Religion became the scandal of the left brain at the time when science came into being in Europe, due to its suppression of scientific facts.

In the beginning, this was not so. At that time religion was a way to create some logic in the world at a time when the state, the nation, was weak or non-existing.

This is clearly seen in the Old Testament. It’s a story about a tribe which, by using religion as a tool, created laws and order and the feeling of membership in a (tribal) society.

Thus, the left brain is capable of composing (religious) laws and written religion itself.

Written religion is a left brain project. Another left brain project is classical music. A friend told me that the composer J S Bach (18^th Century in Europe) created a music which to the listener produces images of castles and cathedrals comprising every human feeling. I have listened to some of it and I think I can say there is no music like his, or by any his contemporaries, today. This elaborated music was a left brain project.

A third left brain project is science.

At the time of science there was another shift as well. Before, objects, (things, nouns)were at the centre. It is understandable, then, that the idea of gods came up, and finally ending with monotheism – one god only.

From science and forward we got another way of seeing it. The verbs now became the central thing and now everything was about relations. Relations among (between) objects. This was not accepted by Christianity until beginning 20^th century and there are probably still many Christians who haven’t grasped this new idea. This is why religion might look as if it was non-existing and why Obeyone can say there is nothing to invent. I say the opposite:

You can invent religion tomorrow, if you do it according to this new view about relations between objects instead of static solitary objects, it will fit perfectly well into the present world-view. Again, this is the scandal about religion, it lives in a static world where nothing is supposed to change, and this is contrary to the believes of most people today. A written religion was not supposed to obscure facts – but that’s exactly what it does.

I’m talking here about the monotheistic religions. We see them stand against each other in the Palestine/Israel conflict and we see them stand against each other in India/Pakistan conflict. These are scandals and they are produced by religion itself every time it uses declarations which are thousands of years old without reflection about their possible use today. From a globalized point of view the existence of several monotheistic religions are not only illogical. They are in fact a danger to this world if they do not retreat from their fanatic several-thousands-of-year-old world views.

Thus, the left brain is not to be trusted without reflection.

The scientific society has failed to give its citizens a basic scientific knowledge. It was well on its way, in the 1960s-1970s with the much needed materialism and the manned space flights which fascinated people all over the world. And the view of the electrons as a particle circling around the nucleus was easy to grasp. This is no more so. We can see that science has created an environmental mess. And all the gadgets technology produces have turned into a mystery. The particle-view is about being deserted and what should come instead is not properly explained. And Science society is becoming more and more mysterious with its fanatic functional world views. It’s not that High School students know very much. Perhaps they did around the 1970s, but today – no. I heard at teacher (in Sweden) defend the High School students that they know almost nothing. He said that they know where to find the knowledge. They cannot spell properly but they know about rhetoric and how to express themselves. I say: if you know your books rhetoric has its place, but if you don’t know your books your rhetoric will only serve to make you even more ignorant than you were from the beginning.

I have seen reports about how well High School students in Europe understand when reading complicated texts. They understand almost nothing. Thus, the world around them has become a mystery. How come?

Because left brain has declared itself inferior in understanding this universe and it has done so due to the scandal when it had religion to suppress scientific facts.

That’s why the left brain now, supported by science, can say that the Human Mind consists of nothing but physico-chemical brain processes. I don’t deny the brain works by such processes but those processes were not what initiated the human mind to create music, neither did they initiate science itself.

That’s why I am not an Atheist, even though I don’t believe in the monotheistic religions of today – standing against each other the way they do, being tribe religions as they are (Christianity is a tribe religion as much as the others).

I take the following words literally: “There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” (Max Planck).

(In one way Buddhism seems to have grasped this, in another way they don’t).

 Hence, I believe the Human Mind to be part of a field, a system with an entity of getting aware and that human awareness has got a much higher quality than that of the animal world.

In Burma (Myanmar) we now see a regime which has degraded to animalism and they can do it as they are supported by Big Business. The human mind can take this path and degrade itself this way but I think the majority of people in this world see it as a shame, a moral degradation. Hence, we need moral and ethics, too. And once religion pointed at that fact.

Finally, I’m not an Atheist as I believe the Human Mind does not cease to exist after physical death of the body. All is energy, it cannot cease to exist. It shifts its form, yes, but it does not cease to exist. If you exist today, you exist by this energy and you cannot cease to exist. Your ego will cease to exist, but why not ask yourself: did it ever exist?

This piece was a direct response to Obeyone’s blog “Why I’m an Atheist.”

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/obeyno1/2008/04/20/entry-1

especially to some of his, and Felix’ comments on that page.