Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2019 5:26 am
Veritas,
(1) If the fear is subconscious, how can you be certain of this 'consciously'?
One can be conscious of the fear of snakes, i.e. when one see a known poisonous snake and one starts to fear it consciously.
However there is no such thing as one be 'subconscious' of the fear of snakes.
By 'subconscious' I mean in this case, there are parts of the brain that triggers upon stimuli without one being consciously aware of it.
Note in the above image, there are two paths to how fear are triggered.
1. In the case of the 'high' road, fear is triggered after the sensory cortex has processed the information of the stimuli. In this case, one can be conscious of the fear subsequently.
Mortality being a fact will invoke fears. But the fear of death is a special case which is not relayed to the conscious mind except intermittently where there is a weakness.
DNA-RNA wise all humans are "programmed" such that the fear of death is not felt consciously because constant awareness will paralyze the person with fear of death, thus hindering productive living.
2. But there is the second path, i.e. the 'low' road, or the short-cut where the sensory cortex is bypassed and the fear response is automatically triggered without one being conscious of it.
In the case of death, whatever fear of death at this 'subconscious level' is not relayed to the conscious mind, i.e. suppressed.
As a result of the suppression of this terrible and very forceful fears, the subconscious- fear-of-death response exude indirectly in various fissures as terrible unease throughout the psyche of the person as Angst, anxieties, depression, despair, meaningless, and other negative feelings.
Theists resort to theistic religions to soothe these existential pains exuded indirectly from the subconscious fear of death.
This is supported by the point that all mainstream religions' main focus is about death. [evidence available]. Note John 3:16 offer eternal life to counter the certainty of death.
(2) If one is actually 'religious', do they interpret their own belief as due to a secular justification....a fear of anything?
There are theistic and non-theistic religions.
As stated above, John 3:16 implied the existence of the fear of death, thus the offer to relieve this fear with eternal life.
Thus it is not 'secular justification' but rather general objective knowledge.
While fear of death may be sincere among us all, the believer often learns of the system of beliefs prior to even understanding what death even means. The religions are more often long evolved and not created upon one suddenly questioning their existence.
Note this is not about any conscious fear of death, but rather the innate mechanisms that trigger fears re death and threats of death which in turn generate existential pains.
It is this innate existential pains exuding from DNA-RNA pre-programmed subconscious fear of death that drove humans to seek reliefs.
In the past, it was sacrificing property or humans to the higher power that are a threat to the death of the tribes, then it slowly evolved to poly-theism then to monotheism which we labelled collectively as religions.
The primary cause is not due to one questioning one's existence.
The primary cause is the subconscious fear of death mechanisms that generate terrible unease that lead one to question one's existence and other existential pains.
I think if you refer to the source of the religions, they can derive from questioning WHY anyone should die at all. But for this to be a cause of religion, one would have to create their religion independent of formal traditional religions while pondering death itself.
Note my argument re the root cause of religion is due to the pre-programmed mechanisms that trigger the fear of death at the subconscious depths of the brain/mind.
Particular religions will argue the benefits of eternal life after bodily death to help curb the fears involved. This is a selling point to their particular beliefs. But it cannot be a cause. Rather, I think religion is a devolution of a prior secular interpretation of realities that lose the original meaning like the game of 'telephone'. What might have once been a variable uncertainty about source of life itself turns into a constant. What might originally be labeled, "unidentified flying objects" (an unknown variable ), turns into a newly redefined meaning of "UFO" to mean a "flying saucer", a specific knowable constant.
Note my points;
- 1. Genetically, ALL humans are 'programmed' with a will-to-live.
2. To live all are programmed to avoid death.
3. To avoid death - all are programmed with a neural mechanism to trigger fear of death AND other mechanisms.
4. Mortality is a fact thus the subconscious-fear-of-death mechanism is triggered upon this fact fed to the subconscious.
5. The terrible fear responses triggered at the subconscious level exudes indirectly as existential Angst, etc.
6. Religion [with its selling point of salvation] is the most effective balm or 'opium' to soothe those existential pains.
If you think there are other causes, I don't see how they can be fit in prior to point 3 above.
Any??
Death is not knowable directly. We only induce this from learning THAT other things we knew are lost unfavorably by our own experience. The only emotional association to relate to this concept has to be from literal experiences of pain and/or discomforts experienced IN LIFE. As such, the fear of the associated discomforts arise out of reality. Religious myth only aids to comfort where the myth already has been established.
Thus fear of death cannot be the causal factor of the phenomena.
Death cannot be experienced directly.
But mortality [death] is a known fact.
This fact from million of years triggered the subconscious-fear-of-death to generate instinctual responses [suppressed from the conscious mind] that exude indirectly as existential and psychic pains.
The majority of humans resort to 'religions' [theistic and non-theistic] to soothe these indirect pains.
Theistic religions rely on the thought an omni-whatever God, i.e. the all-powerful that can do anything to soothe and provide a security blanket. This solution do not address the root cause directly. Theistic religions also has it pros and cons. Problem is the trend that the cons of theistic religions are outweighing their pros as we move towards the future.
On the other hand, non-theistic religions like Buddhism and others, identify the subconscious fear of death as a root cause and derived principles, strategies and practices to modulate its terrible impulses.
So my theory is not merely a fanciful speculation but rather it is already recognized and put into practice albeit on a black-box approach.
What I am proposing with my theory is to dig deep into the black-box and deal with the mechanisms within with more precision and thus promote greater efficiency.
