Spiritual Problems

There are two problems with the general notion of spirituality commonly held by people. The first is the notion of the immortal soul and the second is the common idea of reincarnation.

In the later case, reincarnation is explained as the inhabitation of the physical body with a free and immortal spirit. That is to say that these spirits live somewhere else, outside of the physical universe and that they choose to occupy human bodies because of what they can gain from the experience of mortality. During occupation they lose contact with their actual identity and identify with the body. Eventually, if they are intelligent enough and are steered in the right direction by other adepts, they regain knowledge of their actual identity and this is, actually, the precise problem of life that they wanted to experience by adopting mortal existence. The idea of reincarnation arises because of the recognition that few people achieve this awareness and therefor new experiences of mortality are needed until it is achieved.

People use this notion to explain apparent memories of previous lives that occur in some individuals.

Groups that believe in some variation on this notion are very common. Hindus, Buddhists, Christians believe in the spirit, though not in the reincarnation part. So, there is an effort here to explain some aspects of life not easily dealt with.

My experience of life makes me very doubtful about anything that smacks of magic, e.g. miracles. In my experience, having established the laws of physics, God abides by them scrupulously. Thus, I look elsewhere for explanations for the phenomena that troubles these people. But, what is the actual phenomena they seek to explain? I would say it is the increasing realization that our minds and bodies march to the music of different drummers. That is to say that, as life goes on, we realize better methods of doing things through intellectual activity, only to discover that we have no power to put these ideas into practice because our bodies oppose them. For example, we may conclude that we should eat less and exercise more, or that we should avoid sex, or that we should quit smoking, but discover that we are powerless to implement these changes.

So, why not? Why do we have to pursue destructive activities even unto death, when it is perfectly clear that that is what is to be expected should the undesirable behavior continue?

The explanations provided: the immortal soul and reincarnation, are attractive. They solve the great problem of death. The contemplation of non existence and the tendency when that is believed, to favor anarchy. So, man wishes to convince himself that non existence is non existent and civilization desires to provide a reason to avoid anarchy. Interestingly, the most profound believers in reincarnation also conclude that it is a curse and that the challenge of life is the discovery of a method of avoiding it. In a word, the discovery of paradise.

These considerations make the concepts of the immortal soul and reincarnation uninviting. And, if they are sufficiently invalid, they will inevitably lead to distortions and inaccuracies in our adaptation to life and therefor degradation of the potential for survival of the species. This is the ultimate bad, if it occurs on a sufficiently wide scale.

None the less, if we dismiss these notions, we will have to supply an explanation for the apparent lack of power displayed by the intellect.

The problem lies in our failure to appreciate the structure of our own psyches. It is not difficult to comprehend the reasons for that failure. If you are born within a house and never go outside, you are likely to develop some unusual notions about what the outside is actually like. This is known as the problem of subjectivity. However, the eminent psychologist and associate of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, successfully described the structure of the psyche and, over thirty years of testing, I have found his description valid in my own case and those of my associates whom I seek to understand in light of this understanding.

Therefor, the concept of the complex, as set down by Jung, suffices to account for the apparent conflict between the intellect and the body and therefor, by Occam's rule, we must dismiss the notion of the immortal soul, fraught with problems as it is. Having dismissed the immortal soul, we are no longer in need of reincarnation, as understood by the ancients, anyway.

So, who and why are we? We live in a competitive environment. All residents must compete for the right to procreate and therefor to survive. Should we fail in that effort, we can expect to be used as a food source by the winners. These are not especially difficult facts to live with unless we develop self love. Self love can be very efficacious for personal survival but as with everything else in life, is a double edged sword. We are the children of Gaia. We exist to aid in the never ending quest for her survival. We are as cells in her body, the biosphere, and we function in the same way that the cells in our own bodies do. Our only reason for being is to perform the function assigned to us in pursuit of her survival.

If that is insufficient motivation for us to continue our lives, then we are best dispensed with in favor of a species that can perform our function more effectively.

Then, what is our particular function? How are we unique from every other species?

We are unique in that we can rise to the level of objectivity. This produces a predictive capacity. Far from perfect, as yet, but not inconsiderable and improving every day. To the extent that we achieve the ability to predict events that have the potential to destroy or significantly damage life on earth, we provide a valuable advantage to Gaia in pursuit of her desire to survive.

One of the grand problems of existence for humans is hubris. It is an inevitable feature of egoism, the exact thing that allows us to predict the future. So, what is the answer? As has long been recognized the answer is humility. One of the gifts of religion has been humility, though it has been spotty in its effectiveness. I would say that recognition of our actual role in the life of the planet provides us with a better source of humility.