Upon recommendation, I am reading the GOD delusion by Mr. Dawkins. It's a little disappointing for me as I felt I was getting there all by myself. All that I have written so far is pre-Dawkinsian evolution, everything from this point should be considered as, 'awakened by'. That is how powerful the argument is presented, and you must read it. I command you!
Unfortunately this means I am going to change tack for this blog to continue, I was just getting my teeth into it.
For the most part, it's the clarity by which the traditional arguments are blown out of the water. Even whilst reading, the principles of my catholic upbringing were squirming to maintain a hold in my consciousness. The final proof came when a Christian, who I otherwise respect completely, agreed with new earth creationist theory. Whatever else I was, I could never believe that. The fact that anyone could hold this belief, particularly someone I respected the faith of, has poignancy to say the least.
Obviously my jocular attitude in claiming a new religion and godhood were for the discovery, fleshing-out perhaps, of my atheism. This is good and it worked for me. If by some chance reading this helps another to arrive at the same point, then it has, quite literally, doubled in value.
The most worrying thing is how to stop it. Now who's to say, that if we allow non-literal interpretation of the' good book (?)', and remember the new earth people justify changing the length of a day to 144 hours (God's 'day'), we can't come up with more freakish 'truths'. My example; if you say that God's creationist day is 144 hours as opposed to 24, and unless you are also of the 'flat earth' leaning (no really, they exist! http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm, I' m still not convinced that the author gives credit to this philosophy, they're 'avin a larf surely!), the earth rotates causing the phenomena known as day and night.
That would make gods year equal six years because the earth is an irregular globe (no really, it is). Now I can only think that in order for this to happen, earth would have to have been significantly larger (taking 144 hours/six days to rotate on it's axis) than it is now, or rotating at a much slower rate. It is beyond me to draw you the model in this case but it would be either six times larger (half the size of Jupiter) or six times slower. The speed thing has implications for the effects of gravity and so does the size, yet my feeble knowledge of such things baulks at the mere implication of such mathematical aptitude. Perhaps god reduced the planet after his work was done like some astronomical shrinky-dink, and put the passage of time on hold whilst the work was in progress. Omnipotence is the 'killer argument' for a pro-creationist, sadly as I have alluded to, however, because omniscience goes hand in hand with it, it also sanctions arbitrary massacre of all life during the flood and makes YHWH evil, from my moral point of view.
Imagine, having awareness that the seed you plant is going to grow big and strong, but also knowing that you will have to up root it and plant it elsewhere because it destroys your most prized Rose bush. The same Rosebush that you expressly gave it instruction to leave well alone (you can speak plant). You also know that, you will have to take a cutting and kill the plant at some point, because it will not grow into the plant you want (but you knew this before you planted the seed!). You know, also, that; at some point the cutting you take from it in order to start again, will kill your child when you ask him to see if he can fix it. For you his, and your, sacrifice (except that somehow you are you and your son at the same time) is worthy (in your 'grand scheme') because, although there are now four main branches of the same plant and each branch is extremely detrimental to the growth of the others they are totally incompatible with each others needs to the point of destruction, you love them all.
You knew this would happen; remember, way back in the beginning because, you are the garden and all that is in it, and all that the garden is growing into, for ever (Amen).
Each branch also now believes after your, self declared, favourite branch subjected your only child so a slow and painful death, that it is your only favoured branch and that it should destroy the other branches for not 'knowing' you properly. Each branch has the potential to know you and would clearly do as you ask, if only you were to come and give it a little love and perhaps stop the other branches and the rest of the garden from destroying its seeds. During the application of your grand scheme; the plant must not have awareness of this scheme nor should it ever develop knowledge of the scheme. Perhaps this is the reason, known only to you, that you must ignore the plant after it has killed your child, in the hope that some of the plants future seeds could become worthy of your intention for them. However, you must make the seeds pay, even though they are tiny seeds, for the destruction of your Rosebush millennia before. You know this because you can see all of the plant grow, and the results of all your interventions at the moment you design your entire garden, which, by the way, you created entirely, for the benefit of this one plant.
I like analogies, they are awakeners.
