Gees

Yes it is. Philosophers study truth and lies, so it is probably a bad idea to lie to a philosopher. You probably don't want to know this, but the lie is very obvious -- so I am not the only person, who caught it. I am just the only person, who said something about it. Sorry about this. I am not used to this program that combines posts. Gee

Beecee, this is a lie. Maybe you are trying to rationalize something that you don't understand, but it ends up being a lie. The truth is that religion studies the supernatural and calls it "God". You have serious problems with the idea of the supernatural and have stated it repeatedly all over this forum for years. The only conclusion that I can reach is that you are superstitious and in denial. If you are taking these beliefs of yours and seeing them as comparable to philosophy, then it is clear as to why you don't like philosophy either. This is the only conclusion that the historical facts in your years of posts can support. There is difference and there is sameness -- both are beliefs -- no matter how those beliefs are formulated. The logic of the thinking applies to both of them equally. It is the logic that flew right over your head. This is what Studiot stated: "In the case of Science outgrowing Philosophy, I suggest the scope and extent of scientific knowledge now well exceeds that of philosophic." So that would be why you earn a Ph D in the various subjects of science? That would be a Doctor of Philosophy? Right? Ooh. Maybe one day I can earn a Sc D in philosophy? That would be a Doctor of Science. Right? Beecee, if you don't understand the above, ask someone. Gee PS I don't think that I have a problem being too thin skinned; my problem is different. After a few years in this forum witnessing so much ignorance based in bias in the subjects that I knew, I began to wonder about the other subjects. If I don't know about a subject, would I be able to tell if ideas were slanted because of bias? No. So I lost my faith and trust in this forum and left. I check back once in a while, but I no longer play here.

