The God 'spot' in the brain
- Thread starter Medicine*Woman
- Start date
And how much has humanity evolved? You see, you claim to be a rationalist these days, but you don't seem to know the science you profess to believe!MedecineWoman said:
If there is such a structure, what on earth would make it evolve away? The fact that it may not be used as much nowadays? That's 19th Century Lamarckism. Evolution takes more than a handful of millennia to take effect!
Instead of books "proving" that Moses was an Egyptian pharaoh (as a mythical folk hero, isn't just easier to believe he's altogether imaginary?) I recommend you read some Richard Dawkins, for preference The Blind Watchmaker, and the one I just bought yesterday, A Devil's Chaplain.
Silas: And how much has humanity evolved? You see, you claim to be a rationalist these days, but you don't seem to know the science you profess to believe!
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M*W: I believe humans have evolved quite a bit in the past 30,000 years, but we're not finished yet. Our brain and mindpower have evolved probably more than our bodies. We know how to create eternal life, but we haven't done it just yet.
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Silas: If there is such a structure, what on earth would make it evolve away? The fact that it may not be used as much nowadays? That's 19th Century Lamarckism. Evolution takes more than a handful of millennia to take effect!
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M*W: And it may take a handful more millennia before we become homo spiritus.
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Silas: Instead of books "proving" that Moses was an Egyptian pharaoh (as a mythical folk hero, isn't just easier to believe he's altogether imaginary?) I recommend you read some Richard Dawkins, for preference The Blind Watchmaker, and the one I just bought yesterday, A Devil's Chaplain.
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M*W: I've been doing more reading on the fictional characters of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, but what that boils down to is that pharaonic Egypt, Judaism, and of course Christianity, are all false. Is that what the evolution of the collective human mind has given us? If these characters didn't exist, then do we?
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M*W: I believe humans have evolved quite a bit in the past 30,000 years, but we're not finished yet. Our brain and mindpower have evolved probably more than our bodies. We know how to create eternal life, but we haven't done it just yet.
*************
Silas: If there is such a structure, what on earth would make it evolve away? The fact that it may not be used as much nowadays? That's 19th Century Lamarckism. Evolution takes more than a handful of millennia to take effect!
*************
M*W: And it may take a handful more millennia before we become homo spiritus.
*************
Silas: Instead of books "proving" that Moses was an Egyptian pharaoh (as a mythical folk hero, isn't just easier to believe he's altogether imaginary?) I recommend you read some Richard Dawkins, for preference The Blind Watchmaker, and the one I just bought yesterday, A Devil's Chaplain.
*************
M*W: I've been doing more reading on the fictional characters of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, but what that boils down to is that pharaonic Egypt, Judaism, and of course Christianity, are all false. Is that what the evolution of the collective human mind has given us? If these characters didn't exist, then do we?
This is semi-mystical, and there's no more evidence for the brainpower having evolved than there is for the God of Abraham. And exactly how do we create eternal life, then, because that is news to me!MedicineWoman said:
I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Can you clarify?MedicineWoman said:
marv said:
Nope, that' just the stupid computers I use at college. My posts often take about half-an-hour to be sent, so I get annoyed and click the "submit reply" button many times......
Religious orgasm? Ever heard of Kama Sutra!?
Oh, and btw, the proper term is "spiritual" orgasm. Religion is to spirituality as a virus is to bacteria.
And mutualism is the greatest sign of evolution....
Silas: This is semi-mystical, and there's no more evidence for the brainpower having evolved than there is for the God of Abraham.
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M*W: That's just my opinion for what its worth.
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Silas: And exactly how do we create eternal life, then, because that is news to me!I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Can you clarify?
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M*W: Stem cells.
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M*W: That's just my opinion for what its worth.
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Silas: And exactly how do we create eternal life, then, because that is news to me!I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Can you clarify?
