III
THE ORIGIN OF BEON

Although soul is a concept which threads its way through most religious beliefs, they are not all in agreement about the soul's origin.

• Classical Buddhism regards it as an epiphenomenon, a natural but incidental effect of brain activity which persists after the brain's demise, seeking a new brain-body system to inhabit. (The Buddha's original idea is deeply buried within modern Buddhism's silage pile of obscure beliefs.)


• Christianity, Islam and most derivative religions believe that the soul is created by God.


• The Mormon religion believes that it always existed.


• Some “New Age” religions seem to believe that God always existed, and in a fit of self-boredom chose to split into a large number of souls. According to such beliefs human souls are actually tiny bits of God.

Our theory declares that beons are neither the creations nor the parts of an intelligent entity. The result of a natural phenomenon, they came into existence prior to the universe and are essential to its creation. You are one of them.

We will explain more about the origin of beons after developing the necessary background. The purpose of this page is to declare this simple hypothesis: Beons are distinct entities with natural, noncreated origins. Although consciousness and intelligence are potential capabilities of beon, they are not inherent properties. Beons are born mindless, nonconscious, and as smart as a rock.

A time saving tip for atheists.

The rest of this page addresses the belief that soul, beon, or any entity participating in human thought and action which might experience some kind of afterlife, is created by God.

God's Motivations

One element of religious belief which many atheists see as a significant fault is the lack of a suitable motivation for God's creation of man. Why would an entity with omnipotent power and infinite intelligence take the trouble to create such a sorry lot as humankind?

My childhood religious textbook was The Baltimore Catechism, which declared that “God created man to know Him, love Him, serve Him, and be happy with Him forever in heaven.” Those were the exact words. Millions of other gullible children were taught, and are still being taught the same thing because the Catholic Church has yet to invent better reasons.

Instead it has modernized and bowdlerized its original reasons. From The Catechism of the Church (356-358)…

Of all visible creatures only man is able to know and love his creator. He is the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake, and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity. God created everything for man, but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to him.

• More words for theologians to reinterpret,


• the obfuscation of clear and distinct concepts by verbiage, and


• the elimination of a traditional belief which is difficult to fit into the new science-based scheme of things.

The old know, love, and serve notions are still there, now wrapped in extraneous words to blur the clear meaning of the original Baltimore Catechism. A new word is thrown in, dignity. Exactly how the word “dignity” applies to beings who defecate, fart, and barf is a mystery.

The bowdlerized explanation for the creation of mankind has purged the old concept of heaven. It does not have us making even a brief appearance in heaven, much less enjoying an infinitely long and happy sojourn there. The omission of our reward may reflect the opinions of generic theologians that there is no afterlife. Whatever the reason, this omission was clearly deliberate.

From here, it looks like modern Catholic theologians don't believe in heaven or hell anymore, perhaps not even in an afterlife, but still want to keep their jobs.

Nonetheless, the new version does confirm God's need to be known, loved, and served by human beings. So, let's see if humans are suitably equipped for this assignment.

Knowing

Most people will accept as God whatever they've been taught, or programmed to believe. Those who go to college and are influenced by atheists to reject their beliefs, will reject the God in whom they were taught to believe, rarely thinking to check out other alternatives. Programming is what passes in humans for “knowing.”

The kind of knowing which humans have of God seems indistinguishable from that acquired by baby ducks. The first critter that cares for a baby duck is the one it recognizes not only as mother, but also as a representative of the species to which he belongs. This phenomenon is called imprinting.

For humans, the first God-concept that comes along after the brain is vaguely capable of grasping it, is the one the brain will always know as God. This is true even if, later in life, the mind decides that there is no God— the God it then denies is the God of its childhood programming.

A Brief History of God-concepts

The notion that the Jews provided a birthplace for monotheism is dubious. Historically, monotheism's formal introduction into human culture is attributed to Pharaoh Akhenaten, who declared “Aten” to be the only God, then fired the other Egyptian gods' priests and closed their temples.

Monotheism was likely an idea that had been floating around before Akhenaten, not something he personally invented. After his brief 17 year reign the old temples were restored and the priests rehired, and Egypt returned to business— but not quite as before.

People can get seriously worked up over religion. The brief Egyptian foray into monotheism would have left a new religion struggling to survive. The restored old-line priests would have seen to it that monotheism had no temples, no priests, and probably no safe place in which Aten could be worshipped, but the collective mind of believers would have given temporary shelter for such ideas.

It makes sense that the new Egyptian deity became a god of the captive Hebrew slaves— if indeed he had not been born there in the first place. Whatever, the timing is right for Aten's name change and Yahweh's departure from Egypt along with the Hebrews. Akhenaten's reign occurred in the mid-14th centory B.C., 1364-1347 according to one writer. This leaves about a century for monotheism to ferment in Egypt and fire up the Hebrews, who left around 1250 B.C.— perhaps in search of religious freedom.

