Friday, August 08, 2003

I return to the notion that our evolution has been modified by a nonhuman intelligence. There is a node in our brains that exhibits spikes of electrical activity when the subject is experiencing religious ecstasy. An instant God-fix. As Burroughs would have said, "a man within." Darwinism explains our propensity for religion as a mechanism for maintaining solidarity among members of a tribe or group. It might be this simple, or the node studied by neurotheologians might be a genetic graft designed to keep us Earth-bound. Our species' violent history is a reflection of our devotion to Belief and the power if wields over us.

Charles Fort: "We are property." Religion is an invisible fence, trapping us on an increasingly hazardous planet. Perhaps the only way we can conquer it is by daring to modify the holy scripture of our own DNA.

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