Humans must grow up in a social environment – a baby alone is soon dead. For the rest of our lives we live in a hierarchy ruled by parents, bullies, leaders or amorphous entities like society or government. Naturally, like fish who take water for granted, we assume the universe must be structured the same way .
The easiest concept is animism, where everything has a spirit and connects with a greater spirit. This seems to have been practiced for all ahistoric people for a very long time and still seems sensible to those who like to imagine a vast spiritualism to the universe. Sometimes it is refined into religions like Taoism .
Historic agrarian cultures with writing and formal government organization imagined a kind of supernatural governing elite. The most fun of those were the Greek gods, awesome and stupid at the same time. The worst was the Old testament God of the desert. But all those superheroes needed to be appeased and prayed to .
The question has always been who speaks to or for the spirit or god. Shamans and priests and prophets claim exclusive rights. Individuals claim intimate direct communication. Skeptics explain bits of cheese or festering neurons .
I admit to being somewhat of a skeptic, while at the same time feeling the natural (as if I were a fish) belief that there must be more to existence than we are aware of .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 