Beecee, I can't believe that you actually wrote the above. I know that you have a serious bias against religion, and it became clear to me, while reading the other thread about science and philosophy, that you can not tell the difference between religion and philosophy. But how could you not know that your statements are almost the same thing that religion would believe? Read the following where I changed just two words: A religious theory or model, is not necessarilly after or searching for truth and/or reality. It is a useful, faith supported theory based on current evidence, that describes a certain situation. The thinking in your statement is exactly like the thinking that religion uses to promote the "God" idea. It is the same kind of thinking that validated drowning "witches", because it solved the problem of witches and made everyone else feel satisfied and self-righteous. No truth was required, no examining of the premises, no philosophy -- it just had to work. Well, Beecee, logic does not change by subject matter, so what is good for science is also good for religion, which would be why I stated that Studio's logic validated "God". Yes, I have seen this video many times and even used his examples to help me explain some aspects of consciousness. Feynman was brilliant, but had a bad attitude toward philosophy, which is kind of funny because he was very much a philosopher. Did you know that he took at least one philosophy class when he was young? He took his brilliant mind to an academic philosophy class which turned him totally against philosophy. He never got over it. I can understand his attitude because my first philosophy class gave me a similar disregard for academic philosophy, although I believe there are some classes that are worthwhile and taught well. I don't believe this for a minute. It looks like you cherry picked, adlibbed and generally corrupted what Wiki had to say. Considering the bias that I have read in your posts, this is not surprising. You can't tell the difference between religion and philosophy and talked about "absolute truth" with regard to philosophy, so I know you are clueless on this subject. Truth is subjective and is not "absolute" -- that would be either religion or maybe idealism. Gee Studiot; Because you asked me to explain what I see as the differences between truth and facts and how that relates to this topic, I wrote the following: I have spent the last week, or so, trying to verbalize how I see the difference between philosophy and science; it has not been easy. I think that a lot of the miscommunications and misunderstandings between us have been caused by very different ideas of what science and philosophy do, so I thought it would be helpful to clarify. My thoughts are that most people in science forums divide philosophy and science by the physical and the non-physical; the physical (real) being science and the non-physical (imaginings, ideas, ethics, etc.) being philosophy. Or they divide them by subject matter, such as ethics is obviously philosophy and mathematics is obviously science. Is some of this familiar to you? I think that Russell's explanation is a lot better and more accurate; science is what we do know; philosophy is what we don't know. Why is that? I am sure that some people believe that science knows what it is doing because it is superior or advanced, and philosophy does not know because it is inferior or confused -- this is nonsense. Earlier I stated that philosophy studies truth and science studies facts -- this is the biggest reason for the differences between these disciplines. Truth is subjective; facts are objective -- so truth (philosophy) is at the beginning of the process (where the observation, idea, or experience starts) and fact (science) is at the end (after confirmation or collaboration). Because truth is subjective, it can change because of perspective, time, and/or circumstance -- so truth can almost always be countered. It is rare to find a truth that is also objective, which makes it damned difficult to know anything for certain or come to any consensus in our conclusions. Hence, philosophy is what we don't know -- yet. So how can we know facts? Well, philosophy took the liberty of "establishing" certain truths to make them easier to deal with, so technically these truths are made-up. We took a one-to-one association of objects and ideas and called it counting, then we created numbers and then math, which allowed us to do all kinds of calculating. We established measures of liquid, distance, weight, volume, etc., and used numbers to measure many things. We broke down time into increments that allowed us a detailed measure of time. We established directional words like north and south, inside and outside, left and right, up and down, etc. With these objective truths that we actually created, or established, we could finally have a solid foundation for science and learn things that can be known. Hence, science is what we know. So it looks like science is an advancement of philosophy, and maybe does not need philosophy any more. Many people think this, but the problem here is that facts do NOT necessarily give us truth. For example: There was a hundred dollar bill in my hand that transferred to your hand -- that is the fact of what happened. So what happened? Did I give you money? Did we complete a contract? Did you steal it from me? What is the truth? Facts require interpretation and seldom, if ever, stand alone. Since science has become the "answer man" and philosophy has pretty much been removed from consideration, we are starting to learn just how dependent facts are on philosophy and truth. Just watch the evening news or see an advertisement; you will be inundated with facts, but will you see any truth? Facts are easy to manipulate because they do not stand alone and do not give us truth. These are some of the reasons why I think that philosophy and science are necessary to each other and interdependent. Although I can see why people think that philosophy is the beginning or base that started the process, but is no longer necessary, that is rather short sighted. Every new discovery is another beginning, every improved understanding is another beginning, every question that is answered prompts two or three new questions, which are two or three new beginnings. The only way that philosophy will ever become obsolete is when there is no new knowledge, no new discoveries, no new beginnings. By the way, it is not necessary to be a scientist in order to experiment and it is not necessary to be a philosopher in order to experience -- both disciplines use both methods. Facts can and do expose us to new truths and truths can and do uncover new facts. Gee

Bullshit. This idea of "valid" is ridiculous as it has little application to reality and none to truth. I suspect you would like to idealize reality and turn it into a model that fits your rules. (Plato is not the only one who has that problem.) The Plague is a highly contagious deadly disease -- truth. Some people when exposed to the Plague do not get it and/or do not die -- truth. Does that negate the Plague as a highly contagious deadly disease? Men grow beards -- truth. If a woman grows a beard does that invalidate her as a woman? I have no idea where your thoughts of "absolute" and counterexamples come from, but they are idealized nonsense. It is not good Philosophy and it is not good Science. It is piss poor communication, so I will apologize for my part in that very bad communication. So what you are saying is that a premise does not need to be true; it can be false as long as it works and does what we require of it. Philosophy is not therefore necessary. Congratulations studiot. Religion will be so happy, because I think you just validated "God". Gee

