Remaking the Spell of Supernatural Belief

Secularists argue that consciousness and the angst of existence and purpose do not depend on supernatural beliefs like religions. In fact, Daniel Dennett in 2006 wrote a whole book about breaking the spell of religion with secularism. However, Dennett's secularism then goes on to declare many diverse beliefs in in all kinds of moral and ethical values and emphasize that these beliefs are based on secular and not religious values...in which he simply believes. Instead of breaking the spell of religion, secularism should rather remake the spell of supernatural belief.

Consciousness is a somewhat mysterious but integral part of existence and yet even very smart people cannot seem to agree about the nature of consciousness. Religions believe in various supernatural agents as a necessary part of consciousness and purpose, but secularists seems to believe that there is no need for any beliefs in supernatural religious agents...ironically a belief in nonbelief.

Nevertheless, secular beliefs are just that...beliefs. Secular beliefs anchor consciousness just as do religious beliefs and really there is no difference between anchors of supernatural religious beliefs and supernatural secular beliefs for addressing the angst of existence and purpose. Secularism should not therefore deny supernatural belief, rather secularism should remake the spell of supernatural religion into a supernatural compassionate selfism.

The basic supernatural selfist beliefs are of matter and action, which are the self-evident axioms that describe the universe existence. Secularism cannot further define either matter or action and must simply accept matter and action as supernatural belief in the way the universe is. A traditional personification of matter is Mother Earth while that of action is Father Time. Instead of fighting against all of the various supernatural religious agents, secularism should simply accept the mystery of the supernatural agents of Earth and Time.

People believe in a great many different religious supernatural agents, but the greatest growth over the last century has been in the secularists who proclaim little or no religious affiliation as the figure shows. Johnson and Grimm compared world religious beliefs in 1910 with those in 2010 and found the greatest percent growth in secularism, 12%. Islam grew 10%, from 13 to 23% from 1910 to 2010, but the growth in Islam largely reflects the population growth of the less developed world according to a Pew study. In contrast, the growth of secularism seems to have come from conversion and not from population growth.

The marked decline in various ethnic religions of -20% seems to have been the result of both lower population growth in advanced regions as well as conversion into secularism. Thus while the growth of Islam has been driven largely by population growth, the growth of secularism has been driven by conversion. The large growth of Islam is a result of higher fertility rates and all of the attendant demands for limited resources of that increasing population. In contrast, the growth of secularism is a result of increasing wealth, education, life expectancy, and lower fertility rates and more efficient use of the same limited resources.

In 1910, secularism was a very small part of global belief and most people believed in one of the many religions. The explosive growth of secularism since 1910 seems to be associated with increasing literacy, education, wealth, life expectancy, and with more efficient use of limited resources in the more advanced world. The industrial and information revolutions have ironically resulted in the rise of secularism as well as a decline in fertility rates below replacement in the more advanced world. Ironically, though, the industrial and information revolutions have also fueled the high fertility rates of the less developed world and so are also largely responsible for the growth of Islam.

The fertility rates of the less developed world are now fueling a mass migration from less into more developed regions and those migrations result in many social pressures. The collisions between the two largest growing beliefs, first secularism and second Islam, is perhaps the contact that produces the most friction. In Europe, secularism is 50% while in China, it is 60% while other developed nations range from 20-50% secularism as noted in Paul Harrison's recent essay.

Most modern world religions including Islam have adapted very well to each other as well as to the rise in secularism despite having conflicting beliefs, but there is a very radical minority in Islam that violently rejects conflicting beliefs. This Islamic minority not only rejects any acquiescence with secularism, but also rejects any acquiescence with other religions including mainstream Islam.

The minority Islamist conflict is simply a manifestation of Earth's overpopulation and therefore represents a competition for Earth's limited resources. Since Earth's population is still growing, there will likely be more conflicts, especially between secularism and violent religious minorities. Wealth, education, and life expectancy seem to be keys for both capping population growth as well as converting more people to secular beliefs, but religious belief will likely to continue to have an enduring role in the developed world.

Let There Be Light

Light's determinate geodesic path through space and time at constant velocity, c, represents the most fundamental action of mainstream science. In fact, science only know that the world exists because observers see light traveling at constant velocity and that constant velocity means that energy is equivalent to mass and also that space and time shrink and dilate with increasing relative velocity.

