Not Just Physical and Intellectual Beings

http://transhumanity.net/baggage-culture-and-why-embracing-transhumanism-doesnt-come-easy/

Baggage Culture and Why Embracing Transhumanism Doesn’t Come Easy

Zoltan Istvan
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'The twisted history of our baggage culture extends back many millennia. It started long ago with the inception of civilization, when charismatic leaders and ruling clans began forming permanent communities. Over time, these rulers learned they could preserve their platforms of power by controlling their communities’ thinking and behavioral patterns. Their agendas were simple: dominate with fear through violence; stifle revolutionary and freethinking ambitions; teach adherence to leadership and community before self; implement forms of thought and behavioral control that encourage social cooperation and production, such as communal customs, prayers, taboos, and rites. Variations abounded, but these were the early convoluted versions of human culture and its main intent: to control. Henceforth, culture’s core function became a means of forcing conformity, to transform the individual into a tool of submission and production for the ruling elite.'
...

This makes it sound as though 'culturalization' has been wholly successful in producing forced conformity and in controlling the lot of us.

I would argue that physics trumps culture.

A long time ago I learned this :  For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Now I'm no scientist; I'm not a mathematician; I'm no expert on anything at all.

But this bit stuck itself somewhere in my mind and out it has popped just now in 'reaction' to someone seeming to imply that I have no will of my own but am simply a product of 'culturalization'.

My gut tells me that we as a species aren't all that easily 'controlled' - else there would be no independent thinkers among us at all by now, and obviously there are among us those who evidently can and do 'think outside the box'.

When we're pushed, we push back; or, just standing still will have the effect of making the pushing force rebound back in the direction from whence it came.

Either way, it's action-reaction.

And the thought crosses my mind: is Zoltan generating action, or is it a reaction?

While I'm being abstract, here's another question: Is atheism the consequence of religion having pushed too far and too hard?

I'm thinking back to the times of my stories again ... it wasn't until rome started quashing diversity that Christianity loomed powerful, a force to be reckoned with not just spiritually but secularly. 

A person's Faith wasn't a personal Choice any more; all citizens of the Holy Roman Empire were automatically Roman Christians, unless I'm seriously misinterpreting my research. It was no longer a matter of personal spirituality; it was mandated.

Me being me, I have my doubts that the sole interest was in the well-being of anybody's soul. More likely it had something to do with a couple of other things, namely a power base and financial considerations.

While the strategy apparently worked to a degree, it also ended up eventually setting off a backlash in opposition. The Protestants broke with the main church. AND there were elements, Christians, who never did conform.

Also, the apparent success of the roman church in its bid for control wasn't happening in a vacuum. The East was without a doubt watching and learning. And up springs a counter-religion. 'If they can do it, we can too.' 

And so the diversity of religions narrowed and the competition was on; at least that's my take on it.

What does this have to do with transhumanism or atheism you ask.

There has to be Balance. 

It's that PHI thing again, the Spiral, the Golden Mean, yada yada.

When religion seems to dominate (I'm talking about organized religion here, not personal spirituality) there's got to be an equal and opposite move. Hence the rejection of religion and focus on technology.

Likewise when technology seems to dominate there's going to be an equal and opposite move - people looking to spirituality as a balance for the tech world we live in. 

With organized religion increasingly being recognized as not entirely benevolent there's pressure from two fronts on us - and we start to look within our own selves because the outside forces of technology and religion aren't bringing us much of anything except a 'choice' between them as to which is 'in control' of us. They aren't offering us the balance we need and want - both want full and utter control of us.

With these outside forces bombarding us, is it any wonder that more of us are beginning to look inward to find our own balance? 

Just as physical balance is maintained by adhering to the simplicity of ergonomics (we're designed to function best when we pay attention to the requirements of that design, so posture actually does matter) and one tiny part of our bodies (the inner ear) is vital to our balance, so too is our emotional or spiritual balance maintained by paying attention to the design requirements - and the 'regulating factor' may very well be an elusive but vital 'something' that lies within us each and all.

Because we've made enormous advances in science, we know the importance of our inner ears.

Maybe further advances in other areas will one day show us the importance of that 'something' which helps us to find and maintain our spiritual balance and personal Peace.

We are not just physical and intellectual beings. We have a spiritual part to us as well - for lack of a better term.

When we lose our physical balance, what do we do? We reach out and construct for ourselves a third contact point to stabilize our stance.

By focusing on the two points of physical and intellectual existence, I think that Zoltan and the others risk losing sight of the value of that third component, the one that stabilizes us.