You ask some difficult questions, and I think the answers are that both influence our ideas of who we are. Identity is a difficult concept because it requires an understanding of "self", which is very complex because "self" is a simple thing, but not a singular thing. I don't know everything about "self" and identity, but I can share some information. Since it has already been brought up, I should clarify the idea of identity as to birth. When a person is born, they are physically separated from their mother, but retain the emotional bond and identity for a period of time. We know this because infants, who do not retain a bond (or quickly develop a bond) die of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). These babies do not possess the instincts that are necessary for life, like the ability to suckle and the need to breath. These instincts and the bonding both work through the unconscious aspect of mind and are part of Jung's collective unconscious, which could be called the larger "self" and causes us to identify with other humans. This human identity is a chemical or DNA internal concept; the bond with the mother is also internal and originated through the shared body. At about 8 months old, the infant has discovered his fingers, toes, and the extend of his physical body; it is at this time that babies start to cry whenever mom leaves the room because they now realize that she is not connected and could leave them! So prior to this time, babies have no idea that mom and baby are separate things, which leads me to believe that baby sees his identity as the same as his mom's identity. This is a good time to start playing peek-a-boo with them so they can learn that out of sight does not mean gone. At about 2 years old, the baby finally has enough of it's own identity that it can survive a break in the bond with it's mother/caregiver, which is why SIDS is no longer a threat. It is about this time that baby realizes that mom has her own mind and could possibly disagree with baby, which causes a lot of stress, so baby tests this idea in the form of the "terrible two's", where baby disagrees with everything. This is when we get signs of an individual mental self. Then around 5 years, the child realizes that other people have their own minds and points of view. At 7 years the child has a fully developed rational aspect of mind. Although more changes will happen for years to come, this is the age when the child is considered to have the ability to choose rationally and to have identity. Most people consider the rational aspect of mind to be their "self" or identity. So far we have talked about the parts of identity that come with the body. Then there is identity that is acquired by living: the school you went to, your hobbies, sports, religion, culture, family, friends, social status, race, college, work, city, country, home, or anything that you put the word "my" in front of adds to your identity. So identity comes from a lot of different sources, and "self" is like a drop that lands in still water causing an infinite number of ripples of "self". Does this part of identity affect your image of your "self"? Of course. Gee

Yes, that is a good example. Another might be the discovery of pheromones. Science thought that trees communicated along their root systems because it was obvious that communication happened, and it was not otherwise tracible. In the 1960's we discovered pheromones and realized that trees were communicating through the air, which solved that mystery. But then we learned that all multi-celled species communicate with pheromones (pheromones communicate more than just sex) and there is a whole world of communication that goes on in a forest or any ecosystem. This is probably how an ecosystem stays in balance, or at least it is part of the solution. I don't know why, but most of the people in the science forums have the general idea that philosophy does not observe, or they think that if the observation is done through technology, then it is not relevant to philosophy. This is not true. Without observation, I don't think there would be philosophy, or science. Gee

I think we are both having trouble understanding each other. It may be that I did not recognize your offer of a counter example to my absolute claim, because I did not make an absolute claim -- at least in my mind. There are very few things in reality that are absolute, so I was talking about a general understanding of how things work. If you take a hundred year old science book and a fifty year old science book, and a current science book on the same subject, you will find some differences over time in what science finds to be factual or true. Some subjects will have little or no change, others will have a lot of change. This is usually because the subjects with a lot of change found that false assumptions caused the flawed science, or you could say a false premise caused the flawed science, or you could say the flawed philosophy caused the flawed science. This is what I meant when I stated that without (good) philosophy, the science can turn to crap. It is possible that a scientist's experiment is flawed; it is also possible that the scientist is deceitful in his/her reports, but I find that mostly this is not "necessarily so". Mostly it is a false assumption or bad premise that screws up the science, which means bad or flawed philosophy. I like all of Gershwin's music. Great(er) is a word that is used comparatively. Look at your examples above to see the truth of this, so it is a word that is all about opinion. You are asking for opinions in this thread and then making the assumption that the opinion is in some way relative to the truth or fact of the matter. It is not. Whole threads have been devoted to explaining this, so I doubt that I can explain the difference, but I can tell you that truth is subjective and facts are objective. Cotton wool sandwiches? Are you serious? I don't think that I could eat something like that and hope I never have to. No. I am the one who used the word "dominant" because I see it as a problem in psychology/psychiatry. I see this as a left over problem from the monism v dualism nonsense, which causes science to treat consciousness like a problem that has to be treated with chemicals. Not a problem. I look at things a little differently, probably because of my studies of consciousness. I refuse to accept that the study is about either religion/"God" or about the human brain. But if one eliminates both of those things, what is there to study? How it works -- so that is what I study -- how things work. More facts or truths? Are we counting them? So more is better, or more is greater? Well distance, measure, numbers, and trees are of philosophical interest. I don't know a damned thing about "the production of high quality concrete", so I did not respond. Is there a point that is relative to this thread? Gee

