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The Full Development of Homo Sapiens Turns on Suffering — Christ Set An Perfect Example for How It Must Be Confronted

Happy Easter (He is Risen!–traditional good news greeting for Easter Sunday), and belatedly Good Friday (since Friday involves the crucifixion, there can be no “good tidings (news)” greeting for that day).

No pain (suffering), no gain

I must warn you my interpretation of the crucifixion and resurrection differs slightly from the accepted view. Specifically, I believe that human struggles with irrationality have been THE PROBLEM for humanity ever since homo sapiens emerged from a hunter-gathering lifestyle. Homo sapien rationality makes civilization possible, and hence why we were the first to do it. We are the first to achieve rationality. But civilization (and the entitlement it creates) later inhibits the development of humanity’s capacity to reason. Then, unable to reason, civilization fails. Nevertheless, our return to suffering again produces reason. As a result, humanity in civilization begins again.

It is a crazy cycle. Suffering is at the center of and key to this process. Suffering (when maturely dealt with) produces rationality. Suffering (when maturely dealt with) produces enlightenment. So far, there is no other way–which is why there is so much suffering!

This is is how the crucifixion of Christ relates.

I believe Christianity was a solution to humanity’s birth-death-rebirth rationality-irrationality cycle. Interestingly, for the first thousand years of the Church, Christianity kept humans suffering in life, hopefully with righteous behavior, so that they might enter the kingdom of heaven (perfection) following a life well lived. It worked. Western civilization put a man on the moon in just a few thousand years. This evolution took considerable and sustained rationality.

Buddha and others understood the centrality of suffering, too — great civilizations were likewise built there.

Buddhists believe that human life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, but that if one achieves a state of enlightenment (nirvana), it is possible to escape this cycle forever. Siddhartha Gautama was the first person to reach this state of enlightenment and was, and is still today, known as the Buddha.

Buddhism – National Geographic

The Biological Reason For Suffering

Critically, the suffering person cannot believe they KNOW the truth. Otherwise, the prefrontal cortex (where consciousness resides) will remain uninvolved. The prefrontal cortex axons will not grow.

I see suffering as God’s learning framework. This process may be difficult to duplicate.

Specifically, I see Christ’s suffering (not death) and subsequent resurrection as the point

Christ suffered maturely and with humility before God (or absolute Truth–God’s Truth). In other words, Christ understood his crucifixion was part of a bigger plan. As outrageous and unfair as his crimeless punishment was, Christ wanted his followers to see him endure it (with dedicated maturity) so that they might come to understand that they do not always know the truth. Because, later, of course, Christ was resurrected. The message was that there is always a bigger truth.

Christ’s mature and rational suffering was key. He didn’t scream. He didn’t yell. He didn’t threaten or name-call. He did not gaslight. He endured. His disciples suffered with him, and later, if they suffered in rationality, they likely cognitively grew.

If individuals can suffer the “crucifixion of truth” in rationality (permitting those axons to find their way back to the cortex), we will be later cognitively “reborn” and rewarded with subsequent enlightenment. In time, individuals so enabled spend more and more of their thinking time in the prefrontal cortex. These people acquire wisdom and also good mental health.