Love God, Love Your Neighbor = Evolutionary Advantage

[glintofpewter]

Love God, your genes will flourish.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129528196

 

If you are female and have a nice personality more of your off spring will live.

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/10/for-some-primates-survival-of-th.html

 

Dutch

[PaulS]

Love God, your genes will flourish.

http://www.npr.org/t...oryId=129528196

 

If you are female and have a nice personality more of your off spring will live.

 

http://news.sciencem...ival-of-th.html

 

Dutch

 

Thanks for the articles, Dutch.

 

It seems to me though that the first one has nothing to do with love. It seems to actually point toward fear of God watching you and perhaps punishing you is the evolutionary advantage.

 

As for the second, I think it needs to be clarified that for women to live longer, that nicer personality does include picking nits and other insects from their companion's bodies

 

Cheers

Paul

[jonnyb]

thanks for those, it was especially interesting for me to hear (in the 1st article) about something that was going on in the university i once flunked my degree in!

[minsocal]

In regards to the first article, I also found that it seemed more about fear of being "caught out" when cheating. That said, I thiink this would make an excellent subject for the Debates and Dialgue forum. I say this because my own life experience with one foot in Eastern views of the supernatural has not been dominated by fear of retribution. Rather, the concept of Divine guidance is most important. Granted, I am not an expert on the subject but in 40 some years I have seldom heard references to fear as the sole principle of the supernatural in Eastern thought.

 

If there is interest, perhaps this could be pursued. I'd be interested in ideas concerning the evolution of our perception of God over time, etc.

[glintofpewter]

Myron,

 

I agree that fear of being caught is a simplistic way to understand the sense that there is Law or Guidance about what is right beyond anyone's possession. Otherwise we would not challenge those with legal or religious anointing by saying, "Wait, that's not right." even when it is not against the law. To call it supernatural is to freeze one stage of development in human experience.

 

Dutch

[minsocal]

Myron,

 

I agree that fear of being caught is a simplistic way to understand the sense that there is Law or Guidance about what is right beyond anyone's possession. Otherwise we would not challenge those with legal or religious anointing by saying, "Wait, that's not right." even when it is not against the law. To call it supernatural is to freeze one stage of development in human experience.

 

Dutch

 

Dutch,

 

I agree. If I were to rephrase what you said, it would be to say that developmet requires a move towards self responsibility. This is what Joseph Campbell called "follwing your bliss". Bliss is "the experience of life as a self responsible individual." How this come about? It came ar the point in evolution where we came conscious, sentient beings. Some think that this is the story of the Garden of Eden and I share this view.

 

I am in agreement with C. G. Jung on the centrality of consciouness for contemporary humans. Yes, I know that Jung is best known for his theory of the collective unconsious and archetypes. His work is much broader, however. What he worried about was a tendency to place too great an emphasis on the either unconscious or consciouness. We have our evolutionary past which, for the purpose here, is Jung's collective unconscious. It is autonomous yet it part of what we call "experience". We experience the effects of evolution and (hopefull) honor it and integrate it into our understanding through conscious processes. This adds meaning to Campbell's notion of being "self responsible". After all, Campbell and Jung were friends and Campbell edited some of Jung's later publications.

 

Myron

 

More in due time.

 

Myron