Sorry it took me so long to respond. We had a bad storm and more than 300,000 people were without electricity for about a week. I still have pieces of a hundred year old maple tree strewn across my backyard where the electric company left it after cutting it off the power lines. No. Just what the doctor told me, but I have no reason to doubt him. I do remember that 40 or 50 years ago, Ocean Spray, cranberry juice had a note on its label that it was "partners in a kidney foundation". I always assumed that this was because of the "old wives tale", but that notice was removed a good 30 years ago. I assume that the removal of that notice coincided with the scientific testing that showed that cranberry juice did not fight bladder infections. I have no references and am not even sure if cranberry juice causing bacterial infections to slide off the walls of the bladder is a mechanical or chemical effect. You would need a scientist to figure that out -- I just keep cranberry juice in my cupboard. Generally speaking, I don't agree because physical therapy and surgery would not be part of medical science if mostly the chemical were considered. In my mind, only in psychology and psychiatry is the chemical too dominant in treatments. Not sure why you are referencing this -- the Bible is a history book(s). I have never read any history book that does not contain lies. Do you have a point? Well, whether "Great Britain", "The United Kingdom", or "The sun never sets on the British Empire", I think that it means that England thinks very well of itself. If you think that science fits the description of greater now, then you would have to agree that religion fit that description 1,000 year ago. Is that what you think? Philosophy is the study of knowledge, truth, and wisdom. Science and religion have both created methodologies to find their own knowledge and truths, which would be why they are both children of philosophy. Kind of like a teenager, who thinks he knows more than his parents? Not sure what you want here. Philosophy deals in truths, science deals in facts. Can facts exist without truths? No. Agreed. I did not state that they were doing science, what I stated was that they were working science; maybe I should have said working at science. Just as thinking is not doing philosophy, but it is a start. Gee

You are still misquoting people in order to make yourself look good and make them look bad? I thought you just did that to me. To be fair, I should note that jonnobody did use a complex sentence, so maybe you were just confused. I will underline the main parts of the sentence so that you can follow it. You see that word "haven't"? That means that Dennett did NOT use a spiritual basis. Does that clear things up? Gee Thank you. I have a starting point now. Gee

I did not know that. I have been wondering for some time now if thought is real; I know that emotion is real -- physical -- but was not sure about thought. Can you give me some reference so that I can study this? Well I don't know about the internet, but Jung's collective unconscious could be called a superconscious. Gee The integrated species-consciousness that you are referring to would be called the unconscious in us. Jung studied the collective unconscious and found there is at least one for every species and that it contains an unbelievable amount of information. You can find information on this in Wiki. No we don't have the obvious chemical perception of ants, but if you consider the riot mentality, you will find that chemicals produced through strong emotion causes a herd-like effect on our behavior. This collective unconscious does not really integrate, but instead connects us through bonding and emotion. Yes, trying to digest that much information would make anyone or anything insane. I spoke to a neurologist, who explained that just the information in a person's own unconscious mind would be too much to absorb, so trying to absorb the collective unconscious of a species would be ridiculous. Gee