The god who the Hebrews brought with them in the Exodus is not the God of any modern religion. Their god was the most powerful of all the gods, but not infinite. Infinite power would have been a meaningless concept for a wandering tribe of outcasts who probably had no written language no serious concept of infinity, and no belief in heaven or hell. (Feel free to research these things independently.)

Was the god of the Exodus even a spirit— an entity who had no material form whatsoever? Maybe. But when Moses killed too much time on Mount Sinai getting his tablets engraved, flatlanders down below promptly generated a new god who they could see and touch.

The Hebrews coming out of Egypt were clearly not monotheists. The first commandment coming down from Mt. Sinai addressed the issue of other gods, either disallowing them entirely or relegating them to secondary status, depending upon your preferred Bible translation. Had the Hebrews already been monotheistic, that commandment would have been superfluous.

While it is easy to go back into the Old Testament and find passages which can be interpreted according to current (or any) beliefs, the reality is that concepts such as omniscience and omnipotence were not part of Jewish belief at the time of Jesus. After all, the Old Testament God had changed His mind of record on many occasions— not a characteristic one would expect of an entity who knows everything. (Of course, there is the possibility certain to be advanced by some nits— God always knew that He would change His mind.)

In A Brief History of Monotheism the unnamed author writes:

“The Hebrew word for powers or mighty ones is Elohim, and Moses used this word as taxonomy for one single being: God; the One who is Many Powered; the Powerful One.”

There is no indication that by the time of Jesus, the very powerful god of Moses had morphed into the omnipotent God now worshipped by Christianity. Such a concept would have been unnecessary to the Jews. It is the nature of mankind to devise gods according to their needs, and an omnipotent God would only have been useful to challenge similar opposing concepts.

This could be exactly what happened after Jesus' teachings opened up, for just a century or two, the opportunity for individuals to develop theological and metaphysical ideas without the censorship of an establishment religon.

Jesus taught behavioral standards, not philosophy and metaphysics. Some followers who embraced his ideas sought to fill in the metaphysical blanks from their own minds, becoming the early Christian Gnostics (seekers of knowledge).

Of those I've studied, the writings attributed to Mary Magdalene were the most interesting because her ideas were consistent with those presented here.

The Gnostics were an intelligent and creative, but dissonant lot, who, before their extermination after the Nicene Council, probably invented every idea you'll find in this book and a hundred others. If they proposed the concepts of absolute omnipotence and omniscience, which seems likely, the Church had to adopt those ideas simply to prevent itself from being one-upped.

Whatever the origin of deep theology, Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) delineated the properties of God (the “Father”) in exactly the same form a non-Mormon Christian, probably even a Muslim, would accept today.

The final argument that neither the Hebrews nor the Christians whom they spawned were true monotheists comes from History. The first thing that Christians did was to promote Jesus, from mere Messiah to Son of God, making him a God in his own right— a franchised God with a worshippable material image. And it is indeed this personalized Jesus, plus his earthly parents and some saints, who Christians worship.

This might have happened because the Jews, who became the first Christian converts, never had a sustained history of monotheism. Their monotheism had really come from the Babylonians just three centuries before Jesus.

Yet, Islam relegates Jesus to prophet status and worships a genuinely single God. Allah has no offspring, which one might naturally expect of a spirit entity lacking gonads. Why? The roots of Islam lie in the same monotheistic beliefs developed in Greece and Persia (e.g. Zoroastrianism) that the Hebrews cribbed during their involuntary sojurn in Persia, then known as Babylon.

Those interested in more details about the formation of these beliefs might try, Babylon, Persia and Judaism— Breakup of Assyria's Empire and Ascent of the Moses Legend.

Our point to all this is to show that history proves the proliferation and confusion of God-concepts within human cultures. This alone shows that humans are poorly equipped to know God.

Few people who believe in God understand the history of the concept, taking it for granted, as the author once did, that it has been in place for nearly 4000 years or longer.

Clearly, the modern God-concept is recent in terms of human history, certainly less than two millennia old, and does not date back to the time of Abraham as Christians generally believe. It should not be a surprise that modern Christians know little or nothing of the real history of their beliefs. (When a Christian, I knew nothing of this history. Mankind, on average, is not a knowing lot.

Knowledge vs. Understanding

Understanding a subject involves more than simply being able to pass a multiple-choice exam. For example, consider the simple mass-energy equivalence equation—

E = mc²

Many people know of this widely publicized equation, but their “knowing” is only familiarity. Few can describe what each of its five symbols actually mean. Fewer still could ask an interesting question about those terms, such as, “Does the m refer to inertial or gravitational mass?”