Even so god would also have to display a good working knowledge of the type of distraction necessary to hoodwink the plant for millennia, perhaps the fossil record is one of his distractions and he is giggling inanely at Darwin and Dawkins, perhaps not. I am reminded of the, sadly missed, Bill Hicks's 'oh my Me, I put pot everywhere' line. The problem for me is that accepting the possibility of intelligent design leads to a cat and mouse scenario with God the ever-elusive mouse, what is he hiding from? I am not scared of my children and would not hide from them or their questions, at all. They should always be answered, just remember that you have a duty as a parent to prevent misconceptions (such as morality comes from the Bible) arising. In this case God's 'Fatherly' obligations are remiss.
Like Dawkins's Burkha analogy, we must continue to widen the gap and fulfil our potentials. We remain alone but it's not necessarily bad, au contraire mon petits filous, begin by not seeking to know God or even the mechanics of the uni(multi)verse but by trying, striving to, simply; gnothi seauton - know thyself (from the oracle at Delphi).
Because it does, naturally, give you the best chance of happiness.
I'm sure the rest will follow.
As will further posts,
Mr. Pat
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Heaven sounds like hell.....
I offer my humble apologies for the length of time you have been waiting for the word of God. Three months is far too long to leave you, although I trust you are not exactly floundering without me. You would have let me know. Besides those Christians, Jews and Muslims have been waiting a tad longer, not that sufferance is a divine virtue or anything (that’s how flagellation got started.) I don’t want to move on from the subject but either you will have faith or you will not, I would prefer your default stance to be the latter. That’s the beauty of your new religion. You will NOT go to hell as a consequence of lack of faith; I don't think I'll have an opposite to heaven, it sounds hell to maintain and the fuel consumption must be astronomical. As a consequence, I'd have to tithe my people and the priests would be fat. I concur with Sartre;
"L'enfer, c'est les autres"; Huis Clos 1944.
Is this the same as saying that we are each, individually, inherently good?
You know if you or you actions are good or bad. Intention plays a big part and accountability does the rest. That's all there is to it. If you save the life of an old lady and in doing so kill a child it is not evil or bad, it simply is. There is no moral 'right' that cannot be objected to; in extreme circumstances everything is justifiable. Those that wish to behave immorally will convince you of their high moral code, it's the best cover. Just beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.
Why do we look for enlightenment, why do we believe that our spiritual journey is going to 'arrive' at some point? According to Darwinism, evolution knows no rest. On ward, mutating, ever striving for environmental perfection. The environment, however, will continue to shift subtlety and the process must begin over with a whole new set of variables (and they too are subject to the process). The miracle and wonder is that life and its evolutionary process picks itself up, dusts itself off, and gets on with it, eternally. Once evolved one level the target becomes one level higher/more suitable, and why should these 'transcendences', scientifically comprehended or not, have limit imposed upon them by we narrow-minded, linear-obsessive primates?
I find it so easy to dismiss the idea of God (Yoda-vav-hey (!)); it looks less likely that it is anything we can agree on. As discussed, we have historically used divinity to cover our lack of knowledge. We still do and I think it is acceptable, if a little bit of a cop-out. You can tell it's a yarn, however, when the pope changes the rules for non-baptised babies and purgatory (it did seem a little harsh).
Feel free to attribute me with responsibility for all the things that you have trouble comprehending, I will continue to have faith in your ability to comprehend. What needs to change, are our expectations of God. What you class as 'the spiritual' is merely a frontier of scientific exploration. And it is our sacrosanct attitudes to God and our religions that continue to pervert the course of our understanding on this subject. With things like this;
"Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41).
Statements like that should be countered with;
"I can resist everything except temptation." Oscar Wilde
That is where Yoda comes undone, you see, he is fighting a losing battle for our hearts as well (mostly our minds are well aware of the preposterous nature of Yoda's existence). Essentially our instructions are to avoid that which makes us happy because sufferance will bring you closer to the sufferance of God on your behalf. What utter bilge! You will be dead soon enough, why wait to see if there is eternal bliss in 'kill-your-kids-to-prove-you-love-me's' kingdom. On the basis of accepted interpretation of Christian heaven, endless delirium in the majesty of God, count me out. How dull; I love beer, if I were forced to drink beer all the time, even without the toxic effect of beer, I would get bored. Eternity is quite a while you know.