Yes. It might help to remember that consciousness is not about doing anything including thinking. Consciousness is about being and feeling; thinking is an extra. Trees don't think, but they are conscious. Gee A lot of people confuse consciousness with conscience -- especially in the science forums because science insists that the brain and consciousness are the same thing. They are not. Flowers will turn their faces to the sun because they are aware (conscious) of the sun. Flowers do not have brains, so flowers have no rational aspect of mind, so they have no judgement regarding good and bad, so they have no conscience. Alive = some degree of awareness, consciousness Brain = rational aspect of mind and maybe conscience If you are going to try to understand these threads, you should know that spiritual means emotion/feeling. To get into the "spirit" of things is to get into the mood. A spirited horse is one with a lot of feeling. Although few people seem to understand this, religions actually study emotion and they name the entity that leads the emotion, "God". So you in fact are spiritual, cause you are not a psychopath. Yes, this can be done. All we have to do is observe other species and remember that consciousness is NOT thought and is NOT the brain. Consciousness is awareness. All life is sentient, so all life is aware of some things, specifically the need to eat, maintain itself, and reproduce. Any other things that they are aware of can be studied. Gee

Hello Studiot; It has been a long time. My thought is that science has always been a part of philosophy. 50,000 years ago, if someone had an idea and they did an experiment to see if the idea was valid, they were working science -- even if they did not call it science. I think science was defined as a separate discipline in the 17th century, (maybe by Galileo?) who worked out and defined the scientific method. As to which is greater, philosophy or science, it does not strike me as a valid question. It reminds me of the question, which is greater man or woman, which I always found to be kind of funny, as they are interdependent. Philosophy and science are also interdependent. Philosophy works to validate it's premise and puts faith in the beginning of a process; science works to validate it's testing and puts faith in the ending of a process; both are necessary to produce good results. For example: I was talking to my doctor just the other day and he was explaining about cranberry juice. Years ago, I had told him that I drank cranberry juice to relieve a bladder infection and he told me that it was an old wives tale and that cranberry juice had been tested and did nothing to bacteria and therefore did not help to get rid of an infection. When the subject came up again, he apologized and explained that a fortune had been dumped into the testing of cranberries with the thought being that a new medicine could be synthesized once the testing proved its validity -- but it had failed, repeatedly. Eventually it was learned that cranberries could not neutralize bacteria and could not fight bacteria, but could make the walls of the bladder slick so that the bacteria slid off and washed out, thereby disposing of the infection. If the testing is good, careful, and valid, but the premise is invalid, then the science turns into crap. If the premise is good, carefully considered, and valid, but testing shows negative results, then no matter how well thought out, the philosophy is crap. They are interdependent. Gee

