Still awake, they looked up into the night sky. He began to formulate a poetic theory of life. “Somewhere out there, deep in the vast darkroom of the endless void, is the eternal substance from which we flashed into being—exhibiting all of our color and grace. Like a prismatic lens, we strain the white lights of the stars into the rainbows of our lives, as the poet Shelley has alluded to.”
“And here we shine! We’ve come a long way from the stars, from stardust.”
“And all those stars burning out there, they are the fires of home!”
“Some legends say that the stars are goblets in the sky, placed there so we can taste Heaven’s drink when we die.”
“We have many myths and legends, but, while we talk and hope and dream, the stars shine on, heedless of where we lie—after we die.”
He looked up at the stars and began to wonder aloud. “The one metaphysical question that people have always asked is, Where did it all come from?”
“First, let us think of what we know, or even what we think that we know: Matter must be eternal and has always existed in some form or potential, for it could not have sprung into being out of nowhere.”
“Still, people keep thinking about it and sometimes they fool themselves into thinking that they have found THE answer to the ultimate question,” she noted.
“How do they do that?”
“Well, they beg the question by proposing a mysterious solution which, though seemingly satisfying at first, only introduces a deeper question that is larger than, although similar to, the original question.”
“For example?”
“Well, because the Earth is so complex and because its life processes are not all readily understandable, some people believe that Earth and life must have a Designer.”
“The Earth couldn’t just simply be here through natural causes without any such Designer, meaning a Being, a god-who-is-a-person?”
“Well, it could be, actually. What I mean is that it could have been formed by natural laws from the eternal substance that you mentioned before, but people still feel, or perhaps strongly wish, that the Earth should have an origin from a Designer. After all, effects do seem to usually have causes, do they not, though a Being raises very similar questions?”
“Well, matter or its potential could have always have been around!”
“True enough, but people feel that this could never have happened, for they reason that all things must have a divine source. God is their solution, the beginning.”
“You mean a creative deity? A super being?”
“Yes, and the other nice thing about their solution is that it gives them something to look forward to—a divine destiny in Heaven, a reward—something that is quite desirable, of course.”
“That solution is a gigantic step, but an understandable one.”
“Yes, but people still have a tendency to assign divinity for what they do not understand. Thousands of years ago, the gods were said to have resided on the highest mountain tops of Olympus.”
“Until people climbed those mountains and saw no gods there.”
“Yes, and so then the gods were relegated to more distant and Heavenly realms, such as the sun and the moon, but were not found there either.”
“Well, I may believe in laws by which the universe naturally operates due to the interrelations of magnetic, electric, and atomic forces and such, but that’s not the God to which you’re referring to, of course.”
“Right, I’m referring to a conscious super being called God, the supposed creator of Heaven and Earth. You’re referring to the life principle that is part and parcel of all that exists, the very force of existence itself—a force that’s eternal, although we ourselves may not be.”
“So, God created matter and energy and all that is?”
“So they say.”
“But where did God come from?”
“Well, either he always existed or he was created from nothing.”
“Or both, since it is said that he made himself.”
“But, of course, now we’re right back to the original dilemma.”
“Ah, they have begged the question!”
“Yes, they’ve answered the question by proposing a more difficult question.”
“True; to summarize: They weren’t willing to accept that all the matter and energy of the universe could have formed itself or always have been, so they said that God created it; but then they easily accepted the fact that God, who is way more complex than the universe, formed himself or always had been!”
“Right, the solution to the larger problem is exactly the solution that they refused to accept to the smaller problem in the first place. A needless extra step was introduced, an extra complexity.”
“However, after all this we still don’t know where the universe came from.”
“True, all we really know for sure is that we’re here and that there are laws and forces and life principles which have and may continue to allow the universe to operate in the consistent and stable fashion that we can know and see.”
“Well, we’ll just have to listen to our own intuition.”
“It’s all we have to go on.”
“Is the super being, if there is one, good, bad, or indifferent?”
“It is assumed that he is good, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be bad. But, again, it’s merely conjecture to ascribe human emotions to a being who may well be above all that. Some religions say that’s he’s both bountiful and vengeful, that his love is conditional; that is, either we obey his laws or he’ll punish and torture us in Hell. And that he destroys life, as in the great flood”
“And that he allows the Devil to exist to tempt us?”