Discrete aether defines the action of light instead as an oscillation of aether with matter and not time and matter oscillates in a universe of matter bonded by light exchange. Bonded by aether exchange light moving through space and time bonds matter with light photon exchanges are stationary aether oscillations in the primitive coordinates of matter and action and it is the decay of aether shrinkage everywhere that observers see stationary aether oscillations that they call light. The observers of the universe flow to the aether oscillations of stationary light by aether exchange and it is not light that moves to observers from sources.

The equivalence of matter and energy is also fundamental in aethertime as it is in spacetime, but instead of space and time, it is the action of aether exchange that defines light as an oscillation. And it is from aether decay that space and time emerge from the action of aether.

We only know about the universe because of our encounters with light and so we quite naturally think of light moving from sources to observers in rather straight determinate paths. Thoughts that observers and the universe somehow shrinks toward the light are already confused concepts because of the use of terms that presume space and time. When we interact with a photon of light from a source, for some very short quantum decay time our matter becomes part of the source and the source becomes part of us. Therefore that quantum phase decay time is a very important part of physical reality.

Since energy is equivalent to mass, the energy of light is equivalent to an aether exchange oscillation with the aether field. Thus the action of light is equivalent to an exchange of aether at a frequency, ω, relative to the universe phase decay, m_dot. Time and space both emerge from the natural oscillation and decay of the universe and that natural spontaneous oscillation and decay is the way things change.

Photons in science are states of vacuum oscillators and those oscillators fill empty space with an infinity of ground state energies. Aether photons are also an oscillation, but now of the very large but finite number of aether particles that make up the universe. Aether does not fill the empty vacuum of space over time but instead our notions of space and time emerge from the oscillation and decay of aether particle phase.

Instead of filling space with an infinity of vacuum oscillators for the action of photons of light, space and time emerge from the action of light as aether and the action of aether is what defines space and time in aethertime.

Ancient versus Today's Warrior Stories

Ancient warrior stories like that of Achilles in Homer's Iliad involve three different periods. The period of the Trojan war some 3200 years ago, some 400 years after the Trojan war 2800 years ago when Homer wrote his story, and today, when people still read and retell Achilles warrior stories like they happened yesterday. A recent essay in Aeon goes into much detail about Achilles' honor and propitiation where honor means redressing insult with anger by killing and pillage and propitiate means gaining the good will of the gods, usually also by killing and pillage but also by compassion and friendship within your own warrior culture. In modern times people still retell these ancient warrior stories and therefore in some sense continue to perpetuate these stories.

The Aeon essay retells stories about the brutality of warriors like Achilles, but also relates the compassion and friendship within Achilles' warrior culture. It really is not that clear that honor and propitiation are much more than justification for the angry selfishness of killing and pillage of one group by another group...or is it purely defense? Really, there are a large number of justifications for the selfish killing and pillage of war but the main one always seems to be competition for limited resources and a desire to acquire wealth and power, whether defensive or offensive. After all, the defense of one's own property and life is also the provenience of the warrior.

Civilization today faces yet another paroxysm of warrior stories driven by a different ideology than Achilles, but with much the same result...lots of people die with lots of property destroyed or taken from them by warriors for one reason or another. There seems to be issues with honor today as well as propitiation driving today's warrior cultures, and yet the essay does not draw the obvious comparisons of warrior stories of the past with those of today.

It seems that this retelling of Achilles' warrior stories after 2800 years avoids the obvious comparisons to the warrior stories of today. Killing for insult out of anger takes lives and property and fulfills one group's selfishness while sharing of the spoils and cooperation fulfills another group's compassion. However, only a very small fraction of people are part of today's warrior stories and the rest of us just read and repeat stories we hear from storytellers.

The obvious follow-on issue is the continuing desire of civilization to retell these ancient stories in all of their guises and therefore provide the seed for future warrior paroxysms. After all, people retell the stories that move them and forget the stories that do not move them. In a sense, the continuing popularity of warrior stories reflects a fundamental dynamic between compassion and selfishness that is as valid today as it was for Homer in his Achilles.

Wars then are not really an aberration of human nature but war is a part of human nature and warriors provide just another way for civilization to redistribute limited resources among different peoples with different ideologies. As civilization advances now to 7 billion people, it is clear that the warrior cults are a very small fraction of people but still a large number of people like to hear and retell warrior stories. Warrior stories still persist today because there are still limited resources and therefore conflicts among ideologies and warriors still one way to reallocate resources and power by killing and pillage.