Genuine understanding of the mass-energy equivalence can be demonstrated in only one way: Sit down at a table which contains only paper and pen, in an empty room, and derive the equation using only your knowledge of basic 19th century physics and mathematics. There might be 200 people on the planet capable of doing so.

The same criterion might be applied to our understanding of the God-concept. Of the few believers who know enough to even reference the logic of Augustine or Aquinas, fewer still will be able to reproduce that logic on demand and defend it from the perspective of full understanding.

The ability to understand things is related to intelligence. Some people have little of this, others a lot. It comes in various forms and styles— there are musicians who struggle with basic arithmetic, and mathematicians with no sense of sound and rhythm. Most of us can neither play a tune nor solve a differential equation.

The IQ's of most people (about 80% of any population) fall within the 85-115 range. The low end of this range qualifies for store clerk and common labor, while the higher end qualifies for semi-skilled labor. Those with IQ's between 115 and 130 have the potential to learn skilled work. 120 is plenty enough for a Ph.d. in a social science and a university presidency. Only 3% have an IQ higher than 130, potentially qualified to become doctors, engineers, or real scientists.

Above average intelligence is a requirement for the full comprehension of abstract ideas, such as the modern concept of an omnipotent, omniscient Creator.

Surely, if God expected man to genuinely know Him, to fully understand His nature and purpose, He would have given all of us the requisite intelligence. The minimum IQ of human beings would then be at least 120, preferably higher. Morons would not exist.

Many people believe in God, but there is a big difference between knowing or understanding something and simply believing in it. According to the Catechism's dogma, God made us to do more than simply believe in Him— He made man to know Him. If so, why are so few of us mentally equipped to do so?

“Free will” has actually been proposed as a serious explanation for the existence of people who are not intelligent enough to understand God or any other complex abstraction. The claim is that anyone can understand and appreciate God who has the will to do so. That might be true if the required intelligence could be willed into being.

People are born with different levels of intelligence. While intelligence can be enhanced with study, focus, and time, it cannot be willed into existence. Otherwise, a kid struggling with algebra could simply will himself another 40 IQ ticks as easily as he wills himself to pick his nose.

If an omnipotent God really wanted humans to know Him, He would have made all of them capable of doing so. That some humans are not capable of knowing God suggests that He did not create the part of us which knows.

Loving

Monotheism has been mistakenly regarded as a forward step in religious thinking, whereas the real advancement was the idea of God as a pure abstraction, an invisible, immaterial, and formless entity.

When Moses overstayed his trip up Mount Sinai to commune with God and receive the commandments, his impatient followers waiting below built a golden calf to worship— a single god.

They needed to worship something with which they could identify. It could be argued that, feeling abandoned by Moses' mysterious spirit-God, they at least stuck with monotheism by constructing only one idol.

Judaism never developed into a major religion. While the Hebrews eventually accepted their abstract God, thanks to many stories describing his mediated dealings with man, few of them could love this formless but formidable entity who allowed no images of himself and forbade the pronunciation of his name.

Perhaps because of this, Judaism has struggled for survival since its inception and currently claims only 0.22% of the human population as followers. (Statistics courtesy of adherents.com.) It might have been relegated to obscurity but for its more popular offspring, Christianity and Islam, which together claim 54% of the available adherents.

Because humans are designed to love other humans but not abstractions, successful religions have found ways to wrap some flesh around their invisible gods. Ancient cultures often worshipped figures of animals, stand-in's for whatever their priests invented by way of behind-the-scenes power. The Greeks and Romans worshipped and loved characters whose statues looked suspiciously like those of human beings and whose behavior is the model for TV soap operas.

A case can easily be made that Christianity was more successful because it included a material, physically identifiable God as competition for the humanlike gods worshipped by the Romans. It certainly helped that Christianity's new God, Jesus Christ, replaced the illogical and emotional humanlike behavior of the Greco-Roman gods with sense and wisdom.

As the Catholic style of Christianity developed it added additional objects of worship in the form of its “saints,” humans whose behavior was so exemplary that they are certain to have gone to heaven upon their demise, and to whom minor miracles have been attributed. The saints are another tier of humanlike minigods.

Islam claims 21% of the adherents' pie, second only to Christianity's 33%. Allah, like Judaism's Jehovah, is an abstract God of whom images are forbidden, although His name may be spoken. This would refute the case that people do not love abstractions if not for the fact that while Muslims worship Allah, they love the prophet Muhammed.

Mankind is poorly equipped to love God. We are designed to love living, moving, warm, furry, and breathing critters, or humans who once lived— provided that a sympathetic story can be developed around them. We are not programmed to love abstractions such as an immaterial omnipotent God.

However, mankind is designed to need gods. The evidence for human need abounds, as does our tendency to confuse need with love. The problem is that we do not care to perceive ourselves as needy creatures.