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M*W: Stem cells.
invert_nexus said:
I was being sarcastic when I said it was absurd. That religious mutation must have had one hell of a survival benefit in order to have survived that long. I wonder how it worked with grunts and snorts.. Don't you think it is fantastic for one or a few individuals to have wanted to evangelize their animism or other beliefs in a community where such a thing would have been unheard of? And for everyone or most to be so gullible as to accept it in rejection of the previous absence of belief is also hard to believe - it suggests a predisposition since there does not appear to be any other good reason for them to change direction so abruptly. Perhaps there was some sort of leader who persuaded the others to join in but. The benefits of today were obviously not available and so it would take an impossibly willing audience and some fanatical evangelists to propagate the beliefs. On the other hand, the unbelievers could simply have died off and the religious simply became the majority - but that too seems unlikely. The most likely scenarios to me are these however:
1)Some unexplainable and fearsome event witnessed in broad daylight led them to infer spirits. This could have been lightning or some other 'simple' occurence.
2)They feared death and inferred spirits of the dead. Not too long of a stretch from that, they soon came up with spirits of the living. This could very well have followed from #1, where a volcano eruption or other natural disaster caused widespread death.
3)They were avid teleologists.
Don't forget to mention it is only as strong as its carrier.
Where did language come from then if feral children are unable to create their own language? Also what makes a person resistant to society's ready made religion? Genes? And what survival benefits did our great ancestors enjoy from religion that we no longer *need*? Comfort? Hope? Is it that we now place hope in ourselves, in the tangible, in the "reasonable" things? And what precipitated this change? Europe is reputed to have turned away from the dark ages of religion into Thomas Paine's 'Age of Reason' with the dawn of the Enlightenment. But tribal villages in Africa, South America, which have not been marred by civilization - they are not very far religion-wise from our ancestors. Did logic kill God? Logic which stemmed from the same language which nurtured religion. And so are logic and religion diametrically opposed?
As for feral children, yes they do not have language, but it is rather difficult to ascertain what they think and what they believe as a result of this 'handicap'. Language is the only way we know of communicating spirituality but must we so hastily conclude the feral child is devoid of spirituality just because they do not demonstrate it in any of the 'normal' ways? It might be different from what we would determine to be 'spirituality', but we simply can never tell because of the communication breach. It strikes me that the spirituality we are familiar does not have to be the only spirituality there is.
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I think the key is to remember that they may simply not understand how to show of their spirituality or even know that it is 'spirituality' without language. This again is no indicator of an absence. We may never know, but it is premature to dismiss the possibility, no?
It's from the Harvard quote and is also what I was hinting at above. Will the child raised without religion, after suffering breaking setdowns one after the other, develop their own form of spirituality as a sort of coping mechanism? I understand and agree with what you say later, the term is vague. And so I view it as a sort of coping mechanism, or at least what starts out as a coping mechanism and maturates (as is possibly the case of our ancestors), and not just some 'deep' feeling.
Take 'Genie' for example, is it possible just like our ancestors she developed her own way of dealing with the pain of deprivation?
Makes good sense to me and I agree with all but I'll wait to see what you have to say about my comments on the feral children.
Funny for who?
the missing link in all this--as per usual (i speak from forum experience)--is hallucinogenic experience. You seem to ignore this factor yet if you took the trouble to research you'd find that THE most common spiritual inspirator among our ancestors and Indigenous peoples has been A hallucinogenic sacramant which gives a spiritual feeling with community and Nature. And that it has been the patriarchy that has ruthlessly not only suppressed the taking of this sacramanet whereever its oppressive fist has got to, but also suppresses the very MEMORY of it anient use. This is evident if one asked the average person on the street. They presume all of that began in the 1960s with the Hippies!
So i am understanding the insight of animism--understanding Nature to be alive would be greatly inspired from the use of hallucinogens--and i also speak from personal experience, not just intellectual research. All of this is on mythical writings for you to see, if you get the hang of how it is transitted. the pattern running through. Even the patriarchal subversion of the earth religions give the game away from what the condemn, and so on
Next question: is all of what is experienced on hallucinogens hallucination which materialistic science denounces as false and not 'real truth'........Well i am arguing that materialistic's very position IS a religion and a dogmatic one at that. Though it will deny it, and is unconscious of its own indoctrination.
So i am understanding the insight of animism--understanding Nature to be alive would be greatly inspired from the use of hallucinogens--and i also speak from personal experience, not just intellectual research. All of this is on mythical writings for you to see, if you get the hang of how it is transitted. the pattern running through. Even the patriarchal subversion of the earth religions give the game away from what the condemn, and so on
Next question: is all of what is experienced on hallucinogens hallucination which materialistic science denounces as false and not 'real truth'........Well i am arguing that materialistic's very position IS a religion and a dogmatic one at that. Though it will deny it, and is unconscious of its own indoctrination.
