Latest addition to my library.
My expectation going into it is that it is going to be fairly syncretic with my existing perspective, cosmology, philosophy, etc.
Very much looking forward to reading this (with a grain of salt, as always).
Discussion
Dive head first into a pool of salt by reading the works of Daniel Quinn.
It obliterates every human cosmo-philosophy and the only thing left standing is Animism.
It's benevolently blasphemous.
Imagine an author asserting that the Bible was written by Semitic herders who were calling the agricultural revolution an abomination, that farming enables unnatural surplus, giving farmers operational superiority over all competitors human and non, thus infusing the farmer's culture with a superiority complex that gave rise to the belief that they could choose winners and losers, as if they possess the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of who may live and who may die. (All competitors must be deprived of food and wiped out, which is right for Man to do.) This is the apple that Adam wasn't supposed to eat, according to Quinn.
And Cain the farmer repeatedly murders Abel the herder (and all the other indigenous tribes of the world) by forcing agriculture on every people throughout the world, even now, as if it's the one right way for all people to live.
This is scratching the surface of what Quinn likes to write about. It's probably not for everyone, but it's welcome food for thought in my head.
Interesting narrative. Have you checked out the video in my NOSTR profile, Episode 074 of the Illegitimate Scholar podcast?
It's long, but hard hitting. If you duplicate my research, you'll have a much clearer view of my perspective, but that 3 hour show is a really big bite.
My current perspective is that Adam and Eve occurred approximately 75,000 years ago and had to do with the first proto-humans to achieve the spiritual accomplishment of "self-awareness".
The serpent is there to symbolize the activation of a chakra. In this case, the spiritual accomplishment of self-awareness is associated with the activation of the solarplexus chakra. On Earth, animals other than humans are born not self-aware but can become self aware while animals at which point, when they die, they reincarnate as "first round humans" with the root, sacral, and solarplexus chakras activated.
Lucifer's role in the Garden was catalyzing this chakra activation because Earth was struggling to develop any species with self-awareness. All animals in "paradise" were essentially NPC bots running instinctual sub-routines. This was not desirable by the very purpose of existence itself: creation. We want creation to arise as it is interesting and entertaining. God diasporated into the universe and occupies each of us with consciousness in order to experience limited, finite perspective, because omniscience is boring after like 2 seconds.
It is common for us to do the same thing to animals today. Often times we remark that a puppy in training has "imprinted" upon his/her trainer. The puppy, as a result of being given a name, and plenty of choices along with a reward system for making the desired choices, develops a sense of self. It also helps that the puppy realizes that it has its own food and water bowls, its own places to sleep, etc. All of this develops a sense that the puppy is a self. When the solarplexus chakra activates, the puppy experiences "spirit" for the first time. I suspect it might be like experiencing pins and needles or chills for the first time but throughout the nervous system and in a pleasant way. The puppy attributes this pleasant feeling to the human who was training them and becomes attached to that human as a result.
It makes sense to me that self-awareness is a prerequisite to making a choice to polarize towards service to others (good) or service to the self (evil). Note that service to others orientation is not exclusive of self-service. Some amount of self-service is baked in as we must all satisfy the demands of our biological vulnerabilities.
My basis for this perspective can be supported by science in a number of ways. I lay a lot of that out in the episode I mentioned.
Like you, I'm appreciative of food for thought and I often glean valuable insights from people with whom I do not agree on many things so I remain pretty open. Thank you for the rec and for reading this wall of text if you got this far lol.
That episode of Illegitimate Scholar sounds interesting! Thanks.
And the talk about the puppy's experience engendering a sense of self, this makes me think of neuroplasticity, which is also really interesting, and in my opinion, connected to this area of discussion.