“Yes, maybe, as they say or invent, so we can earn our place in Heaven.”
“You mean, or rather, some religions say that God shaped our human nature, and then introduced temptations to our nature, and then intends to punish us merely for being human?”
“So they say, although you’ve pointed out the absurdity of it.”
“Anyway, the gods of all religions don’t have the same character.”
“How do religions know any of this stuff anyway?”
“Well, the founders of many of the various religions claim to have had divine inspirations, either by direct contact or through visions and visitations with God himself. Unfortunately, God told them each something different; thus the existence of the Mormons, Lutherans, Moslems, Jews, Catholics, etc. There must be hundreds of religions, all claiming by divine inspiration that they are the one and only true path to Heaven, and that all the others are false, or so they heard from the voices in their heads.”
“Well, since they all contradict each other, how do we know which is the right one, if any?”
“We don’t; it’s hard to sort it all out. There’s Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and some other prophets—telling us of places like Hell, Heaven, purgatory, nirvana, etc. These are all major differences in beliefs!”
“And some eastern religions don’t even mention God. They’re based more on the idea of a life principle being ingrained in all things below, not above.”
“And some western religions say that God must be adored and glorified and bowed down to. But again, this may just be one of man’s own emotional inventions from what he’s used to.”
“Well, if I were a god and ruled above, you could take away all of my powers but love!”
“That’s very ingenious and generous of you—but, of course, love means generosity. We have no use for an unloving God”
“And then there are the Polynesians, the Indonesians, and the Melanesians. They have elaborate superstitions and beliefs in good and evil spirits and how to get a higher place in Heaven.”
“Which isn’t really too different from most religions today, actually.”
“Yes, but doesn’t the end sometimes justify the means, for most religions advocate goodness. Jesus preached that we should give love and kindness to our fellow man, just like the Buddha taught. And the Virgin Mary may have been a good person, though some religions don’t believe in her.”
“Yes, those are good policies for anyone to follow, anytime, regardless of religion or belief. I live them. You live them. Jesus was good, but his father wasn’t. Nor do we know if Jesus was really divine.”
“Religion is good for certain borderline people; it can nudge them toward the way to being good. Unfortunately, it can also blind them, brainwash them, and bias them.”
“How so?”
“Well, when one believes in something very deeply, one tends to become intolerant of those with other beliefs, even good ones, because allowance of other beliefs seems to lessen the credibility of one’s own belief.”
“Then so it is that Moslem children learn at a young age to dislike the Jewish people and their culture.”
“Yes, that’s part of it. It’s the differences between cultures that starts wars, and there have been plenty of religious differences that have caused wars.”
“Such as the Protestants vs. the Catholics in Ireland, the Sikhs vs. the Hindus in India, the Jewish persecution, the Wars of the Crusades, the Shiites vs. the Sunnis in Iraq.”
“So, like anything else, religions are neither good nor bad but humans only make them so.”
“One is free to believe as one chooses, but there will always be some know-it-all evangelist trying to convince us otherwise.”
“Maybe we should put all the evangelists, preachers, and solicitors in one room and let them all talk to each other.”
“At first, each would be convinced beyond a doubt that they were right.”
“Yes, they would, but soon they’d all see that the others were convinced, also, then perhaps they might realize that that their beliefs were arbitrary—being dependent mostly on their parent’s religion or region of birth, and realize that they, if born elsewhere or under other circumstances, might espouse different beliefs.”
“Well, my dear, you’ve come a long way for a nun.”
“And you, for a monk.”
“So, perhaps Heaven’s promise is bereft, but I’m not distressed. I can’t know all the secrets, so I’ve dismissed the dream of immortality, although I certainly wouldn’t mind having it. For now, I live life with gratitude and accept whatever is left.”
“Me too. I’ve said my good-byes to faith’s dream of forever. I am, of course, much too philosophical to be bitter. Like you, I am resigned to it. I, too, accept, with hunger and joy and pleasure, whatever is left of the dream.”
“People like to wish and dream and believe that they are more than they are, that they deserve a divine destiny, that they are special among all creation. It’s only natural to desire something good, although greedy, perhaps.”
