the formation of new religions, apotheosis, and their relationships to philosophy

most americans would agree that scientology is weird. what was the impetus of its creation? like 'real' religions, both have aspects of self help built into them, as well as tidbits of philosophy regarding how to view the world and interact with it. so at what point does a philosophy become a religion? or a self help toolkit become a religion?

furthermore, at what point does a man or woman become a god? many gods, saints and other religious figures we read about as being mythical beings were actually real humans who did (presumably) admirable things in life. their followers kept talking them up for years and years, generations and generations, to the point where deification occurred and they became mythical beings in the collective consciousness. 

jesus is a classic example, but consider also the ancient egyptian god of medicine, imhotep. he was an actual man who lived in the 27th century BC in egypt as a chancellor to the pharaoh, doing no doubt many kingly things, but it wasn't until 2,000 years after his death that people began equating him with a god of medicine. so basically, a following (cult?) formed around this kingly advisor, and the masses held him in such high regard that as his memory faded, they bolstered it by weaving stories of his divine healing powers: apotheosis. 

then we can find more modern examples of people who might be in the process of being deified. take eugene rose (1934-1982). born in san diego, he was raised christian, then at 14 became atheist, then went to college and grad school studying asian religions and philosophies (at one point under Alan Watts), and finally at 28yo went back to christianity and entered the russian orthodox church. he established a remote monastery in the forests of northern california and wrote about heaven and creation and whatnot until he died. the interesting line is "Orthodox Christians hold him in high esteem, venerating him in iconography, liturgy and prayer [citation needed] though he has not yet been formally canonized by any Orthodox synod." so here we see a recently-deceased religious man who did some good work, and now people are including him in their prayers and paintings, but the church itself hasn't formally canonized him yet. if they do, this man is elevated towards the divine. then what happens 500 years from now? people forgot he was a mortal, and remember him only as a god. 

alan watts, one of his mentors, is an interesting character unto himself. his forays into general semantics (a philosophy?) give us insight into pseudo-science (like neuro-linguistic programming) and further down the rabbit hole exploring bizarre practices like scientology. 

evolution is a battle: "sick strand of DNA, bro, can I have it?"

 DNA and RNA we often think of on a global scale of being the code for life and allows cells to produce copies of themselves etc. but when we throw endosymbiosis into the mix, or viral replication, its helpful to visualize DNA/RNA as a resource, the perfect combination of subunits that allows for the production of something cool. 

endosymbiosis, when one cell engulfs another and takes it hostage forever, may have been the origin of both mitochondria (animals) and chloroplasts (plants). the "proto-mitochondrion" is the hypothetical bacteria that was basically a free-living mitochondrion (so an energy factory) who got engulfed by another cell. Wiki below notes "They concluded that this organism was an aerobic alpha-proteobacterium catabolyzing lipids, glycerol and other compounds provided by the host." 

the exact nature of their relationship is unclear (parasitism, commensalism, etc) but the host cell basically said "dang, you're a good-looking bag of DNA, ima steal you" and so he did. DNA/RNA is only as important as the proteins it creates are; its all about the proteins baby. the proto-bacterium had figured out how to arrange DNA in such the perfect combination that it created unique and efficient enzymes, machines that could process environmental items into useful materials. the cell with the most useful and fancy enzymes wins, so amassing a huge collection of useful enzymes (like the host cell did) was a good idea. 

and so evolution is the race to obtain the coolest strands of DNA. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-mitochondrion

why can't plants walk?

early in the evolution of life, multicellular organisms climbed out of the oceans and became the first organisms to colonize dry land. early among these pioneers were plants: multicellular eukaryotes that could do photosynthesis (the latter of which evolved first in prokaryotic cyanobacteria).

if plants were among the first to step foot on land, why did they never learn to walk?

well, plants have evolved as largely sessile organisms, whereas animals began right off the bat by mastering the art of "movement". while those first land plants were busy deciding "should we learn to walk?", the oceans were already teeming with macroscopic animal life that was burrowing, digging, swimming - moving. so the kingdom Animalia was ahead of Plantae since basically day 1.

plants never "walked", and therefore they were much less likely to simply evolve that out of the blue once they hit land. animals, conversely, always 'walked' so they hit land up and running, literally. 

