Beyond Religion and toward Ourselves: Living Life in a More Authentic Manner

By John Martinez

This book serves as a guide for those grappling with the complexities of religious faith, drawing from the author’s own profound journey through doubt and belief. It challenges the concept of an eternal, detachable soul, positing that our consciousness is entirely born of cerebral processes. The absence of such a soul, the book argues, casts significant doubt on the foundational promises of eternal life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Furthermore, the book advocates for a life lived with full engagement of our human faculties. It suggests that authenticity in life is achieved by operating within our own realities and embracing the responsibility of fulfilling our own needs and desires. It is a call to live deliberately, using our innate attributes and experiences as the primary tools for navigating existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035822713

Book preview

About the Author

John Martinez was born and raised in Long Beach, California as were his mother and father. They were working class people. Each of Martinez’s grandparents emigrated to the United States from Mexico over a century ago. He attended public schools until his graduation from high school. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. He then received a Juris Doctor’s degree from Loyola law school, Los Angeles. Martinez practiced law for eight years until he was appointed to a state judgeship by then Governor of California, Jerry Brown. He retired from the bench twenty-two years later as a state Superior Court Judge. His major passion, aside from the law, is the reading of philosophy. A work of his entitled, Dogma’s Primrose Path, was published in 2015. It is an argument that many of society’s most intractable problems rest at the doorstep of both religious and secular dogma. He and his wife still live in the Los Angeles area.

Dedication

I dedicate this work to my wife, Barbara, and my daughter, Jacqueline, who have both shown me remarkable patience and support in this endeavor.

Copyright Information ©

John Martinez 2024

The right of John Martinez to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035822706 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035822713 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.co.uk

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Canary Wharf

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E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge and thank my dear friend Shih- Fang Wang, M.D., Ph.D., for her encouragement and suggestions regarding this work, especially as to those areas pertaining to Mr. Neuron.

Introduction

I am thoroughly convinced that the concept of religious belief is among the most destructive inventions ever conjured up by the human mind. The injury to individual human beings and the harm to humankind over the course of its exceedingly long history are both immeasurable and unfathomable. The tragic irony is that for followers, religious belief is the sacred centre of their lives. These followers have no clue that their religious belief is depriving them of a more authentic life based on actual human reality. Greater authenticity in living out one’s earthly existence is denied to the religious person as he or she is not seriously urged to rely on themselves, their own abilities and their own unique capacities.

The personal needs, desires and preferences of the religious person likewise become less than important. The freedom and responsibility to make life’s decisions, both big and small, for ourselves constitutes the crux and the core of a more authentic life. When one believes that there are preordained rules that are enforced by an omniscient uncle in the sky, who is constantly observing and judging you to make sure you properly comply, one’s self becomes stunted, non-spontaneous and limited. Nor do they realise that they are fuelling, with their support and fealty, the institutional machinery that sows distrust, division and violence throughout the world. This is the result of the creation and implementation of dogmatic views that accommodate no other contradictory views.

So-called ecumenical efforts are masks covering up dogmas that necessarily put in place impenetrable barriers between religious peoples of differing faiths and also to be sure between religious and non-religious people. Religions have historically shown little propensity for respecting the rights of other societal members when those rights are in conflict with their own dogmatic beliefs. We know too well that religious stalwarts in America will bend and misconstrue secular constitutional rights and laws even at the risk of losing a healthy secular democratic government. Religious leaders are simply not immune from the addictive nature of wealth and power. The compelling conclusion is that religious belief is bad for the individual as well as bad for humankind as a whole.

Humankind’s irrational detour from reality would not have been taken but for the existence of a most profound and incredible predicament. Humankind’s fundamental predicament stems from its profound ignorance of the why and how of human existence. Humans for some time have had to ask themselves, in effect, what are we doing here? Where is here? How did I get here?