Duendy, I would say there is a link and some ingluence, but I wouldn't say there is necessarily a direct relationship between them. I will ponder on that, I guess....
Southstar,
It does, doesn't it? Haven't you yourself personally witnessed the lengths people will go to justify themselves to their religion and their religion to themselves? Haven't you seen the sacrifices that people are willing to make when they TRULY believe in their religion? Nowadays so many 'religious' just pay lip service to their faith and don't even know what it is that they're supposed to believe in. They simply say, "I'm a christian" and expect it to work. Leo may be a fraud, but he's absolutely right about the hypocrisy encouraged by protestant religion's emphasis on forgiveness. But, for those who truly believe in their religion and the consequences of thier faith, then no act is too extreme.
Think on it this way. It may not have a strong survival benefit for an individual at all times. Suicide bombers, as a modern example. But, it does have a strong survival benefit for the group as a whole and for the culture of the group and for the religion itself. Each person that acts in a self-sacrificing manner for the 'good' of the group or religion strengthens the grip that the particular religion has on its host population. It must have meaning for so many great people to have given their lives for it.
Consider the Aztecs sacrificing themselves in the thousands to prevent the end of the world that would come after a 500 year cycle. They were utterly sure of the rightness of their religion and the blood flowed. But, the Aztec religion has died and the sacrifices haven't taken place for over 500 years now and guess what? The world is still here. Fancy that.
It couldn't. Language is required. At least a simple form of language. Language and religion go hand in hand. Language is all that allows us the ability to conceive of the truly abstract of which religion is made.
There is a theory on ritual being a type of symbolic reinforcement that might fit in with this conversation. But then again, it has little to do with with brain, more to do with types of reference and language. I need to come up with a good premise for a thread to discuss this.
Not really. You must consider that the world in which these early peoples lived was a great unknown thing. Symbolic reference and language would have arisen through some other mechanism, social contracts being a likely candidate, and set up the prerequisites for a method of discerning meaning from a meaningless existence.
Pattern seeking combined with symbolic reference. These two things combine perfectly into an animistic view of the world. The world becomes symbolic of the self and the social unit. The world becomes peopled with spirits. Some friendly. Some not. Some appeasing. Some requiring appeasement.
The motivations for one to spread this idea once chanced upon are complex. For one, the person would find himself in a position of power as he is able to mediate between the people and the spirits. For two, the person would be overcome with the sense of discovery and purpose that such an insight provides and I see no reason to doubt that he'd be any less eager to share his revelation than those in the modern day. How many other reasons can be posited for the conceiver of spirits to share his conception? A near infinte number. No. There's nothing strange in his/her behavior.
And the gullibility of the people? Again. They lived in an unknown world and were gifted with pattern seeking combined with symbolic reference. They probably lived in a state of fear and confusion much of the time. They were aware of many causal connections but the meaning behind them were nonexistant and thus eluded the ultimate pattern to which they sought. This revelation would have come over them like a lightning bolt. How could they not fall under its sway? Especially given the conviction that the original conceiver would have likely had. I imagine that he could easily have scared the piss out of them. Perhaps the strange death of a child was explained by witchcraft. By the vile actions of a fellow tribe member or maybe an enemy tribe. Burn the witch!!! What a wash of pleasure would likely wash over these people knowing that, at last, they've done something about these strange occurences. At last they're not completely at the mercy of their environment. At last they have some control. Illusory control, you say? Burn the 'witch' and the deaths still continue? Well, so what? There's always more witches to burn and the illusion of control is just as powerful as the reality of control.
On the contrary, the benefits of then are not present today. This is why religion is outdated and should be eradicated. Or at least put on the back shelf for a time when it may be required again.
These people were not possessed of the defense mechanism against the illusions of religion which the people have today. The religion was raw and primal. It tapped into their primal state. In fact, the people who were the original religion were probably not even homo sapiens. The people themselves were more primal and raw.
Or killed off. Probably a combination.
Consider that religion is ultimately an expression of that abstract reasoning which makes humans human. It is a test of that aspect of ourselves that seperates us from the animals. Those unable to conceive of the abstract ideas which religion expresses could only be a hindrance and a genetic throwback. Unworthy of life as humans. It's no great wonder that they didn't survive.