Moontanman; Well, I don't read it for religious purposes. Mostly I use it as a reference or research tool when something that I am studying relates to it, or to ancient ideas. I am not sure if the Bible is relative anyway. It was not referenced in the original thread's OP that this thread split from, but it was in John Bauer's OP. So I guess it's relevance depends on what mood Swansont is in. Was there something in the Bible that you specifically wanted to address? I am not a Biblical scholar either, but I have done some studying on this subject. I think that one of the things most "Christians" don't realize is that there is the Bible, then there are the interpretations that dictate Church doctrine, then there is what the guy in the pulpit says. These can be very different things open to vastly different interpretations. Then to complicate things more, we have the New Testament that is almost 2,000 years old, and the Old Testament, which is older yet. So all this time caused the Books in the Bible to go through massive interpretations when cultures and societies adopted them, along with differences in language and understandings about the metaphysical that changed through time. One really does have to be a scholar to study and understand it. In my early teens, I started reading the Bible because I was also concerned about contradictions. What I eventually learned was that a lot of what I was taught was not actually in the Bible, there was also a lot in the Bible that I was not taught. This is where church doctrine comes in, because churches teach church doctrine -- not the Bible -- or they teach specific passages and ignore others. I think it was St. Augustine, a prolific writer, who established most of the early Christian doctrine -- around 500 AD. It is my opinion that his writings helped usher us into the Dark Ages. I don't remember a lot of his work, but know that a lot of it still permeates Christianity today, and I think he wrote about souls, heaven, and hell. If I remember correctly, he despised Aristotle's work and had nothing good to say for what we now call Science. His policies and doctrines stood unchallenged for about 700 years. Then A (forgot the name and will have to look it up) came along, rewrote a lot of church doctrine opening minds and eventually welcoming in the Enlightenment and Renaissance. I know that he worked on the concept of souls and worked out what differentiated us from animals, but I don't know if he referenced Adam or Jesus. I would have to look it up. Did you read my thread, "Understanding the 'God' Concept"? There is a ton of evidence that "God" is real, but no evidence that He exists. The "God" concept is an archetype, so consult Jung's work if you want to understand it. Good. I ate my bowl also as is evidenced by my still posting in this thread, where I am so welcome. Yes. Just like we now say that consciousness is no longer in the body, or the body is no longer producing consciousness -- whatever. The simple truth is that this idea has been studied for thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of years with many different interpretations, and we know little more now than we did then. Science thinks it has the answers; it doesn't. Philosophy has a ton of theories/hypotheses, but no comprehensive theory of consciousness. Religion calls consciousness "God" and calls mind, soul, so what? It is just semantics. The "soul", the mind, the self, and the "I" are all the same thing, and I think that most of the people reading this post know that. I am too damned old to be wasting my time arguing about semantics. No evidence for mind exists either. There is evidence for thought, but not for mind -- does that mean we don't have minds? Dennett tackled this subject in his book, Consciousness Explained. He ended up explaining that subjectivity was in doubt. Do you have any idea of what kind of nightmare it would be if people accepted his nonsense? Other philosophers dubbed his book, Consciousness Denied, or Consciousness Explained Away. Dennett is generally an intelligent man, but he really blew that one. When did "God" put the soul in humans? That is an easy one. Interpret "God" as consciousness and ask the question again. When did humans become conscious? When they developed the rational aspect of mind -- the same thing that Science calls consciousness. What is the metaphor about Adam, Eve, and the Garden about? The rational aspect of mind -- consciousness. Do you want me to explain it? Gee Sorry, we cross posted.

Swansont; Your response is irrelevant. I was not talking about the "quality" of Vexen's post, I was talking about the perspective. It is obvious that Vexen has not studied theology; it is just as obvious that John Bauer has, which is why I used the term "theology". I read the original thread. This is the question that started the "original" thread: "I was wondering when was the soul imparted into humans during the course of evolution?" John Bauer answered that question. Then he went on to make it clear that this was not a challenge to Science. John Bauer's discussion had everything to do with that. You just didn't know what he was talking about. Since you obviously did not know what John Bauer was talking about, how could you possibly know it was off-topic? You were being disingenuous. No. The denial was in a challenge to Science and evolution. Requests to define "soul" were very much a part of the original thread, so you are talking nonsense. You are the one who was defining, or redefining terms, as you interpreted "evolution" to be biological evolution. Isn't that your agenda? John was talking about metaphysical evolution -- evolution of the mind. Why would he do that? How about because mind, soul, consciousness, and "God", whatever you want to call them, are all metaphysical subjects. Hence my comment that no one knew what John was talking about. So you are saying that if someone came into the Physics forum and stated that General Relativity was nonsense and Einstein was wrong, you would be OK with that? You would not take over the thread, or throw that member out of the forum? Pull the other one Swanson. So you are saying that since he was talking about the metaphysical (on-topic in this forum), his posts were split, but still retained your interpretation of evolution. I think your bias is showing. Since we have already established that you do not study consciousness and often do not even recognize it, I don't see your point. Number 4) is very much within the context of both threads. 4) Philosophy and Psychology study the evolution of consciousness and mind. Also consider that I remember your response in a thread I started in the Philosophy section where I referenced Biblical text. You called it, I believe the word was, an "abomination". So your bias in this matter is well established and this is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Are you aware that the word litigate is synonymous with the word debate? What are you saying? That I should agree with you or just shut up? Gee