The truth is that we are effectively lost in the midst of a stupendous universe. Its own existence and whereabouts form yet other unanswerable questions. For many of us who have travelled beyond our early religious indoctrination, we simply acknowledge that we find ourselves on a uniquely hospitable speck of this vast and indifferent universe and we know not why. Yet we still find ourselves pondering over such profound concerns and we do so without any real expectation that we will ever know the truth behind them. What we do not do is make up answers to our liking.

We refuse to engage in make-believe and mythology. We stay within ourselves as human beings and can only rely on that which we as human beings can know and understand. That means we rely solely on real human things like facts, experience, logic and reason. We have learned to be able to stand up and shout out to the world I don’t know. Living within our own human limitations is not a weakness. To do so is to be real, to be authentic.

This work attempts to give insight into the often overlooked reality of our completely physical natures. When this is properly grasped, the existence of supernatural worlds and things seems farfetched. Yes, it is true that our physical bodies (including brains) produce a mental life for us. We know much of this mental life as consciousness. The reality, as we shall see, is that physical is mental and mental is physical.

Our awareness of the world around us and the world within us is due to the complexities and intricacies of our bodies. To a considerable degree, our bodies inform us and direct us if we will only pay heed. But, for our bodies, we would not be able to think, feel and experience. Human life is our personal bodily experience and is therefore owned by each of us individually. Each of us has the capacity through strength, courage and independence to make the best out of our predicament.

An authentic life was always within the grasp of human beings. But then came religious belief. Religious belief, in our honour, invented a detachable and eternal soul. Ultimately, this soul is meant to keep death immaterial in as much as it promises to let us live forever. All that a follower needs to do is follow.

But this religious dynamic signals a diminished earthly experience for humankind. We turn our attention to the forever and simultaneously turn our back to the one-time finite earthly existence that is ours. Earthly experience is minimised and degraded.

Creative individual experience is frowned upon as dependence on scripture and clergy becomes paramount. An opportunity for an authentic life withers away. Earthly life is reduced to a brief and necessary interlude. Such are religious beliefs bequest to humanity.

The oneness and sameness of both the physical universe and the physical human being must be fully appreciated in order for human reality to be fully appreciated. The human being is accurately viewed as one form or aspect of the universe itself. We are not a foreign attachment to the universe. Nor are we residing here in some temporary fashion as a prelude to something bigger and better. By our nature, as an aspect of the universe, this universe constitutes the only place and opportunity for the experience and the joy of human existence itself.

This idea of oneness or sameness between the universe and human beings is vital to appreciating our true natures, capabilities and limitations. The limits of what we can and cannot do is thereby pre-set. This should not however be confused with some kind of determinism that effectively makes each of us an automaton. This is simply not the case. By limits, I mean parameters or boundaries within which personal freedom should reign.

As we will see, freedom and independence are central to the authentic life. Understanding this oneness we will now be able to appreciate and acknowledge the sameness between the tiniest particles of the universe and the tiniest particles of human beings. From combinations of these tiniest of particles are formed the slightly larger, but still very small neuron cells that play such a crucial role in the human body and in the life of a human being. We see that there are billions of neuron cells in the human body, many of which form clusters or networks in the human brain. Each neuron passes on its impulses to the next neuron.

All of these individually thoughtless neurons when working together in the brain create mental activity. We can thus understand the crucial nature of this cerebral activity and the ensuing production of all mental processes (including consciousness itself) resulting there from. Having briefly touched upon the workings of the brain this work then considers various views regarding the brain-mental production relationship. Other than those views reflecting a religious orientation many thinkers and scientists acknowledge the role of the brain as the producer of all mental activity. Disagreement is generally due to the precise nature of the brain-mind event.

There is a view that there is a strict one-on-one match between neuronal activity in the brain and mental production. Others feel that the brain is a causal agent for ideas but not necessarily one on one with neuronal activity. Another view is that once mental processes are produced there is a strictly subjective process that also occurs that we may never be able to appreciate. It is important to note for our purposes that none of these views contemplates a role for the detachable-eternal soul in the mind-body event. Religious belief will never be able to accommodate this view as it undermines its very foundation.

