The illusion of consciousness is nearly inexplicable.
There are species of parasites that trick animals into eating them. Then they find their way to the brain and commandeer the animals' instinct into making them swim high enough to be caught by a bird, to climb high enough to be seen by and eaten by a larger creature. All with a final destination, sometimes leaping several different species to get there, to their naturally ideal habitat in the gut of some unsuspecting animal. All this is carried out without consciousness. All without thought or reason, merely biology.
And then there's we, who have nothing but consciousness, who find ourselves trapped in psychological turmoil over the meaning of it all. Some find peace in letting go of the logical struggle and grasping onto a shred of faith. Some find peace in getting back to what their bodies are saying to them and surviving comfortably and healthily on instincts we have dismissed as unnecessary. They exercise and meditate, seek that equilibrium our bodies still beg for, all getting back to what? That unconscious, selfless animal state? It seems no surprise to me that so often those who lean toward religion lean thus quite far away from the reality of our animal nature, demanding that, as humans and not animals, we are above instinct, and thereby should fight for the right to laze, fattening, until the end times, distracting ourselves from our bodies through television shows and meaningless sports. It seems logical that nobody has it right.