“Of course, but the ultimate humility would be to know that there may be no divine destiny, that we are all just fancy electrochemical organisms, and very much a part of the natural organic world.”
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Thanks Austintorn, that's just beautiful and all true.
In fact I see (for what it's worth) belief systems as symbols which attract potential energy.
As I see it everything is pure intention; intention binds us.
I think a belief system is nothing more than the intention of a community; this leeds to a symbol which attracts potential energy.
Everywhere you go, you can feel intention.
These intentions somehow interact leading to a result.
For example: a star at Toequest could be a symbol which has an intention, it attracts potential energy. This ultimately causes some interaction with other intentions, leading to some kind of structural result.
Intentions themselves don't contain truth, they are just intentions.
Now, what this means about God or everything, I'm trying to figure it out but I still don't know of course...
I think intention is everywhere in nature, but we humans are kind of a 'focussing' of it, a focus of intention or a focus of potential energy.
I think the question is: when you die, does the intention stop or does it go on?
In case it goes on, then in which way would it do that?
Would the intention be the same as the human intentions we all have now?
Could intention have absolute objective properties?
Could a property be an intention?
It makes you wondering, doesn't it? (Well in each case, it makes me wondering.)
Look at a fire; does it breath? What does it want? Where is it heading for?
Listen to the noise of the wind; to the storm: thunder and lightening; it seems to 'want' something, but what? Does it intend? Does it want to be?
What's the intention of the universe? Does it want to create? What is it searching?
What does it mean?
And why all this complexity? We are a focus of it. Also dark matter and its connective tissue.
Look at starbirth, it's just like an artificial painting.
Is God an artist?
Last edited by dleviwing : 03-19-2007 at 03:24 PM.
I looked at the world and I cried
and then I curled up and died.
In heaven with nowhere to hide
God saw me and said "well I tried".
"Not hard enough" I replied
"moreover you've cheated and lied
now time's run out with the tide
and I'm off to the other side."
“Religion is good for certain borderline people; it can nudge them toward the way to being good. Unfortunately, it can also blind them, brainwash them, and bias them.”
“How so?”
“Well, when one believes in something very deeply, one tends to become intolerant of those with other beliefs, even good ones, because allowance of other beliefs seems to lessen the credibility of one’s own belief.”
“Then so it is that Moslem children learn at a young age to dislike the Jewish people and their culture.”
“Yes, that’s part of it. It’s the differences between cultures that starts wars, and there have been plenty of religious differences that have caused wars.”
“Such as the Protestants vs. the Catholics in Ireland, the Sikhs vs. the Hindus in India, the Jewish persecution, the Wars of the Crusades, the Shiites vs. the Sunnis in Iraq.”
“So, like anything else, religions are neither good nor bad but humans only make them so.”
The answer is simple; It did NOT start from absolute nothing. Human thinking seems to have a problem with the concepts of eternity and infinity; they should get over it.
That's possible. But how exactly do we have to describe this eternal 'thing'? I mean, what is it?
(Obviously there is no discription possible.)
If we want to describe, then we already would give properties to it, which would never completely describe it.
If we would describe it completely, some properties of it might just be 'blurry'.
Makes me think about uncertainty or Gödels incompleteness theorem.
Does that tell us something about this eternal 'thing'?
Or maybe we just don't have enough knowledge (yet?) to answer this question.
When we talk about 'God', it's obviously something we, a collective 'unconsciousness' invented. We want to give a meaning to life, because we don't understand it. We talk about something and we don't even know what we are talking about. Can a 'word' even describe it?
If someone calls it 'God' and someone else calls it 'no God'; but do we actually know what we are talking about?
'God' might just be something we don't even know what to say about (not that we can't talk about it).
We all have our own 'God(s)', and our own image(s) of God.
It's in fact an extreme idea, which means it's hard to understand; and it also might be dangerous.
I think even talking about it here could be dangerous.
We think of kind of a being (which we cannot see, hear, ...).
You chose for infinity (existence has always been (but existence of what?)).
But would the fact that we don't understand infinity be a proof that it can't be a deity?
Would the fact that 'existence is forever' mean automatically that it wouldn't be a deity?
And even if it wouldn't be a deity; would only that automatically be negative? I think, even without it, it might still be positive. (not that I really have a discription of that).
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