[ExI] The role of Genes and Environment

[citta437 at aol.com]

Spike:"> You are living inside one of the most religious
> countries on the planet and the fundamentalists christians
> are not always peaceful...

Granted, and I am not defending religion.  I consider it bad for the 
human
mind, pretty  much all of it.  But some are worse than others.  Which is
major religion is most associated with violence today?  Why is that?

> ...How much do you trust your information sources?  Amara

Spike: "Not much.  World "news" media are terrible.
_____________

Why blame the media, religion or society in general? Individuals make 
up society and some individuals are at the mercy of their genes and 
environment. No one knows how much influence an environment or genes 
have on our behaviors.

  Modern technology and medicine help us live a healthy life style but 
we still have to work a sweat to obtain what is needed to attain that 
goal. I don't blame either or both the genes or the environment. Genes 
do what they do best to mutate. Mistakes in thinking can be corrected 
if we spend time to practice moment to moment awareness which is hard 
to do because we are not yet perfect like gods. Our brains are not 
solid like rocks thankfully but flexible most of the time. If we 
dissect the brain matter it has the gray upper layer and the white 
lower layer where structures like the amygdala according to 
neurobiologists is the seat of our emotion. All stimuli coming in thru 
the five senses has to pass thru this structure before it reach the 
cortex/gray matter where thoughts are generated. MRI showed a large 
amygdala when emotions like fear is generated when a violent image 
appeared. Depending on the maturation process of an individual, those 
who are prone to fight or flight do so due to the production of 
adrenalin hormone as the message/stimuli were relayed to the cortical 
neurons which have no direct connection to the outside environment. It 
takes some milleseconds for the individual's cortex to process the 
message because it has to access memories from the cortex that stored 
memories.

Recent studies of individuals born with small brain{ forgot the medical 
term} act like some chimps with no learning abilities.

My point is we cannot blame the genes or the environment for the 
varieties of genetic defects manifested as criminal behavior or 
sickness.

In Zen, there is no belief in sin. What religion or society call sin or 
immorality is just a mistake in thinking.

Terry