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HUNDREDS OF REASONS NOT TO BE RELIGIOUS #227

There is not one piece of information that would indicate that the human “soul” is anything but physical. The very essence of human intelligence, morality and character depends on the physical condition of the brain. Failure to develop properly, disease and injury are the main reasons that the human brain changes the personality of the human.

Head injuries like concussions cause normal thoughts to change to depression and suicide. Diseases like Alzheimer’s strip humans of their intelligence and morality. Congenital failure to develop or exposure to drugs or alcohol before birth can cause a person to be immoral and violent.

WARNING, this story includes:

Religious aspects, this chapter is based off the book of Enoch.

Other then that, enjoy !!

CHAPTER 1. Beginning.

The children of the fallen angels, with women whom we're born of sin.

But, what if I were to tell you, a certain being was born, a personification. The very beings that watch over various nations, replacements of those who have fallen.

And that? Brings us here.

The young girl, Shaima, was her name. Was the only child born ' normal ' , or so they say. She was anything but normal. She was immortal, a being born of sin and lust.

Iraq, the first ever personification to walk the earth.

" Mom , what is for supper? "

The young girl would ask, grin widening as she rested her head against her palms, innocence yet filled with purity in her gaze. A purity not yet tainted by the cruel world.

" Bread with cut up vegetables. Go and fetch your brothers for me, will you? " the mother would say, her tone filled with warmth, yet something lingered underneath it, something sinister.

The young girl nodded her head frantically, rushing out to go fetch her elder brothers.

She never understood why her brothers had grown taller then she had, along with their appetites improving. It made no sense to the poor girl at all, maybe they we're just growing? She wondered. Oh, how wrong she was.

" Hey!!! Mother is making supper, come and hurry!! "

She would wave frantically, grin plastered on her lips before she hurriedly rushed inside the small hut.

All that, felt like a mere dream that was long lost, a mere illusion created for comfort.

And now, here she stood. Iraq, was her new name. She stood beyond the Euphrates rivers, screams and echoes of the fallen lingered in her mind.

"How long shall they be chained for? "

She would ask the being beside her, the angel known as ' Gabriel ' . Her eyesight was beyond capable of seeing him, all she could see was the faint - white glow that could cast even the strongest of demons away.

" Untill the end of days — "

" So, judgement day? "

She would interrupt his speech, squinting her eyes to attempt to even get a glimpse of the being of light, only succeeding in seeing his robes and wings.

...

" Yes. "

Silence enveloped the air, a palpable silence, one filled with something disturbing.

END.

For years, I thought the separation of science and religion was caused by the Church suppressing scientific development, such as the heliocentric model proposed by Copernicus in 1543.

But last week, I was shocked to learn that this wasn't true.

Indeed, the Catholic Church opposed that model and put Galileo on trial for supporting it. However, throughout history, the Church conducted only 12 trials related to scientific issues, and only one scientist, Giordano Bruno, was executed—not for science, but for his religious beliefs, including reincarnation and anti-Trinitarian views [1].

Instead, to my surprise, Christianity contributed to science both directly and indirectly. For example, God was invoked as an argument when Francis Bacon tried to convince others that scientific methods would benefit humanity. He reasoned that God had bestowed Reason upon humans, thus by using this gift, humanity could build a better future [2]. Inquisitors invented peer review because they felt responsible for verifying the experimental results described in the books that they were censoring, so they built labs and reconducted those experiments [3]. Many famous scientists, such as Gregor Johann Mendel (the “father of modern genetics”), were clergymen.

In fact, the separation between religion and science is a relatively recent development that gained momentum in the late 19th century, after the publication of Darwin’s theory on evolution. Triggered by the then-controversial idea that humans had evolved from apes, advocates on each side attempted to portray the other as the enemy. At that time, two best-selling books in the U.S. accused the Church as science’s enemy, fueling the separation like a wild fire [4]. Now that I have learned the true history, I realize that my younger self suffered from the propaganda that had caused the separation more than a century ago.

I wonder whether, as a consequence, this separation caused science to focus exclusively on physicalism, instead of including topics that are non-physical but could still be investigated through scientific methods. As a result, it caused a separation more than between science and Christianity, but a rift between science (which focuses on physicalism) and non-physical “spiritual” aspects of life. Thus, some topics can be deemed nonexistent and swept under the carpet instead of being formally acknowledged and studied, or be given a flawed explanation based on physicalism. Example are astral projection and near-death experiences.

As some fields of science (e.g. the study of consciousness) begin to seek answers to questions that may require navigating beyond the current standard approach based on physicalism, it is time for us to move forward from this post-Darwin divide. To begin, we can consider the following:

Where and how should we draw the line between science and spirituality?

What do science and spirituality truly mean?

How can we better explore the profound questions so deeply connected to the understanding of our world and existence by integrating relevant scientific and spiritual approaches?

Addressing this issue will require a collective effort from humanity, and years to find the right balance. In the meantime, this little potato me has to correct the history slide from my talk on the reconcilability between science and spirituality that I gave two years ago because, apparently, that slide was so wrong.

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