In his 2003 book, The God Part of the Brain, Alper says that with the advent of self-conscious awareness, humans became the first animal that could conceive of its own mortality and inevitable death. In order to survive the excruciating anxiety produced by this awareness, a cognitive mechanism was selected into us that compelled us to believe in an alternate, spiritual reality, one that allowed us to perceive ourselves as able to transcend physical death and therefore live forever in a type of afterlife.
Well thats the gist of all of it , isn't it ? There's the one chief feature of the evolved mechanisms within our brains that has given rise to a consciousness of self & self awareness only witnessed in maybe 3 other mammals.
Its a vast enough experience for us to get lost in as it is all that we think we experience in life . The natural tendency is to always think theres something greater to it all , something greater "out there" , well there really is with 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars out there all blazing away , there's definitely alot to consider we are part of now . For the older folks that built all those monoliths in their civilizations one ties together that unique rise self awareness that also connects us to that knowledge of death in the face of all that seems eternal .
The strongest urge emerges to defeat that death by any way possible and by the shear size of those stones & all that effort to drag them along then position with such perfection shows just how immense this knowledge of death spurned & motivated us . Defeating death is the ultimate trial of Hercules , Prometheus, Jesus , Mohammed ...and sure it was also for the Incans & Aztecs to blaze with the same glory of the immortals .
Powerful stuff really , we have no less going on here today under the "Flag of Freedom " from tyranny , truth justice for all ,we celebrate . |
