This
writeup
was submitted as final assignment in the Coursera Course “Soul Beliefs and
Consequences Unit-III “how does it all End
SOUL BELIEFS AND CONSEQUENCES –
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The purpose of this exercise is to is
summarize the in-depth knowledge gained during over 30 weeks of online study in
the Coursera/Rutgers’s University course tilled “Soul Beliefs and Consequences.
The in- depth knowledge gained are in the following categories:
1) Soul
beliefs and afterlife beliefs come mostly from religion and we explored
in-depth soul beliefs from various religions of the world.
2) Since soul
beliefs were from religion we studied in-depth the possibility that religion
itself is the result of adaptation and evolution and religion was essential for
the survival of human kind and hence soul beliefs were for formed for human
survival and may not be necessarily based on verifiable facts.
3) This lead to the study of body mind dualism
and evolution of the brain from reptilian brain to Reptilian formation to
Paleomammalian formation to neo mammalian formation
responsible for consciousness and cognitive skills such as language,
imagination and nexting.
4) We also
studied some of the legal battles in the united states about the ethics of
teaching evolution or not teaching evolution and creation of intelligent design
to explain theory of creation consistent with one of the religions.
Instead of merely explaining the
various soul beliefs revealed by the students (who were, Catholics,
protestants, Christians of other denominations, Muslims, Jews, Hindus,
Buddhists and atheists and agonists) of the class that were told to them by
parents, teachers, preachers, etc, I will present an analysis of the same. Here
Abrahamic religions refer to Judaism, Christianity and Islam and Dharmic
religions refer to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
Basic
differences in views of Dharmic Religions and Abrahamic Religions
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DHARMA BASED
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ABROHOMIC
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THE ULTIMATE REALITY
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Some Lineages demand priori Beliefs.
Others are process driven
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A priori Belief in Mandatory
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Supreme being could be Male or female or
both or neither. Ultimate reality could be impersonal. Multiple representations
and access methods to one
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Belief in Supreme being, described as male
and father.
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Brahman is both transcendent and immanent.
The world is sacred
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God and World are distinct. World is
dependent on God. And the world is separate/profane unless redeemed by Grace
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Integral Unity of everything; Ultimately no
separate essences or things exist.
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Separate souls and worlds of objects
ultimately exists
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Ishvara includes everything good and bad.
Deal with bad internally
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Evil is a principle with its own self
existence. It is an external force as well as internal innate inclination to
cooperate with that force as a result of sin
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No doctrine about non-believers is enforced.
Let others be. Worry about one’s own spirituality
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Elaborate mandates about need to save
others. Salvation is collective, hence institutional also; there is personal
mandate to proselytize others.
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THE HUMAN
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Individual = Sat-Chit-Ananda, must
self-realize
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Individual is sinner and must be saved
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Reincarnation
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Only one life
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Circumstances are made by Karma, hence
self-made destiny, not fatalism
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No explanation for individual’s good bad
circumstance by birth
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Many adhyatma vidyas (processes for
advancement). Belief is a working hypothesis. Supreme is present within
adhyatma
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Less stress on inner sciences/technologies.
Salvation dependent on God’s grace with varying roles for belief and ‘work’.
Work means any activity, including
ritual activity, undertaken for the purposes of salvation
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Karma and Release
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Salvation: Retribution and redemption
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THE WORLD
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Time is beginning-less. Infinite cycle of
Creation-Sustenance-Dissolution. Time and Causation are not linear.
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Time and space had a beginning and are
linear. This affects all History writing
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No End-Times or Finality, Moksha is
individual and not collective
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End-Times=Judgement day for all humanity
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History not critical because: many avatars;
adhyamika experience of rishis as Shruthi; humans rewrite smritis.
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Unique historical intervention of god. Hence
history is all important to know God.
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Perennial access here and now, Independent
of any history
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Spiritual authority Contingent upon God’s
revelation in history
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Next, we studied the question whether
humans invented moral codes and religion to ensure social order, prevent
freeloaders and create fighters for warring groups or if like finding fire the
humans stumbled upon god realization while entering trance state while dancing
or during contemplation and deep meditation – rituals and moral code derived
later from this realization or handed down by a prophet/saint.
The
scientific theory of evolution holds that the humans evolved from ‘lower’
species of less intelligent creatures and animals by process of adaptation by
which the creatures who adopted to the environment better survived and produced
offspring’s that had similar qualities that allowed them to survive and evolve (Here
is an interesting question – who gave them the intelligence for this
adaptation?). As the species evolved, the brain size/mass to physical mass/size
increased as the brain developed from a triune brain from Reptilian formation
(including basal ganglia, mid-brain, and brainstem) that Genetically encoded
instinctual action plans related to primitive survival issues such as
exploration, feeding, aggression, dominance, and sexuality to Paleomammalian
formation (including the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus and other
structures in the so called limbic system) which relate to Innate
emotional and motivational systems shape behavioral responses to incoming
stimuli based on instincts and past experience; mediates the social emotions,
playfulness, and maternal nurturance and later to Neo mammalian formation
(neocortex) that is responsible for Declarative Knowledge about the world
derived especially from sight, sound and touch. This process of brain evolution
might have also resulted in the following scenario of creating religious
beliefs.
