Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00632)

Hey,

This is an edited repost of a couple of posts I wrote to the ex-
Baha'i yahoo group which I co-moderate as of last week:

I've been thinking about the triune brain model
of McLean:
http://www.ezls.fb12.uni-siegen.de/mkroedel/paul_maclean.html

and the idea of memes, originated by Richard Dawkins and developed by
Susan Blackmore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

and how they relate to the way religions get hijacked by the most
destructive human urges despite whatever noble intentions they started
out with. Super powerful memes like DANGER! HERESY! SEX! overpower 
all other memes in sight because they evoke the reptilian and lower 
mammalian fight-or-flight response and shut down the higher human 
neocortex functions of empathy and understanding.

Since Baha, Jesus, and all other religious founders had triune brains,
they expressed them in messages that address people at multiple
levels. Unfortunately, no matter how fine the sentiments and ideals
that come out of their neocortexes, if they mixed those up with
virulent, or violent messages from (and to others') reptilian and 
lower mammalian brains, the bad will tend to overpower the good 
whenever the believer is under stress.

Therefore, unless "destroy the unbeliever, torture the heretic" is
explicitly and repeatedly rejected (as in Buddhism and Jainism) those
destructive memes are lying in wait and can at any moment hijack the
consciousness of any believer confronted with a challenge to his/her
comfort and sense of security.

Christianity has the virtue of at least allowing for multivocality, 
starting with the divergent gospels. People understand that there are 
multiple POVs and express that in different faith communities. But 
even in the seemingly peaceable and openminded ranks of e.g. Quakers 
and Unitarians, there is the exclusivist vs. universalist tension 
which I equate with the lower and higher brain. (The ARE came to the 
brink of disaster over this issue in 2000.)

Baha'i is clearly an example of a body of teachings that speak at
different levels, and in the mid-90s after encountering Juan Cole, the
Walbridges et al I thought "Wow, there is so much more depth and
subtlety to this body of literature than I ever realized when I was a
Baha'i-- this is not so bad after all." But it wasn't long before I
recognized that the House and its devoted disciples were relentlessly
focused at the lower mammalian and reptilian levels. All the "consort 
with all" sentiment was window dressing and the bottom line was 
breathless anticipation of the impending calamitous destruction of 
the unbelievers. It's all really about "us vs. them"; JWs wearing the 
masks of UUs, IMO. If Baha was really anything *approaching* what/who 
he said he was, he would have foreseen the disastrous consequences of 
his hatemongering language and softened it. And would have repudiated 
and denounced the evil Bab. (Like you, I won't call Baha'u'llah evil. 
But have no such reticence about the Bab-- maybe it's because I'm a 
librarian but this business of burning of unbeliever books is way way 
over the top, irredeemable.)

Cheers,

Paul

PS-- Mixed messages in the Theosophical literature, and member 
responses, are also usefully understood in terms of the triune brain 
and memes.