Therefore religions have learned that it is most profitable to convince followers that they are loving creatures, and that their Creator (portrayed as a loving God who nonetheless occasionally arranges the termination of a subgroup of His creations such as the innocent children killed at His behest after the battle of Jericho) actually needs their love.

Human love for God is therefore fueled by clergymen who set themselves up as intermediaries between man and God, assuring believers of God's love for them and reminding them of the penalties to be paid for neglecting to return His affections. Their job is to credit God for all things positive and spin the issue of why bad things happen to good, ordinary people.

Christians love Jesus, His mother Mary, and sometimes a saint or two, via the paintings and statues which represent them and the tales of their time on earth— they do not directly love the entity Who created the universe.

Service

Humans can usefully serve God only if God cannot do everything himself, which would imply that God was not omnipotent. Why, then, is the “service” clause included in God's purpose?

That's easy. Those seeking to follow the guidance of their religions by serving God are often directed to activities which serve their church, its leaders, and their associates. The most common form of service is the transfer of money into church coffers.

Being Happy with God, Forever

Religious people actually foresee themselves associating with the Creator of the Universe, unaware that they are ill-equipped to do so. Some fancy that they themselves will be personally elevated to the level of a god— whatever that means.

There is a relationship between intelligence and socialization. We normally associate with people whose IQ is within 10 or 20 points of our own. We also seek people with similar interests to ours, which requires similar intelligence.

Average folks tend to resent people who are significantly smarter than themselves, unless the smart one is socially skillful. Burger chefs do not generally associate with college professors— they would find the professors way too boring.

Imagine that the neurology, biochemistry, and psychology departments of a major university held a symposium on human consciousness, a subject of potential interest to average people, and actually invited average people to the conference. The speakers would be inaudible over the sounds of snoring and irrelevant conversations. If they invited an average person to speak on the subject, they'd be treated to a verbal stream of “ah's,” “um's,” “yah but's,” “you know's,” and an occasional inane, “if you will,” from the intellectually pretentious.

Yet the IQ differences between average people and professors are not large. The average IQ of professors is about 130, just 30 ticks higher than that of a regular Joe. In this context, consider the difference between the IQ's of God, man, and other critters.

THE IQ OF GOD

∞ – 2 = ∞

Likewise…
∞ – 10,000,000 = ∞

The idea of infinity may be a bit abstract, so let us work with a more manageable number, say a billion. This is a large number by our standards— a stack of one billion silver dollars will reach to the moon, if one could find enough silver dollars. But compared to infinity, one billion is a tiny number. Suppose that instead of infinite intelligence, God has an IQ of only one billion. Assigning IQ estimates of 140 for you, 200 for Einstein, and 5 for a chipmunk, the differences become 999,999,860; 999,999,800; and 999,999,995.

Did you notice that for practical purposes these numbers are the same? Would it make any difference to you if you had a net worth of $999,999,800 or $999,999,995?

In terms of percentages, your excellent IQ is 0.000014% of God's, Einstein's is 0.000020%, while a chipmunk is 0.0000005% as smart as God. (And remember, we've used a diminished God-concept, a God with fewer IQ ticks than Bill Gates' net worth.)

The insignificant difference between these numbers offers new insights into the religious teaching that are men all the same in the eyes of God— they are as smart and as same as chipmunks.

You probably do not associate with chipmunks. This could be because you do not know any, and that could be because you have few shared interests with animals whose IQ is 4% of yours. You probably do not care if chipmunks admire you. If you find yourself being worshipped by chipmunks, you have more serious problems to deal with, like how did they sneak into your padded cell?

If you do not communicate with chipmunks or care about their social problems, what makes you think that God would relate to you, your personal and social problems, or your comparatively tinier mind?

The belief that an entity intelligent enough to create the universe needs either humans or chipmunks for company represents the pinnacle of human egocentrism. As a serious reason for the creation of man, the “to know, love, serve, and be happy,” story is as realistic as a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

The belief that God created the conscious, intelligent component of man was ill-conceived from the outset. Instead of trying to rationalize it, why not accept the obvious?

Years ago, before developing these ideas, I asked a teacher, a priest of the Norbertine Order, for the Church's position on evolution theory. He said that it was okay to accept that life evolved according to Darwinian principles, but as a Catholic I must believe that God created the human soul.

Yet, the creation of the soul is far more difficult to justify than the engineering of natural life! It makes more sense to consider that God might have created everything except the soul.

Perhaps the Catholic Church and other religions have simply gotten it backwards?

That is exactly our conclusion: the entities which religions identify as souls have, in effect, always existed. And it is this very existence, in a state of non-consciousness, which will provide us with a credible motivation for the creation of the universe.

Mon 06/21/10 15:16