Lightning, thunder, total eclipse of the sun, the change of the seasons, the tide, tidal waves, the lst is endless of things which evade a simple understanding and which call directly to a anthropomorphic reasoning. I.e. animism.
Certainly. Some would be obsessed with they dead. Why did they die? When will I die? Will I know its coming? Will I have the opportunity to continue my existence in some manner? And what of dreams? The dead still live in dreams. And then there's the hallucinations of both the natural mind and the drug-induced hallucinations in which the dead may walk as well as other things.
Yes. That's what I've been saying all along. Pattern seekers. Addicted to patterns. Far more than avid. Obsessed.
It's a bootstrapping process. Each carries the other higher and higher.
That's the thing. The knowledge of feral children we have is incomplete. We know of only isolated feral children. Language requires more than one. And likely more than two or three. It requires a group. And it requires components to work with.
We're down to a point here that can't be further broken down.
Nature/nurture.
Genes, of course, have a bearing on everything we do and are. But nurture is also an important consideration.
Simple. The survival benefits were meaning and purpose. It's not that we don't need these anymore, it's that we now have better means with which to acquire them.
Science.
Yes. Science is not meant to explain why, only how. But, religion is science and philosophy combined. Religion fights science on the how because it contains its own how on which its why is based.
We now have philosophy which can stand seperate from religion.
Science and philosophy are all that is needed.
Religion can exist as philosophy and metaphorically, but it's not designed this way. The writers of the bible weren't speaking in metaphor. They were speaking literally. They believed everything they said.
At least the Catholic church finally admitted they were wrong about denying Galileo's claim on the movement of the Earth. When was that? Two years ago? Three? Four? Can you imagine the gall of it? The 21st century and the church finally admits that the Earth isn't the center of the universe. That's what is wrong with religion in a nutshell. If they stuck with their metaphor then they wouldn't be so dangerous. But they despise knowledge that is not religiously derived.
Oh? You realize that their religion is just that? They've absorbed christianity into their own native religion and the result is an amalgam of beliefs. The same has happenned time and time again throughout history. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, how many examples of paganism survive in Christianity? And the old habit of building shrines on the sites of pagan holy sites. The same thing.
They can be taught language. They will never be masters of language, but they are able to express themselves crudely. But they can't be taught religion. Most of them, anyway. I won't fall into the trap of generalization.
Remember also that the sampling of feral children is too limited to be truly enlightening. Without the forbidden experiment we will never know these things for sure.
What? Chronic masturbation, you mean? Chimpanzees also do the same in captivity.
Genie is a special form of feral child. Not so much feral as abused and neglected. Tied to that chair her whole life.
For me, of course.
It does, doesn't it? Haven't you yourself personally witnessed the lengths people will go to justify themselves to their religion and their religion to themselves? Haven't you seen the sacrifices that people are willing to make when they TRULY believe in their religion? Nowadays so many 'religious' just pay lip service to their faith and don't even know what it is that they're supposed to believe in. They simply say, "I'm a christian" and expect it to work. Leo may be a fraud, but he's absolutely right about the hypocrisy encouraged by protestant religion's emphasis on forgiveness. But, for those who truly believe in their religion and the consequences of thier faith, then no act is too extreme.
Think on it this way. It may not have a strong survival benefit for an individual at all times. Suicide bombers, as a modern example. But, it does have a strong survival benefit for the group as a whole and for the culture of the group and for the religion itself. Each person that acts in a self-sacrificing manner for the 'good' of the group or religion strengthens the grip that the particular religion has on its host population. It must have meaning for so many great people to have given their lives for it.
Consider the Aztecs sacrificing themselves in the thousands to prevent the end of the world that would come after a 500 year cycle. They were utterly sure of the rightness of their religion and the blood flowed. But, the Aztec religion has died and the sacrifices haven't taken place for over 500 years now and guess what? The world is still here. Fancy that.
It couldn't. Language is required. At least a simple form of language. Language and religion go hand in hand. Language is all that allows us the ability to conceive of the truly abstract of which religion is made.
There is a theory on ritual being a type of symbolic reinforcement that might fit in with this conversation. But then again, it has little to do with with brain, more to do with types of reference and language. I need to come up with a good premise for a thread to discuss this.
