Lots of very interesting thoughts and questions here. I hope we can continue to exchange ideas on these.

You wrote: Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.

I think this thought is what gave rise to asking the questions I have been asking in this Top-Down series. I'm very intrigued by the "mother-sea" of William James, the archetypes and unus mundus of Carl Jung and other ideas that reflect non-Western religion and philosophy.

What motivates me more than anything in this series is how the public views science and the answers they believe science has provided; answers which they believe are founded in reality and provide the values and structure of lives and culture. The more I study of this stuff as a non-scientist, the more I become convinced we have been sold a bill of goods. I don't know what the answers are, but it doesn't look like what we are being told are the answers are viable.

So, we search...