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The attribution of prior independent existence of the higher power or purpose is often, although not always, made in the religious and spiritual traditions of humanity and there is a sense in which this attribution is used to imply authority. Authority is an attribute that is assigned by a conscious individual. Attributions of authority are not independent and absolute but depend on the consciousness of an individual who then assigns authority to something.
Attribution of authority can be to religiously described entities, to the material world, to people in the social or political awareness of an individual. Authority is never assigned by a pre-existing independent entity because its assignment is dependent on the consciousness of the individual. Attribution of authority grows out of our evolutionary need for hierarchy and is attributed to high levels of abstraction in the idea of god, or matter as competing authrorities that rule hunan lives in a strict determenistic fashion. The importance of re-grounding authority within the consciousness of the individual and examening the social construction of authority is that authority becomes an attrbute that we have freedom playing with. What attribution of authority works best for our current circumstances. There are spiritual states of being and experiences, and the existence of large contextual structures, outside the strict, but semi-permiable, boundaries of the individual self that can be used for the attribution of authority. I have placed my emphasis for attribution of authority on nature (the living world) and consciousness. This leads me into the mindset of someone who has a larger purpose, to serve the expansion of consciousness and the deepening penetration, diversity, and preservation, of life on this planet. I consciousely choose to attribute authority to these larger realities without attributing parental charisterics to them. As part of the dynamic play of these large forces I have the status of an independent actor who can choose, within the constraints imposed by my consittutional limitations, whether to pursue any of the alternatives available to me in a given circumstance. These choice opportunities are not influenced, in my construction of authority, by a preexisting external reality and plan.
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Human Identity Components 