Not really. You must consider that the world in which these early peoples lived was a great unknown thing. Symbolic reference and language would have arisen through some other mechanism, social contracts being a likely candidate, and set up the prerequisites for a method of discerning meaning from a meaningless existence.
Pattern seeking combined with symbolic reference. These two things combine perfectly into an animistic view of the world. The world becomes symbolic of the self and the social unit. The world becomes peopled with spirits. Some friendly. Some not. Some appeasing. Some requiring appeasement.
The motivations for one to spread this idea once chanced upon are complex. For one, the person would find himself in a position of power as he is able to mediate between the people and the spirits. For two, the person would be overcome with the sense of discovery and purpose that such an insight provides and I see no reason to doubt that he'd be any less eager to share his revelation than those in the modern day. How many other reasons can be posited for the conceiver of spirits to share his conception? A near infinte number. No. There's nothing strange in his/her behavior.
And the gullibility of the people? Again. They lived in an unknown world and were gifted with pattern seeking combined with symbolic reference. They probably lived in a state of fear and confusion much of the time. They were aware of many causal connections but the meaning behind them were nonexistant and thus eluded the ultimate pattern to which they sought. This revelation would have come over them like a lightning bolt. How could they not fall under its sway? Especially given the conviction that the original conceiver would have likely had. I imagine that he could easily have scared the piss out of them. Perhaps the strange death of a child was explained by witchcraft. By the vile actions of a fellow tribe member or maybe an enemy tribe. Burn the witch!!! What a wash of pleasure would likely wash over these people knowing that, at last, they've done something about these strange occurences. At last they're not completely at the mercy of their environment. At last they have some control. Illusory control, you say? Burn the 'witch' and the deaths still continue? Well, so what? There's always more witches to burn and the illusion of control is just as powerful as the reality of control.
On the contrary, the benefits of then are not present today. This is why religion is outdated and should be eradicated. Or at least put on the back shelf for a time when it may be required again.
These people were not possessed of the defense mechanism against the illusions of religion which the people have today. The religion was raw and primal. It tapped into their primal state. In fact, the people who were the original religion were probably not even homo sapiens. The people themselves were more primal and raw.
Or killed off. Probably a combination.
Consider that religion is ultimately an expression of that abstract reasoning which makes humans human. It is a test of that aspect of ourselves that seperates us from the animals. Those unable to conceive of the abstract ideas which religion expresses could only be a hindrance and a genetic throwback. Unworthy of life as humans. It's no great wonder that they didn't survive.
Lightning, thunder, total eclipse of the sun, the change of the seasons, the tide, tidal waves, the lst is endless of things which evade a simple understanding and which call directly to a anthropomorphic reasoning. I.e. animism.
Certainly. Some would be obsessed with they dead. Why did they die? When will I die? Will I know its coming? Will I have the opportunity to continue my existence in some manner? And what of dreams? The dead still live in dreams. And then there's the hallucinations of both the natural mind and the drug-induced hallucinations in which the dead may walk as well as other things.
Yes. That's what I've been saying all along. Pattern seekers. Addicted to patterns. Far more than avid. Obsessed.
It's a bootstrapping process. Each carries the other higher and higher.
That's the thing. The knowledge of feral children we have is incomplete. We know of only isolated feral children. Language requires more than one. And likely more than two or three. It requires a group. And it requires components to work with.
We're down to a point here that can't be further broken down.
Nature/nurture.
Genes, of course, have a bearing on everything we do and are. But nurture is also an important consideration.
Simple. The survival benefits were meaning and purpose. It's not that we don't need these anymore, it's that we now have better means with which to acquire them.
Science.
Yes. Science is not meant to explain why, only how. But, religion is science and philosophy combined. Religion fights science on the how because it contains its own how on which its why is based.
We now have philosophy which can stand seperate from religion.
Science and philosophy are all that is needed.
Religion can exist as philosophy and metaphorically, but it's not designed this way. The writers of the bible weren't speaking in metaphor. They were speaking literally. They believed everything they said.
At least the Catholic church finally admitted they were wrong about denying Galileo's claim on the movement of the Earth. When was that? Two years ago? Three? Four? Can you imagine the gall of it? The 21st century and the church finally admits that the Earth isn't the center of the universe. That's what is wrong with religion in a nutshell. If they stuck with their metaphor then they wouldn't be so dangerous. But they despise knowledge that is not religiously derived.