How do the natural workings of the human body undermine religion? If the body at death decays away what is lift to go to hell or heaven? Remember, we are constituted by our mental being that is a direct consequence of the brain (body). When the brain is dead all mental activity ends. There is no more you.

You are no more. Religion therefore needs to find and invent something, a soul, that is not only responsible for our higher selves but that is also eternal and detachable from the body at death. Through this conceptual invention religion can now claim that there is something of you (a soul) that can leave the body and live in hell or heaven far into eternity. Without this invention of an eternal and detachable soul, there would be no eternity for humans, and without eternity for humans, it would be impossible for humans to ever experience hell or heaven or ever enjoy a seat next to god. Without eternity for human beings, there is no Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

That fictitious soul never makes an appearance in human consciousness or anywhere else in the human body is inescapable. The soul is a fabricated idea that is incompatible with logic, reason, science and experience. The notion of the soul is a sad and horrific myth not worthy of humankind. This work also discusses the atrocious history that religious institutions and their authorised agents have written regarding dissenters and persons of independent thought. Scripture itself, however one views it, is one thing but the conduct of those who proffer scripture for a living is quite a different thing.

The behaviour of religious institutions is better explained by theories of power and dominance than by love and virtue. This work next considers what the philosophers of human existence have to say about the living of life. The philosophers that we now mention, to a number, find that the dogmatism of society can be a straight jacket that must be continually overcome. For Kierkegaard, this occurs in his condemnation of Christendom. For him, Christendom included the church, other religious institutions, clergy and followers.

With its materialism and conformity, Christendom presented to the true believer an obstacle to true faith and individualism. To Nietzsche, the obstacle was Christianity and its dominance in Europe. He found this culture had dilatory and nihilistic consequences, especially for the individual. Heidegger later expressed similar antagonism towards prevailing culture by his reference to it as the they or public. They constituted persons who were without their own being, through mindless conformity.

This collective world of man, bound by custom and tradition, in which religion almost always plays a large role, is found to be a relentless deterrence to living life as it can be and is meant to be. When human beings escape from under the dead weight of societal pressure, born of religious and secular dogma, they can then access their true natures. The living of life is for these philosophers (including Sartre and Camus) utterly personal. For them, authentic living requires the utilisation of both body and mind. This is because there is nothing else for a human being to rely upon.

Each person has the ability to discover his or her real needs and desires. By each person exercising freedom and independence based on reason, experience and lucidity he or she can find true reward and growth. The living of life itself must become the ultimate task. Fake beliefs and hopes are but wicked distractions to the work and play of life. In this process, humans will be able to comprehend true human reality as it actually is for human beings.

These philosophers appreciated the dynamics of human life. They did not accept static or unchanging human beings. They envisioned liberated, independent, thinking human beings. Sartre explicitly disagreed with Aristotle who believed essence preceded existence. Sartre believed that existence preceded essence, and therefore, humans had the power to become, with diligence and courage, whatever they wanted to become.

In this way, the body-mind event is able under proper circumstances to affect if not determine completely who and what we become. Camus urged us to rebel against the absurdity of knowing that we live in an irrational and indifferent world, a world indifferent to human circumstances. But he encourages us to confront those forces that want to deprive us of our individually determined lives. These forces, says Nietzsche, that attempt to deprive us of the ability to create even to the smallest degree the individual life we wish to lead are relentless. Independence and individuality become treasured responsibilities.

The finitude of earthly life and all that it presents to us on a daily basis are accepted as our challenges and opportunities. An authentic life can be achieved. As Sartre keenly notes, the body-mind event is both instrument and end. Hoping for eternal life beyond earthly life becomes a pathetic divergence from the here and now of real life.

Lessening one’s independence by continually deferring to religious scripture and to religious professionals becomes a safe