to be clear, plants DEFINITELY move and always have - just not perceptibly fast. 

thermodynamics and the origin of life

'the control of chemical actions' is essentially the definition of life, the main criterion. ancient cells were simply chambers walled off from the outside world where chemical reactions could take place in a meticulous fashion, later 'controlled' by the organism.

the origin of life must explain this sequence describing the evolution of organic chemistry and biology: 

• Small organic and inorganic molecules (eg, methane, CO2, water, ammonia) -->
• Middle organic molecules (eg, nucleotides, amino acids, glucose) --> 
• Large organic molecules (eg, proteins, DNA, RNA, phospholipid bilayers) --> 
• Protocells and single celled organisms --> 
• Multicelled life, etc

what impetus propelled these molecules forward into ever more complex configurations? this 'driving force of life' is enigmatic. thermodynamics gives a very interesting hypothesis: that these organic chemical reactions all occurred because becoming more complex was energetically favorable, allowing the release of heat as a byproduct, and therefore following the natural path set by thermodynamics. 

Laws: increasing temperature is increasing entropy. the entropy of a system must increase over time. higher temperature means more motion, so more overall 'states', and more entropy. low entropy means stuff is cold and ordered. it has heat waiting inside it ready to bound out like a coiled spring. 

life's original enemy: UV radiation

ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the original enemy of life. 

earth was formed ~4.5 billion years ago (bya) and rapidly cooled to allow creation of the oceans just 100 million years later. spontaneous organic chemistry, protocells and early single-celled life all evolved likely surprisingly soon after the appearance of oceans.

early life was fragile molecules and microstructures or proteins and nucleic acids that could easily be blasted apart by UV radiation. the sun has been there the WHOLE time, we take for granted that it's always had damaging effects on life. 

UV radiation smashes into structures like a bullet, so life developed strategies like

• build barriers to shield oneself
• build enzymes and other tools that could repair the damage

perhaps this is why "repair" is one of the earliest cellular functions that evolved. using tools like ribozymes (RNA fragments that act as enzymes) or protein-composed enzymes (eg., DNA ligase), both of which are ancient structures. one of life's initial goals was "repair molecular damage", implying life had a natural tendency to want to control chemical reactions. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16464022/

https://elifesciences.org/articles/32330

@40:10:

The Origins and Purposes of Religion

did religion start from (a) a desire to regulate behaviors on a mass scale eg instate laws, or (b) fear of death and the unknown so creating stories to cope?

new religions begin to occur when one population dislikes or stops doing a ritual or practice held by another population, or stops using their philosophies.

what were the principles and themes of the original ancient religions that set the tone for what people wanted out of religions going forward?

• the need to cement social bonds WITHOUT relying on language or necessarily appearance. If you go to a new country, you may not speak the language or look the same, but you’d feel reassured seeing your religious idols displayed and knowing those around you are “good christians” who obey the same ‘laws’ you do
• explanation of death. death resulting form “the loss of the soul” or something similar, then an explanation of what HAPPENS to this soul.
• a need to explain change, movement. ancient religions may have equated essentially ‘movement or change’ with an inner ‘spirit or god’. eg, the sun moves due to a god, the tides move, ants move, rain occurs, etc.

What is the main impetus for the global decline in religion? Is it science? Does this draw then a correlation between lack of scientific factual understanding about the world and the prevalence of religion? The less people knew about science, the more they relied on religion?

Introduction

Panuniverse | \ pan-yü-nə-ˌvərs \ (noun) - a word I made up

Welcome to The Panuniversal Review, where we'll be reviewing cool stuff from history times.

We'll start at the very beginning and continue into the distant future.

τὸ πᾶν, tò pân ("the all") | \ tò-pan \ | (noun) - ancient Greek philosophers from Pythagoras onwards used this word as a synonym to describe the universe, defined as "all matter and all space"

Panuniverse | \ pan-yü-nə-ˌvərs \ | (noun) - "universe-universe", or "all-universe", describing the scope of all the cool stuff we'll talk about guys

The Panuniversal Review - Erratic philosophical and educational posts not necessarily in any particular order haphazardly written with the goal of figuring out WHY IS EVERYTHING.