A Short History of Human Thought (Cliff Notes)

Ok, so I may be a little off-center to attempt to boil this down into a blog, but I'll give it a shot. Sometimes the constraint of trying to fit a complex topic into the constraints of a spontaneous, one-take-no-redos kind of format helps to focus the mind. Maybe a little extra diet coke will help :-)

Way back in the dawn of human consciousness when the cave people drew pictures on their walls we lived in the time of mythology. Myths were created and maintained because the stories pointed to a more profound truth that could not be expressed. Also, our ancestors of a few hundred thousand years ago (or longer) had no scientific explanation for anything. So, myths were numerous and served as the science as well as the religion of the day. We have come to discover with fascination how similar many of the myths were across pre-historic cultures.

Out of this foundation of mythology, gradually religions began to be formed. Nowadays we refer to early religions as Earth, Pagan or Mystery Religions. Many rituals were created, observed and passed down through generations. Many of the religions co-opted the appropriate myths that supported their beliefs. Many Mystery Religions contain some of the same creation and messiah stories we inherited in some of the great World Religions.

Eventually, as humans became more logical, a group of ancient thinkers, sometimes called the Ancient Sages, began focusing on the wisdom of living the good life. How to be happy and fulfilled. How to live correctly. This formed the basis of the great Eastern World Religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism. A parallel track of development occurred in the Middle East resulting in Judaism.

The golden period of classical Greek thought produced such thinkers as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many more. This sober morality, precise deductive logic and naturalist inductive logic created a body of thought that has formed the basis of Western Thought for the last two millenia.

Christianity was born out of a mixture of Greek philosophy, Judaism, Mystery Religions and the teachings of Jesus. Christianity developed initially along a Neo-Platonic line of thought resulting in a strong metaphysical base and later incorporated the Aristotelian line of thinking with the work of the Medieval Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas. Christianity also developed a significant list of arbitrary doctrines during the early centuries that were motivated by political power and influence.

We finally reached the level of scientific thinking around the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment period. This followed primarily from Aristotle, was helped along by Francis Bacon, Copernicus and Galileo and came to a head with the work of Isaac Newton and others. Here, we took the logical, naturalistic tendency of Aristotelian thought and developed the scientific method. Science because very inductive and experimental resulting in the industrial age with all its advantages and disadvantages.

The 19th and 20th century saw an incredible creation of new scientific theories that overturned many existing theories in the fields of physics, biology, astronomy and chemistry. Albert Einstein is the poster child for using deductive thought to create grand theories of Relativity, time and gravity that are very non-intuitive, but turn out to be true and have been proved. Charles Darwin used induction to discover the Theory of Evolution.

It seems that as the 21st century dawns, we are entering a time where physics and metaphysics are converging. Many of the current physical theories such as M-Theory cannot yet be proven by experiment and it may not be possible. Much of what we are creating as the Theory of Everything is supported by a deductive system of logic rather than inductive, real-world experiments.

Perhaps we are reaching the End of Science as we have known it for the last 500 years or so and are entering a new era where Science and Metaphysics work hand in hand, moved forward by our increased use of intuition and higher consciousness that transcend traditional ways of knowing. If this is true, we are called upon to use more of ourselves than at any other time in human history.

Metaphysics, Physics, Theology, and the Bible

I've always been intrigued by the so-called "magic" numbers from the Bible. Not the bottom-up analysis trying to come up with secret messages based on computer analysis of original Hebrew scriptures. But the more macro-level numbers that appear many times and have special significance. The most well-known of these are 3, 7, 12 and 40.

Of these, 3 has been of the most practical usage in my life. It's also used colloquially in phrases like "third time is the charm". I wrote a blog a long time ago about the optimum number of choices for any given circumstance that I believe is 3. When I really need to learn challenging material and know it cold, one discipline is to read/study the material 3 times. In the world of computer software, it is interesting that new products usually reach a foundational level of maturity on version 3.

One of the more interesting applications of the "power of 3" is the realization that the Bible can be read and understood on 3 different levels.

1. Literal - every word is the absolute literal word of God and must be believed and followed without change.
2. Story - the Bible is a collection of stories that teach us moral lessons. It is not important if they are historically true or not
3. Metaphysical - the Bible is a collection of stories that have metaphysical meaning. None of the stories are meant to talk about things that occurred in the physical world. Everything is symbolism that speaks of the evolution of human consciousness.

Of these, number 1 is the least useful for obvious reasons. Which translation? Do I have to go back to original text and learn Greek or Hebrew to really know? What about the evidence we have that mistakes, purposeful or otherwise, can be seen thoughout the history of copying and translating the originals? What about the contradictions? What is the practical relevance to my life reading this way about ancient cultures? Is this making the spriritual mistake of following the letter of the law as the Pharisees were accused of doing?

Level 2 is a useful way to read the Scripture to get practical moral lessons. Read in this way the stories are timeless and can be mapped onto contemporary situations for guidance and enlightenment.

The third level, the metaphysical, is in the realm of "secret knowledge" as understood by alternative ancient Christian sects such as the Gnostic Christians. This was a belief that the scriptures were written at multiple levels so that they can meet the reader where they are. The highest level of understanding is the symbolic, psychical or consciousness level. An understanding at this level yields the highest benefit and is closer to the Truth, but is difficult to understand by the uninitiated or untrained.

The third level is more interesting today because of the fact that we are a much more educated and advanced world than 2000 years ago. It makes it possible for more people to gain an understanding at this level since more of us are capable of thinking at higher levels of abstraction. Another factor is that knowledge of multiple religions and spiritual paths add layers of understanding to the metaphysical interpretations that are possible. A third factor is the connection with modern science that is possible when this level is used as a framework for study.

Many interesting connections and much spiritual enlightenment can be gained by a close metaphysical reading of the Bible, broadening that information to include ideas from Eastern Religions and Philosophy, then connecting to Modern Science especially in the areas of Evolution, DNA, Quantum Physics and String Theory. A quantitative understanding of the sciences is not necessary to get this understanding. However, a good conceptual grounding in world religions and the fundamental sciences is useful, either before starting a metaphysical study or picked up along the way.

The spiritual power that can be gained by integrating the perspectives of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Philosophy, Physics, DNA, Evolution and Cosmology is a large step toward "Christ Consciousness" that is present in all religions but called by different names.