Oh? You realize that their religion is just that? They've absorbed christianity into their own native religion and the result is an amalgam of beliefs. The same has happenned time and time again throughout history. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, how many examples of paganism survive in Christianity? And the old habit of building shrines on the sites of pagan holy sites. The same thing.
They can be taught language. They will never be masters of language, but they are able to express themselves crudely. But they can't be taught religion. Most of them, anyway. I won't fall into the trap of generalization.
Remember also that the sampling of feral children is too limited to be truly enlightening. Without the forbidden experiment we will never know these things for sure.
What? Chronic masturbation, you mean? Chimpanzees also do the same in captivity.
Genie is a special form of feral child. Not so much feral as abused and neglected. Tied to that chair her whole life.
For me, of course.
Silas: And how much has humanity evolved? You see, you claim to be a rationalist these days, but you don't seem to know the science you profess to believe!
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M*W: I wanted to discuss this further with you. From photographs of bones, skeletons, mummies, etc., it appears to me that humans have evolved from lower animals. However, I am not opposed to looking at this in another way. After the Neanderthals died out (for whatever reasons), Cro-Magnon and Modern Man appeared. I don't believe we evolved from the Neanderthals, but while we were still in an animalistic body, I believe we were somehow inbred by beings of a higher intelligence. I don't exactly know what to call these beings. The Bible calls them "sons of God saw the daughters of men fair and ...". Were these alien beings who intercepted Earth and bred with the daughters of Neanderthals or Cro-Magnon Man? I haven't studied this yet, but I've always thought of it as a possibility.
*************
Silas: Instead of books "proving" that Moses was an Egyptian pharaoh (as a mythical folk hero, isn't just easier to believe he's altogether imaginary?) I recommend you read some Richard Dawkins, for preference The Blind Watchmaker, and the one I just bought yesterday, A Devil's Chaplain.
*************
M*W: I am not against believing that Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus were fictional characters. I just haven't made my final decision on it. They've found relics of King Tut and his father, Moses, so I think Moses is more than an imaginary folk hero. However, if you have further evidence, I'd like to see it. If these characters didn't really exist, that would change the face of Judaism and Christianity. As I see it, that would mean that we're all Egyptians!
Moses's god was Aten, the Sun, also called Ra. Ultimately, the sun was the first "god." Then it became the "sun of god," and "the son of god." I don't believe in any god. All religions have simply twisted this early monotheistic belief to suit their needs. Could it be because the higher intelligence entities came from the skies? I don't know. I'd like to hear more of what you have to say. Thanks.
*************
M*W: I wanted to discuss this further with you. From photographs of bones, skeletons, mummies, etc., it appears to me that humans have evolved from lower animals. However, I am not opposed to looking at this in another way. After the Neanderthals died out (for whatever reasons), Cro-Magnon and Modern Man appeared. I don't believe we evolved from the Neanderthals, but while we were still in an animalistic body, I believe we were somehow inbred by beings of a higher intelligence. I don't exactly know what to call these beings. The Bible calls them "sons of God saw the daughters of men fair and ...". Were these alien beings who intercepted Earth and bred with the daughters of Neanderthals or Cro-Magnon Man? I haven't studied this yet, but I've always thought of it as a possibility.
*************
Silas: Instead of books "proving" that Moses was an Egyptian pharaoh (as a mythical folk hero, isn't just easier to believe he's altogether imaginary?) I recommend you read some Richard Dawkins, for preference The Blind Watchmaker, and the one I just bought yesterday, A Devil's Chaplain.
*************
M*W: I am not against believing that Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus were fictional characters. I just haven't made my final decision on it. They've found relics of King Tut and his father, Moses, so I think Moses is more than an imaginary folk hero. However, if you have further evidence, I'd like to see it. If these characters didn't really exist, that would change the face of Judaism and Christianity. As I see it, that would mean that we're all Egyptians!
Moses's god was Aten, the Sun, also called Ra. Ultimately, the sun was the first "god." Then it became the "sun of god," and "the son of god." I don't believe in any god. All religions have simply twisted this early monotheistic belief to suit their needs. Could it be because the higher intelligence entities came from the skies? I don't know. I'd like to hear more of what you have to say. Thanks.