Insidious, Lief and RÃ*an debate all things great and small.

[Insidious Rex]

Well ive lost track to where im supposed to be replying to. So ill run through some brief responses on this one just in case.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Also about the Medieval monasteries. You said that that would be caused by genes because it may be better for the organism. However, in the Medieval Ages it was a massive number of people that chose this course. Was it coincidence that it was better for all of them to become monks at the same basic point in history?

sounds like environment to me. human influence is strong. Social pressure. Peer pressure. Also I have read on more then one occasion that for many people during the dark ages the prospect of living within a monastic society was a life saver compared to the life of your average serf. So one could argue that becoming a monk was the way many of these men survived and if their chances of becoming successful breeding males in an era where poverty was the rule was virtually remote then turning to a guaranteed source of food and shelter and companionship and protection was a no brainer both on a human level and on a genetic level. Lets see, what to choose… horrible death from disease or starvation or good bread and even better beer and a beautiful garden up in Belgium somewhere and the respect of many who otherwise would spit on me. Hmm… tough choice huh? Granted this is speculation but it makes sense to me. Furthermore, im going to hazard a guess that those men who would choose to become monks had little else to choose against. I cant imagine there were a lot of monks who came from the richest nobility. Many of them were hopeless socially and without land or title and with no hope of either. What woman would have married them let alone had their children? Back then you married a guy because he had something worth investing in. if you had nothing perhaps your only alternative was a monkish life style. So why not enter in a formal version of that. I don’t think its fair to state that this was some great trend among all the common people. I think it was still greatly among the peripheral of society. Far from average.

This I can accept. You're essentially taking what you don't understand on faith until you gain a better knowledge of how it works. You have seen evidence enough to convince you as far as most of genetics is concerned. It's very complex though, with many factors working at once. That means that some of it you by necessity cannot understand. Some of it doesn't seem to make sense, some of it may appear contradictory on the surface. But with further learning and greater understanding of the subject, those things also may be made clear. Until they do, the evidence supporting their being genetics seems overwhelming enough that you'll take those things on faith.

Is this correct, or wrong in several points ?

Yeah ok I know where you are going with this. But I reject the notion that my view of reality through a genetic lens is the equivalent of our view of reality through a religious lens. Sure we don’t know everything about how genetics translates into behavior but we can certainly connect a lot of dots and get a pretty good sense of things at this point in time. Where as with religion the gaps are massive in my opinion and the leap of faith great enough to truly be called just that: faith. I cant see a soul. I cant measure a spirit. But I can observe a million examples of genetics effecting various organisms in every way shape and form imaginable. You can even break down more mysterious behaviors like altruism and such that would at first blush seems contradictory to the genetic model. With humans, the difficulty is in that our consciousness allows us to speculate on why we do what we do. And its hard to get around that fact that we are aware of our awareness and STILL admit that we act like a machine nevertheless. It seems incongruous and backwards. But if we follow it from point to point to point you can see it. And it follows the very same models we see in nature. You cant do that with spirituality. Spirituality may still be in the equation. But we are going to need to boil down everything else to find that remaining last sliver that we cant break down scientifically. And in the end if such a thing exists I maintain even this we will be able to quantify in a scientific way. And this would be the ultimate prize now wouldn’t it. To understand the immaterial in a material way.

Yes, that is an interesting tangent. I think it is so powerful within us because it mirrors God's nature. God is love. That he should make love the most powerful force in our lives, in the physical universe, make sense.

its amazing how different perspectives can lead to such vast differences in opinion on the very same subject. To you its quite clearly the reflection of gods nature. To me its quite obviously the most important emotion we have because it reinforces the coupling instinct and the protection instinct thus allowing us to breed and pass on our genes. For without love spending all the time and resources and energy it takes to be with a mate and to take care of your offspring would seem ridiculous. So the genes need something awful powerful to keep us bound to our mate and our offspring in a way such that it greatly insures their survival and the successful passage of our genes. Enter love… now if you look at lower animals you can see a primitive form of love. They too defend fiercely their offspring at almost all costs, taking on much larger opponents and going without food for long periods of time just to ensure the that their little package of genes remains safe and strong and secure. Who knows what they “feel� when they do this. I guess you would call it love wouldn’t you? but in us, in our cerebral approach to our being, we experience the profound and powerful tug of love that makes all this just perfectly normal when if you really think about it its quite extraordinary. To spend your entire life with another being (or several other beings) as your primary focus. How many parents here would ever say they come first before their kids. I dare so none. At least not while their children are in fact children. Once they are on their own and out of the house well the nurture instinct isn’t quite as strong but while they are young its unparalleled. And love of spouse can be seen the same way. Intense bonding between the mated couple means the female is more assured of a faithful partner for her child and the male is guaranteed of a female willing to give up the costly investment of a human egg and nine months of her life hosting his genes. Pretty big deal. And jealousy in situations where this bond is threatened. All very animal really. All very natural. We can just label the emotions because we are conscious of them. But even though we are conscious of them we are not immune. It still controls us and shapes us just like it does the animals.