adding a word at will is also a neat trick. Take the word Filioque,(1) for example. Initially rejected after the first ecumenical council, then 700 years later the Catholic Church adopted it as truth. The council at nicea was also set nearly 400 years after the supposed Christ. Think about that! Can you tell me something accurate about a little known family member from the 1600’s, what he specifically said, his deeds, headcounts at sermons, and his travels? No! So you make it up and call it god. And to really make it convincing, the record must be gathered from sources that never personally knew the individual. Masterful!

(1) Filioque is a term that creatively determined that the Holy Spirit not only came from the father, but also the son. It was a neat add-on that immediately divided the western churches and eastern churches. It was a masterful stroke injecting immediate conjecture that keeps the churches debating the nature of a fictional character—God. Will humanity ever learn we’ve constructed that too?

Thanks for the meme JZ

Sell it by Zealot—The Analysis

Perusing last night I came across this comment. It is amazingly simple to the observer, then why so complex to the user? This one is overripe with easy explanations.

Yes, I believe in God with all of my heart! When I was 13, my Dad got a new job in Illinois. We moved from Colorado and the house we moved in to was possessed by a demon! We lived with that evil all through my high school years. It was terrifying and yes, heaven and hell are very real. We were delivered from that demon when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior! I rebuked it out of our home and our lives in the Name of Jesus and we never had any more problems after that!

I accepted Christ in 1996. In 1998, I had two angel encounters in the city of Denver, Colorado (USA), and in 2012 I stopped breathing due to anaphylactic shock, but God saved me by the power of the Holy Spirit and put me back in my body! I wrote a book about all of this, which is published on Amazon, called “One Man’s Very Strange Supernatural Life.” I email free copies of my eBook to anyone who wants one!

I just wrote about the day I stopped breathing and came back to life in a post titled “My Lazarus Moment.”

I used to hate Christians and I did not want anything to do with God. I used to party and drink heavily, but the Lord Jesus rescued me from all of that!

Grace and peace to you! May God bless you and reveal Himself to you in new and mighty ways!

“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Brief Analysis?

• Trauma of a move at 13 and moving into a strange house and willing to try anything to fit in
• Do Demons live in Illinois ?
• Neurological compromise, astral projection, asphyxiation,
• Mixing youth and adulthood experiences, near death, drinking, god to the rescue (appears more than once) and I have received none? I thought god was everywhere… This person is unstable
• There are no angels in Colorado
• Existential death anxiety
• Others?

Second Hand Religion

The results of Christianity isn’t one that can be measured. It is personal conviction that struggles to put into words what the owner himself thinks is crazy. But, once you believe your own “personal” story, it open up a serious can of worms. The obligatory nature of meta-reality (testimony) now has to give validity to all perceived paranormal activity. It makes it possible, but makes it even more crazy. See, you can’t understand my own personal experience with god, but you are expected to believe my own personal experience from god (unless that experience is Muslim or Hindu or other) there’s where Satan lurks—in other countries.

Second hand religion is a system of believing the quirks of human neurology are divinely inspired. Reality is not only the simple answer, but also more interesting. The galaxy of electrical neurons in our heads occasionally misfire, shut-down, cleanse, reboot, and reroute. It a wonder we have any stability at all, but we manage to limp along with the occasional tic (some more than others). The grand-mal seizure, the head injury, the near death experience, the trauma, the crisis, divorce, loss of a loved one, etc, all put pressure on the neurons, which is gods way of introducing jesus to unbelievers. No, it’s not, but having open dialog about our quirkiness without invoking the supernatural could be an exercise in tremendous growth to answer the questions how and why.

The second, second-hand way to god is through lying. Carefully wording your story to inspire conviction in others causes another backfire in the confusion of our own neuroniverse. Why haven’t I had a visitation? Does god not love me? Am I not chosen? Am I doing something wrong? Am I a sinner? “I am not even worthy to latchet his shoes”. So, eventually through some type of herd instinct peer pressure we wind up praying for what we want. The neurological implications of praying for what you want to believe (in order to fit in) is a near guarantee you will get what you want. Prayer, deep consolation, meditation, group prayer (ugh, everybody hold hands) is at first a very uncomfortable and stupid feeling. Trust that instinct. But as you see around you, the smiles, the hugs, the tears, the joy of the dervish, compels you to want more, even though it’s a sickening display of self inadequacy and recurring shipwreck.

The third second hand is the tic, tic, tic, of your life passing you by living a system created by someone else, fine tuned by someone else, for someone else. As every institution grows it becomes more flawed, more corrupt. As it breaks down it naturally gets more outlandish as they try to hang on. Religion is way over due for an undo, but are we ready to be our own?

Phantom Limbs and Shadow Figures – A Religious Model

As a medic I responded to a call a few years back for phantom limb pain. It’s a common phenomenon where an amputee is feeling pain in a leg or arm they no longer have. In this case the patient still had all his limbs—he had done a quick-read on WebMD and his self diagnosis was off…just a bit. Most phantom limb experiences are negative, like an itch you can’t scratch or a malposition limb [sic] they can’t adjust. Phantom limb recognition is rarely pleasant.

