Who Are We -- Really?

Yeah, we're people. Yeah, we're mothers and fathers and wives and husbands, friends and neighbors. But who are we in a cosmic sense? Maybe a better way to ask essentially the same question would be "Why are we here?" Now, before you groan miserably and roll sideways off your chairs, please bear with me...

Tackling the issue of human purpose has traditionally fallen within the purview of religion. So, in order to address it here, I think we need to talk about religion. I'll need to address religion more in another entry, but this will have to do for now...

Christianity tells us that we are here because (a) it pleased God to create us, and (b) we are to, in turn, please God. Heaven or Hell await you, of course, depending on your life review. Simple.

Islam says that Allah created us for one purpose: to worship and obey Him. Do this, and you get to go to Paradise at the end of this life. Don't and you're one of the unbelievers, the "companions of hellfire, therein they shall remain forever" (link) Yeowch. The literal meaning of Islam is "peace."

Buddhism and Hinduism both profess that we, as humans, are here to relive physical lives (our "school") until such time as we are enlightened. What does that mean? It means "becoming aware of the true nature of the Universe." (link)

Agnostics say that we, as mere humans, can never obtain a level of understanding sufficient enough to discover, definitively, the existence of God. (link)

Judaism has one of the most interesting beliefs regarding our existence. They say that God created us to give us the "ultimate gift:" a relationship with Himself. (link)

These five beliefs cover an estimated 5.41 billion of the 6.07 billion humans associating themselves to a religion, some 89%. (link) So... 89% of humans believe the following, if I may be so bold:

• There is a God (even the Agnostics concede this, in their own way)
• He, She or It created the Universe and everything in it
• He, She, or It is omnipotent and omniscient
• We want/need to figure out why number 2 above happened
• Religion holds the only understanding of God and therefore adherence to the religion's prescribed tenets is the only way to get the keys to God's kingdom
• Their religion is the "One True Religion," and the those not so aligned are missing the boat - and may be jeopardizing their souls for all eternity

Where are the differences? The similarities? Why all the religious tension?

Cogito, Ergo Sum

"I think, therefore I am." These (perhaps most) famous words of René Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher and mathematician, indicate the beginnings of our civilization's human-as-soul stance ­ thinking is the only irreducible truth. However, Descartes was also the namesake of the Cartesian plane (remember your geometry?), and his philosophy tended towards the mechanical - his overriding goal was to extend mathematical methodology to all endeavors of human knowledge. In my opinion, though, he does make some wonderful points, primary among them the dualistic thought that the physical world is "divorced from the mind, the only connection between the two being by intervention of God." (note) I think this is a point apropos this discussion not for the reason(s) Descartes may have thought, but we'll get to that in a moment.

OK. Let's start at the beginning. What do we have?

1. There is a God.
2. God created the Universe and everything in it.

Not much, but everything. And the most important.

Incorporating Descartes' dualistic cogito, ergo sum, I'll forward the following:

1. God created the Universe and everything in it
2. If A, then God created humans
3. If A, then (according to our frame of reference) God is omniscient and omnipotent
4. Humans think, therefore humans exist (sliding the "I think, therefore I am" to the plural)
5. If C and D, then God created humans as thinking and questioning (and therefore knew Descartes would come up with the whole cogito thing)
6. If A, then there is one God and only one God
7. If A and E and F, then this one God knew we would fragment ourselves into religions supposedly worshipping the One of Him

Let's look at what we have now.

1. There is a God.
2. God created the Universe and everything in it
3. Therefore God is omniscient and omnipotent
4. There is one God and only one God
5. God created us as thinking and questioning
6. God knew we would fragment into religions, each with their unique prophets/Gods

The human action of point 6 above is seemingly in contradiction with point 4. I think there's a straightforward reason for this, though. To get to it, we need to address some of the earthly reasons us thinking and questioning humans had to fragment into religions (and why we don't need to remain there anymore). Let's retrieve Descartes' notion that the physical world is "divorced from the mind, the only connection between the two being by intervention of God." I said earlier that I liked that quote. Well, it's true. But not for the reasons our Frenchman was thinking.

