Top down regulation*

vs.

Bottom up self-regulation

For the child (i.e. the immature culture) to prosper and survive it requires a mature external Guide & Control System, to wit, and ‘angry & jealous’ or comforting rule enforcing father/God. The immature cannot yet self-regulate as an adult, i.e. as a father/God. The protective benefits of being regulated by one (imagined as personal) omniscient and omnipotent father/God (i.e. as in heno-theism) in a hostile world are obvious. For the child, one (external) top-down ruler (i.e. God or the Ten Commandments as rules set) fits all (children). For the child (as immature culture) God, the primary survival regulation set, rules (and comforts or chastises) from without, i.e. top-down.

As the child grows into a mature adult (i.e. into a mature culture, hence ready for propagation) it survives and prospers by virtue of its bottom-up (local) self-regulation (i.e. self-Guide & Control) skill. For the mature adult, now functioning as father (or mother) in a hostile world, only his or her internally self-upgraded from the bottom upwards survival rules set fits. Now the ultimate survival self-regulation rules set, i.e. God, acts from within (i.e. as in pan-theism). In other words, the mature adult acts (locally) as God.

Hence do immature cultures, i.e. the infantile, prosper and

survive ‘better’ (because ‘fitter’) in a protected zone (or culture) wherein regulation is external and the rules are the same for every member of that zone (or culture).

Mature cultures, such as adults, and who tacitly accept pantheism and the lack of an external or transcendental rule + comfort (i.e. like Jesus on the Cross), invent their own local regulation rules + comfort systems, that is to say secular laws and equality before the law (+ democracy). Immature cultures, such as children, continue to entrust their welfare to external regulation (by the God of their fathers) and a hierarchy (or aristocracy) of rules enforcers, such as priests and divine right kings and who rule in their own best interest.

Mature cultures, i.e. adults prosper and survive ‘better’ in an unprotected and wholly competitive zone, for instance in the hostile world at large wherein all living systems (i.e. bions) function as both predator and prey, if and when they become (locally) self-regulating. Such self-regulation allows them to better adapt (i.e. to respond to threats). In short, mature cultures (i.e. adults) operate their own self-regulation system, hence acts as God.

If the child needs external basic regulation + comfort (i.e.

It can be universally observed that when humans fail at self-regulation, for instance when a serious accident happens, they revert to ‘My God’ (i.e. quasi parental) regulation + comfort = protection). All religious institutions or zones serve to regulate and protect (self-regulation) failures. Likewise do Indian God-men and God-women comfort + protect + regulate self-regulation failures.

by ‘My God’) to prepare for survival in the hostile everyday world, then the adult needs local self-regulation + comfort to survive in that world. In practice, if the child is regulated by ‘My God’, then the adult is regulated by other adults, and who are all self-regulating, hence gods (Hebrew: Elohim) in their own right.

In essence, those who subject themselves to regulation by an external God (i.e. as primary, therefore ultimate self-regulation system) are immature. And those who (locally) self-regulate as (local) god elaborations are mature.

For the child, God is primus (to wit: ‘First’). For the adult God is primus inter pares (to wit: ‘First among equals’, his equals being his local elaborations.

*… For regulation read: ordering (i.e. making logic) of the disordered (i.e. of chaos or randomness). The objective after-effect of regulation appears as creation ≈ nature. Thus does the infant of necessity view creation as top-down (and by design) whereas the mature adult views creation of necessity as bottom-up (and by selected accident).

Developments in the notion of God