prattymcpratt

sweet! I am excited to hear that there actually is (apparently) an abudance of information regarding this topic, especially from a psychological or philosophical basis.

I appreciate your comments interesting experiment suggestion by the way :hihi:

***attention readers!*** through this post, I am not attempting to influence anyone to the views brought up in the text. I am however trying to offer a unique perspective that I find interesting. PLEASE please please, if you have any comments, questions or insight (even opposing these ideas) I would greatly appriciate if you would post. I haven't heard these ideas presented before, to my knowledge, they are are purely the result of my own conceptual logic based on questions I would like to answer.. It is difficult for me to write these ideas so that other people can understand, so I ask that you would please bear with me and try to understand what I am saying as best you can based on your own knowlege. What changed us from ordinary animals into human beings that created the society we now live in? And if "God" doesn't exist, as many atheists claim (I [used to/may still be] one of them) why does everyone else think that he/she/it does? I mean really! for all the great minds over the centuries, and all the great discoveries... you think we'd be over religious part of philosophy if there really wasn't anything "special" about religion. tough questions... kinda got me thinking...so I thought of some answers in the form of more questions. what if the concept of "God" was in fact an evolutionary advancement for the human race? (i.e. instead of God creating us, did our species evolve to create "God") Could this "understanding of God" be the key to explaining the origin of our consciousness? What is the point of having a conscience? could we as humans posses a form of extra-sensory perception (esp)? what if all humans contributed and percieved a simple form of esp? What if...what if inter-human esp forms the basis of the concept of God... I mean, for all the seemingly endless reports of people saying that they can "feel" God or his "presence"... could there be something there to be felt or percieved? what are morals? how did they come to exist? They don't seem to make sense for any other animal on the planet. Could morals have to do with esp? Are morals the reason we have conscious thougt? In just about every enduring religion I looked at, those who lived closer to what they believed (based on personal beliefs and morals) seemed to have had a closer experience to "God." Why would we have or develop these, and call them morals (with spiritual overtone) instead of simply calling them rules. Why don't morals neccesarily promote self-preserving behavior? Could morals be an evolutionary advancement that allows humans as social animals a way to tweak or change "pack rules?" could "God" actually represent "the pack?" speculation:::::::::::::::::::::::::: In religion: what have the "saviors" "messiahs" and "great ones" all had in common? in my opinion, complete moral actualization, or in other terms, complete loss of self (or loss of attachments). So as to say that the key to becoming a "messiah" is to be completly pure in the eyes of one's self. (including the ego and self-image...assuming one's self concept is influenced by other people's reactions to your actions and so on) If one has a mission of improving the human race, with nothing personal to lose or gain,, what is the quality of the thought? honest? logical? "pure thought?" It seems all religions have commonalities in philosophies, and in general, these seem to be the major philosophies (what I consider to be the "pure-thought" type). What I think may be a possibility is that the "saviors, enlightened ones, and messiahs" have actually eliminated all thoughts but ones of "God" (through moral self actualization) and in doing so become "the pack's speaker", setting down the new set of morals and standards for the next generation of the community. I think this mental state may be something that other people can percieve. All of the religious texts I have read so far have seemed to support this view. I don't think this distinctive mental state could be based purely on behavior or speech or things that could be falsely imitated. It would seem that if it were possible there would be "pretenders" everywhere... and likely that large groups of the population would follow the "phonies" just the same as the "real deal". In short, the idea involves a simple esp sense in which higher levels of sensitivity are attained through increasing percieved self-moral integrety through conscious thought. The person with the most dominant esp production (most actualized morals) becomes the moral determiner of the religion, assuming no outside factors interfere. that's all for now. thanks for reading. oh yeah, and I almost forgot...if it actually exists, the esp could probably be tested (air compression, electric current, etc.)