Body, Mind and Spirit

"We're often so blind. Our demand for the credentialed so colors our perception of believability, that we wouldn't recognize God if he appeared within us." - Unknown

I think there wasn't so much a divorce of the mind and the physical world during our civilization as there was an unconsummated wedding between the two. We, even in our "more enlightened" New Age era, continue to use phrases like "Body, Mind, and Spirit" as if those were separate entities entitled to individual billing. I don't think they are. Let's investigate.

When God created us, He created all of our consciousness, our weaknesses and foibles, all of our beauty and savagery - and He knew what He was doing when He did it. And He built in two little traits we like to call ambition and perception, as well.

Ambition is "an eager or strong desire to achieve something, such as fame or power" (note).

Perception is the "recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli" (note). Let's talk about perception first.

Perception is a physical gestalt. It is (and has been) interwoven with our very being. What I mean by this is that we, as humans, perceive that we are locked in a permanent relationship (albeit a symbiotic one) with the physical. We can't breathe without air. We can't walk without the ground. We can't see without light. Because of this, we have become the physical - our bodies. But we also have a physical brain that produces things that transcend the physical. Can we see, hear, touch, feel, or smell thoughts? Well, some claim to. But I maintain that the mind is a powerful output of the brain, a physical organ, and therefore rooted in the physical.

So. We relate best to the physical, but have minds (based in the physical) that allow us to create the a-physical. What of the spirit?

This one, for me, is a bit tougher. I think of the spirit as the nonphysical source of the passions that drive us. Not so much those kind of passions, but passions like playing the piano daily for 20 years in order to become a concert musician. Like fighting for civil rights in the 60s even though the pay was bad and the sense of security worse. Like staying up until my kids are on their third cycle of REM to finish this thought. Passion... Drive...

Ambition?

Rounding the Bend

This is where we turn onto the homestretch, I think.

Ambition has a negative connotation, whereas passion and drive have a somewhat positive connotation. Humans, though (created as we are with all of our weaknesses and foibles, all of our beauty and savagery), tend to create ways to elevate themselves above the rest of the physical. From lords and serfs to offices and cubicles, we have always wanted status. Power. Fame. Differentiation. This ambition, I believe, coupled with a traditional and understandable separation of ourselves from God, has defined us as a species. Until now.

The craftsman cradles his latest work as he carefully sands a rough spot on the outer edge of the spruce f-holes. He gently puffs away fine wood dust and runs his rough finger over the work. He spies other certain small imperfections, but knows these will not diminish the instrument's rich and lasting sound. Nor will they detract from its beauty. "È quasi perfetto," he whispers. "Quasi perfetto." Antonio Stradivari coats the back of a label with a thick paste and holds it in position before affixing it to the inside of the violin. "Antonius Stradiuarius, Cremonenfis Faciebat Anno 1718" reads the label, his maker's mark. It is allowed only on those creations that have absorbed his love and careful crafting. More than 1100 of such instruments were given the maker's mark by Stradivari and his sons by 1737, but less than 700 survive today. Stradivarius violins, violas, cellos, etc. continue to be among the most highly-prized possessions in the world today.

We bear the maker's mark, of sorts, of God. This was not affixed by a thin coating of paste, but was integrated with our body, or mind, and our spirit. The world's major religions agree that we are here to learn how to be closer to God, and we must do this in spite of (and because of) our physical being.

We, however, continue to honor the physical above the spirit. We fight amongst ourselves, drawn up in battle lines according to religious factions that, in essence, agree. We bleed, we die. We hate.

Our historic ambition to be different from, better than, and more of our brother (for we spring from the same craftsman) keeps us on our snail's pace toward the discovery of our civilization - we are God.

Summary, I Think

To wit:

1. There is a God.
2. God created the Universe and everything in it
3. Therefore God is omniscient and omnipotent
4. There is one God and only one God
5. God created us as thinking and questioning
6. God knew we would fragment into religions, each with their unique prophets/Gods
7. God put us here to learn (see 5) to transcend both the physical and our imperfections to be more like Him.
8. We bear the maker's mark - we absorbed God when we were made.
9. Therefore, if 3 is true, then we are God