Jamaal Lowe
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Jamaal Lowe commented on Is the Soul Linked to the Brain? on July 17, 2008, 4:28 AM
From a Judeo-Christian standpoint, the soul is defined as the mating of the spirit, which is undertstood to be the breath of God, with the physical body, which is made of the same elements of all of the universe, specifically, taken from the earth. This is how the produce of the earth, from the plant to the animal kingdom, cycles through life (energy assimilation) and decomposition (or death, energy entropy) as one self-sustaining organism. The key is, the being-ness of man is developed, or, made self-aware, through experience in the physical world. To experience the physical world as an entity called man, man must have a physical body. Without a physical body of some form, there is no soul, only spirit. Hence, the importance put on the idea, in Judeo-Christian thinking, of ressurrection (into a new type of body). The spirit is what remains in existence, aware, after the body dies, but without a physical body, the spirit cannot express itself in the physical world as something called a man, or, human being.
Jamaal Lowe commented on Re: What is your definition of God? 100 words or less. on July 17, 2008, 4:10 AM
What has been the main reason that cultures or peoples have chosen to follow certain religious beliefs and devote themselves in service to a god, or gods, all throughout history? The reason is to ensure survival. Agricultural societies devoted themselves to pleasing storm gods, who could ensure bountiful crops from year-to-year; highly political societies chose to revere war gods who could ensure their victory in battle and the survival of soldiers who could live to tell the tale. One of the primary tenents of established science is something called the Scientific Method; in short summary it basically states that if an effect or process is capable of being measured, consistently, and the effect is capable of being produced again, within the same circumstances, then it must be true. Agricultural societies continued to revere their chosen storm god, as long as this god continued to provide plentiful rains for their crops; if the rains ceased, and the peoples could not appease their god or gods through their actions to invoke the entity to bring rains again---they found another storm god. Dietal assimilation, promotion and evolution has been observed throughout a number of civilizations, recent and ancient; the question in terms of Christianity from a scientific standpoint then becomes...has the Christian God changed? Has the Christian God been able to manifest measurable effects in civilizations, consistently? Does the Christian God ensure the survival of those people who chose to believe in and serve it? The question of personal well-being is one mainly to be answered and experienced by those who follow the Christian God, but the tasks of measuring the consistency of the Christian God in civilizations, and it's ability to ensure the survival of those who chose to appease and serve it, can be observed and measured by everyone. So...how is a god known, observed, understood to be a god? Via the people.
Jamaal Lowe commented on Religion in a Modern World on July 17, 2008, 4:04 AM
What has been the main reason that cultures or peoples have chosen to follow certain religious beliefs and devote themselves in service to a god, or gods, all throughout history? The reason is to ensure survival. Agricultural societies devoted themselves to pleasing storm gods, who could ensure bountiful crops from year-to-year; highly political societies chose to revere war gods who could ensure their victory in battle and the survival of soldiers who could live to tell the tale. One of the primary tenents of established science is something called the Scientific Method; in short summary it basically states that if an effect or process is capable of being measured, consistently, and the effect is capable of being produced again, within the same circumstances, then it must be true. Agricultural societies continued to revere their chosen storm god, as long as this god continued to provide plentiful rains for their crops; if the rains ceased, and the peoples could not appease their god or gods through their actions to invoke the entity to bring rains again---they found another storm god. Dietal assimilation, promotion and evolution has been observed throughout a number of civilizations, recent and ancient; the question in terms of Christianity from a scientific standpoint then becomes...has the Christian God changed? Has the Christian God been able to manifest measurable effects in civilizations, consistently? Does the Christian God ensure the survival of those people who chose to believe in and serve it? The question of personal well-being is one mainly to be answered and experienced by those who follow the Christian God, but the tasks of measuring the consistency of the Christian God in civilizations, and it's ability to ensure the survival of those who chose to appease and serve it, can be observed and measured by everyone.
Jamaal Lowe commented on What is the new African-American experience? on July 17, 2008, 3:25 AM
For me, the experience has been the ability to expand my awareness and define myself by more myriad interests and thoughts other than being overly occupied by the external color of my skin, and what others around have agreed what that means or symbolizes. My definition of who I am and what role I can possibly play on the world stage is expanded to the point where cultural and/or ethnic identifications have become secondary to other ideas and ideals I have and cleave to while--while, at the same time, this expanded definition of the self would probably have been severely hindered if I was continuosly made to focus more and more on skin color, and taught to believe that skin color or ethnicity actually defined what a person was capable of thinking, and henceforth, doing...as still occurs in some parts of the world. I see this all as a result of cultural assimilation on the global scale anyway, but can still appreciate the value and beauty of those cultures who chose to retain a strong identification of the individual as an extension and expression of, the greater cultural and ethnic whole.
I am interested in catalyzing the realization of the various ideas and conceptualizations I have come up with over the years as a result of harnessing my creative imagination, and developing practical, real-life applications for them...my concentrations have specifically been genetics and the direct pharmacological effects of molecules on biological entities, and how to tie in how electrical impulses emanating at the quantum level are responsible for the direction these molecules 'know' to take...in other words, how molecular structures contain the idea, or 'code', and flashes of energy provide the raw driving power, or command to 'execute'...there are more ideas I can go into, specifically one entailing how learning to harness that energy and focus it on executing certain programs or 'codes' that we decide upon is what actually creates our perception of reality around us...but I'll save that for my book, lol...besides that, I've also played music since I was little, written stories and poems, and have recently gotten into acting, since finding that taking an acting class my sophomore year of college helped expand my creative expression...I also enjoy suping up cars in my spare time but now that I'm on my fifth one, I think I'll take it easy and stick with the Acura for a while...obviously these are very far-ranging interests and takes a lot of time and energy to have active pursuits in each one, but I have a curious, actively-imaginative mind that just can't help but break down all of this information into logical, concrete concepts to figure out how they all fit into the bigger picture...because another theory of mine is, that there is a big picture, and if you can not only assimilate data but also figure out how it all relates to each other, and how these different systems at different scales all fit together, then the bigger picture will become clear. The world's a box of Legos, and I'm putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Working outside the rules, of course, because I threw away the script.
Jamaal Lowe commented on Is the Soul Linked to the Brain? on July 19, 2008, 4:38 PM
Oh, and this also addresses Lorent's post, concerning the existence of the 'I'...the god of the Bible when questioned about his identity, identified himself as, 'I AM'...that which is, and does not change, and remains completely aware...sounds like a consciousness to me