The evolutionary
psychologists like Wade believe that the primitive societies moved away from
Alpha male dominated society to egalitarian society (where no one individual
was the leader); the dominant person was at risk as others tended to gang up
against them. Sharing of the hunt and produce was encouraged. In such
societies, moral code was necessary to ensure survival of the group and ensure
that everyone does their part and fighters were willing to lay down their life
for the sake of the group. Such moral code was promoted by rituals such as
ritualistic dancing, music and adhering moral code of conduct.
Rewards were meted out
of good conduct and punishment handed out for deviations from the norm. It was
not always possible to punish or reward all the folks and afterlife reward
punishments system was invented and the belief in the soul took root. Also, it
is possible that folks found it difficult to accept death of the dear ones or
their own death and hence the belief in soul that lived on forever might have
been created. Folks also started believing in super natural forces to account
for disease, floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters who could be
endeared through rituals, prayer and sacrifices to lessen the burden on the
individual and the group and emerge victorious in inter group warfare.
Such groups who adopted
moral and religious values ensured social harmony and survival of the group.
Those groups who did not perished due to natural selection say the evolutionary
psychologists. Hence it is concluded that “No society has exited (or survived)
without religion”. It is also observed that all societies without exception
have common religious beliefs and most folks have religious tendencies and this
corroborates the above view or conclusion.
We also looked in to
the fact that Americans face the social controversy of about how
to reconcile the teaching of scientific fact with religious belief. And a
recent Gallup poll on Darwin’s birthday showed that only 39 percent of the
American public overall “believes” in the theory of evolution and would rather
believe in creationism or Intelligent Design. Whereas 97% scientists believe
some theory of evolution and 87% of them believe in the Darwin’s theory of
Natural selection.
Cartesian Dualism or
the body/ mind problem which is the basis of western philosophy was discussed
and how it differs from the Dualism observed in children by Professor Paul
Bloom. Whereas Cartesian dualism was an observed conclusion, Children naturally
believed is dualism, which is argued as result of evolutionary mechanism or
adaptation. As religion and soul belief were postulated as result of adaptation
and evolution that ensured the survival of humans it was suggested that the
soul belief in children is a result of evolution and need be taken as given
fact.
Further we looked at
the seriousness with which the American public has taken to this debate by
studying two related cases:
1)
Scopes trial held in the year 1925 in Dayton,
Tennessee, where a science teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution in
biology class when the religious majority objected to teaching evolution in
publicly funded classrooms.
2) Kitzmiller
v. Dover Area School District: Teaching Intelligent Design in Public Schools.
In October 2004 war broke out in the town of Dover Pennsylvania, between
teachers were teaching evolution in the biology classes and those who coined up
Intelligent Design to be taught as an alternative to be consistent with their
religious beliefs and it landed up in the courtrooms.
Conclusion:
It is true that soul beliefs and religious beliefs are learnt by
a child from their parents, teachers, preachers, friends and members of the
society. It is also true most soul beliefs and religious beliefs may not be
proven by verifiable fact. However, they have either been deduced during
meditation or trance and proven to be useful for survival of human race as
pointed out by evolutionary psychologists which has led to the conclusion that
“no society ever survived without religion”.
However, it is important to also recognize and acknowledge that
soul beliefs have been responsible for irrational conflicts and wars and humans
in possession of destruction technology cannot hope to survive another deadly
war based on soul beliefs. Hence it is important to recognize the source of
soul beliefs and others and realize it is only an accident that one has one set
of beliefs and need not go the extremes of self-destruction or destruction of
others to defend them. The idea is not to discard the soul beliefs but to
examine the source and nature of the beliefs and enable constructive
contributions to the society, world and survival and progress of human race.
It really matters less whether religion and soul beliefs are
based on the true representation of the ultimate reality or it is result of
evolutionary effect. Either way it is useful; either for spiritual growth or
survival or both. Hence there is disagreement on whether religious practice is
useful but only on how? One of the best ways is spend less time on theorizing
on the beliefs but to practice that leads to true realizations. Identify and
practice the ones that leads to spiritual growth of the individual; identify
and discourage practices that aims to interfere with other’s practice, such as
ridicule of others, praising one’s own, control and even murder of other
civilizations, etc. The openness to let religious and scientific pursuits to be
independent of each other must be encouraged. Here I would like to quote Albert
Einstein “Science without religion is lame, religion without
science is blind”
I think we evolved beyond the stage when Galileo and Bruno were
punished for believing that the earth was round and not the center of the
universe, to believing that our ancients knew of all these facts at a much
earlier time; We have also moved away from those who deliberately discredited
religious beliefs to promote their political and social agendas; However, these
are not new, they have always been inexistence and will be forever. We must use
our intelligence suitably to arrive at what is best for us now and act
accordingly.
References:
1) Then Faith
Instinct: How religion evolved and why it endures By Nicholas Wade
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HO2tcJSd1ucC&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=the+evolution+of+religious+behavior+wade&ots=VLuNRpnPFR&sig=M0jNqHTGoEV4z__1p9X-QTTh5fs#v=onepage&q=the%20evolution%20of%20religious%20behavior%20wade&f=false
2) pages
112,113, of book “Being Different” By Rajiv Malhotra
3) Evolution
http://www.livescience.com/474-controversy-evolution-works.html http://study.com/academy/lesson/who-was-charles-darwin-theory-of-evolution-natural-selection-quiz.html
4)
Cartesianism
5)
Descartes
baby by Paul Bloom review
6)
State
v. John Scopes (The Monkey Trial)
7)
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District:
Teaching Intelligent Design in Public Schools
8)
Defeating Creationism in the
Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/404