Swansont; I have read a few of Vexen's threads and not found them to be of interest. Vexen seems to have an average understanding of Religion, so I found nothing close to theology is his posts. I did not read the "original" thread, but if John Bauer posted there, I will give it a look see as there may be some information there. Obviously I can not talk to John Bauer, as he has left the forum. I am also a little curious about why John's posts were thought to be "off-topic", since I saw no indication that members knew what he was talking about. No. John included a denial in the OP, not a discussion. There is a difference. This is what John wrote in the OP: "Your question regarded the human soul, which you described as "the spiritual or immaterial" part of us that is supposedly "immortal," and you were wondering when that was "imparted to humans during the course of evolution." The very first thing I would have to be clear about is that I reject this Platonic or Cartesian anthropology as a widely believed yet utterly unbiblical tradition (never mind its complete lack of any scientific merit)." This is what John wrote later in the thread: "And where is evolution described in the Bible? It's not. Evolution pertains to science and natural history, whereas the Bible is about theology and redemptive history." If you read the underlined statements, it is clear that John Bauer was not challenging Science and evolution. I don't know if the other members have a reading problem or a comprehension problem, but John did not wish to discuss Science's evolution. Other members would not drop it. There is so much wrong with the above statement, that I don't even know where to start. 1) Evolution does not have to be biological evolution, nor is it limited to the start of the Universe. 2) Archeology studies the evolution of cultures and societies. 3) Historians study the evolution of language, art, agriculture, and the development of skills like building, mining, and tanning leather, etc. 4) Philosophy and Psychology study the evolution of consciousness and mind. 5) People study the evolution of the planet by comparing ancient texts of rivers, continents, mountains, etc. 6) When studying ancient societies, a lot of the information about them is in religious texts. 7) The Bible is probably one of the most studied books in history for it's information on some kind of evolution. This is the part of John Bauer's post that I was interested in: "There are two—and only two—federal representatives of humanity in the covenant relationship between God and us. Adam was the first, in whom we are fallen, because nobody before him was a federal representative of humanity before God. And Christ was the second (and last), in whom we are redeemed, because nobody after him was a federal representative." These two "federal representatives" of humanity mark distinct advances in consciousness. That is what I wanted to talk about -- consciousness. Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden have been studied to death and the general consensus in Psychology is that this story is representative of the development of the rational aspect of mind, (or the soul) which differentiates us from other species. It has a lot of support. There is also a literal understanding that Eve represents the fall of the "goddess" and priestesses, and associates it with the story of Lilith, who was very powerful at that time. This is where we developed a patriarchal "God" and marks a distinct change between the ancient goddess mother image to the father image. Like all good metaphors, it is both literal and figurative and has many layers of understanding. Many years ago, I noted that the Old Testament was about an invisible "God" who concerned himself with physical things like war, health issues, laws, government, etc., but the New Testament was about a physical "God", human, who concerned himself with spiritual (metaphysical) things. This dichotomy interested me as there is a possibility that this is also representative of a distinct advance in consciousness. Yes, there are other nonreligious studies that suggest a change in human consciousness about 500 years before Jesus. But John Bauer's post was the first that I found that compares the two. I would have liked to know where he got his information. According to Wiki: "In metaphysics, the concept of "Soul" may be equated with that of "Mind" in order to refer to the consciousness and intellect of the individual." According to me, when you read the word "God", if you think "consciousness", you will find that it makes a lot more sense in context. Of course in order to do this, you have to have an abstract mind capable of considering "God" without picturing "God". Gee