Until recently medical explanations hypothesized the severed nerve ending were becoming irritated or agitated and the pain was transmitted to the brain, or possibly memories of old pain were being relived pschcosymatically.

The latest research has shown this is most likely not the case. Phantom limb has made its way into Astral Glide/Outer Body Experience research, linking the brain with spacial recognition of self, even if that self is not there. “The research shows that the self can perceive to be detached from the body and can live a phantom existence on its own, as in an out-of-body experience, or it can be felt outside of personal space, as in a sense of a presence”(1) During deep meditation, dreaming, anesthesia, or hallucinogenic drug use, quite possibly the left brain is observing the right brain as a separate entity, or “god”, As the brain is recognizing a limb that no longer is part of the host, it is real in every way but physical to the patient. One woman had her deformed, 3-fingered hand amputated, only to recall the phantom limb as a normal 5-fingered hand. Some coding in the brain only recognizes the whole self. Gender reassignment surgery also reportedly produces phantom genital sensations and itches. Imagine that frustration.

Religion has mastered the art of the phantom phenomena, constantly describing in great detail what is not really there. While much has to be learned about the brain, there are those that say we will never know, and there are those that keep digging and finding answers. And those answers may come in the form of a missing hand, or even an extra one.

While it may be tempting to invoke the supernatural when this body sense goes awry, the true explanation is a very natural one—the brain’s attempt to make sense of conflicting information. Shadow figures are also linked to the phantom limb research. Shadow figures, the supernatural-extra-dimensional-time-travel-energies conspiracists love to talk about, passing through the corner of your room is merely a projection of self, from a mind trying to make sense of conflicting signals when something is awry. Merely a fear of basements, stress, nutritional imbalance, or environmental factors can manipulate cognitive interpretations. It’s all in your head. Religion would like to take the easy road and explain it as god or supernatural, when in fact the god they seek is an amazing, but anti-climactic us.

When you are afraid of something that is not there, the mind is busy trying to figure out why. Religion creates the fear, assigns a solution and all the while we’re trying to figure out “what the hell”? With so much faith around, it’s a wonder we can even see straight (or can we?) While many of us have amputated the religion we once believed, the pain from believing an illusion is still lurking in the shadows.

Other Source

Hypnagogia or Revelation

Transition in and out of sleep often produces a wide variety of sensory experiences from several to one modalities. Most frequent, as in the case of my spouse, is auditory sounds. People will frequently hear their name called out or hear a loud clashing sound or a mild whisper. Knocking and loud bangs are also fairly common.

In my case I typically see down a fleeting, extending corridor. The images are sometimes clear, sometimes darkened, and as I become aware of them they disappear. Usually this is in color, but occasionally black and white. Once in a while they are very vivid hallucinations I can recall shortly after wakening, but usually not.

Thought processes on the edge of sleep tend to differ radically from those of ordinary wakefulness. For example, something that you agreed with in a state of Hypnagogia (excellent read) may seem completely ridiculous to you in an awake state. On a different direction though, many (including myself here) are able to solve problems in this state. Edison, Tesla, and other inventors have reported ideas or problems they have solved in this condition. The brain is fascinating!

Also, research has shown that during the hypnagogic state subjects are very open to suggestion and EEG readings show elevated responsiveness to sound around the onset of sleep.

Hypnagogic state is also frequently re-created with the use of psychedelic pharmacology. Very similar findings across the spectrum between near sleep and drug induced experiences create these visionary experiences.

Hypnagogic phenomena may also be interpreted as visions, OBE’s, astral glides, prophecies, premonitions, apparitions, or enlightenment, depending on the experiencers’ beliefs and those of their culture.

There are some famous hypnogogians who “heard” the voice within themselves; Abraham, Noah, Muhammad, Moses, Paul, Joseph Smith and so on. Happy to be living at a time where we have valid explanation for hallucinatory experience that precludes sleep. If there is a god, he’s right between your ears. It is us. Top that off with a little peyote or LSD and you’ve got yourself a church.

WARNING: Images can be quite complex and detailed, and may not make any sense. Enter Religion

Technology Updates

TCA Science Update 3-31-2018

Mental health experts in co-dependency and Nano-3D printing technology has inadvertently discovered through reverse engineering models of human brains, an isolated cerebral diencephalic, mini-cortex tissue they are calling “the gullible region”. Under intense magnification, scientists have found what appears to be a pointless bridge denoting a cross-configured, double conjectured loop where archaic information is stored and transferred, restricting adrenal output and limiting “fight or flight” capabilities during religious indoctrination. Using accelerated computer models to view time-lapse evolutionary advancement, it was noted in 35% of test subjects that, “thought processes contrary to adhered beliefs actually atrophies the bridge”, allowing the subject to think for himself and gain immediate discernment. As 3D nano printers advance, coupled with microwave synthesis, researchers are certain a co-dependency cure will be forthcoming, and will soon be as routine as a lasix procedure. “Crossing the blood- brain barrier is the next step in nano research”, as for now a small incision is required. “Think of it as an uncircumcision incision, that is much less invasive than the purported benefits”.

This article is sponsored in part, by Poe’s Law, reminding everybody to wink wink for Easter Fools