We here, quasi-religious, authors (perhaps I am more 'quasi' than anything else), postulate that spiritual power (from within, not from elsewhere) has bearing on interpersonal interactions and the environment. They say, 'we are connected, that much is clear, not simply by physical form but by desire and thought also'. Science, you see, would never dispute this; it would only provide the information currently at our disposal and either formulate theory to be explored or develop a method of enhancing 'the known'. Desire is derided as obstructive, particularly by some eastern philosophy, but desire does indeed move mountains and is probably the 'fuel' of transcendental thinking, anyway. It's the fuel of scientific research without a doubt. We are desire because we are flesh. The bible says it, (and that book, without the 'worship me or die' bloke, is a nice collection of useful, morally guiding, stories, who's origins have many sources from all over the 'middle-east'. All those prehistoric tribal groups contributed, from the cities of Babylon and Thebes to the foothills of the Caucasus mountain range. Way before Abraham shook his Dads workshop down), and so does Takuan Soho (Zen (Rinzai sect) monk 1573-1645). Although I do realise that even all 'the ten thousand things' stating a point does not make it true.
I would suggest that there is both healthy desire and desire that is not (greed, hedonism and lust for example, although I must allow debate on my valuation of good/bad healthy/unhealthy in this). When desire becomes engendered by the will of an individual it can bloom and find fuel subconsciously of the entity of its origin (by others perhaps, or the effects of the environment on the seed I plant for example). We should simply try to be aware of this and shift the focus of our desire to that which makes us happy. Desire never dies, its metaphorical fire is inextinguishable, transferable maybe, dampened or even transmuted. Besides, you want to feel good, what else have you got?
"The motivation for all personal behaviour is to produce a sense of "FEEL GOOD," a sense of inner peace and well being. To expect a person to go against his desire to feel good or as good as he can feel under any momentary condition is illogical and irrational. In the observation of human behaviour, one will notice every human act is a response to a personal need. People will do things which seem contrary to this concept, but the bottom line is they perceive some kind of payoff which will make them feel good. And the payoff is almost always emotional. When you ask people why they want to be financially independent, they might say that they could buy things without having to worry about where the money will come from. And when they worry, they don't FEEL GOOD. A drug addict, a compulsive eater, an alcoholic and anyone with a compulsive habit will continue with their habits because at the moment of action they believe and feel it will make them feel good."; Sidney Madwed
Anything that we can offer others from the point of, or as near to, altruistic intent, in the pursuit of happiness, as is humanly possible (Sharp intake of breath); is of benefit to the whole species.
No, I won't prove it now.
I can prove it; I intend to tell you all about it. For now, however, you will just have to take my word (oh my him, I sound just like Yoda).
Mr. Pat.
"L'enfer, c'est les autres"; Huis Clos 1944.
Is this the same as saying that we are each, individually, inherently good?
You know if you or you actions are good or bad. Intention plays a big part and accountability does the rest. That's all there is to it. If you save the life of an old lady and in doing so kill a child it is not evil or bad, it simply is. There is no moral 'right' that cannot be objected to; in extreme circumstances everything is justifiable. Those that wish to behave immorally will convince you of their high moral code, it's the best cover. Just beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.
Why do we look for enlightenment, why do we believe that our spiritual journey is going to 'arrive' at some point? According to Darwinism, evolution knows no rest. On ward, mutating, ever striving for environmental perfection. The environment, however, will continue to shift subtlety and the process must begin over with a whole new set of variables (and they too are subject to the process). The miracle and wonder is that life and its evolutionary process picks itself up, dusts itself off, and gets on with it, eternally. Once evolved one level the target becomes one level higher/more suitable, and why should these 'transcendences', scientifically comprehended or not, have limit imposed upon them by we narrow-minded, linear-obsessive primates?
I find it so easy to dismiss the idea of God (Yoda-vav-hey (!)); it looks less likely that it is anything we can agree on. As discussed, we have historically used divinity to cover our lack of knowledge. We still do and I think it is acceptable, if a little bit of a cop-out. You can tell it's a yarn, however, when the pope changes the rules for non-baptised babies and purgatory (it did seem a little harsh).
Feel free to attribute me with responsibility for all the things that you have trouble comprehending, I will continue to have faith in your ability to comprehend. What needs to change, are our expectations of God. What you class as 'the spiritual' is merely a frontier of scientific exploration. And it is our sacrosanct attitudes to God and our religions that continue to pervert the course of our understanding on this subject. With things like this;
"Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41).
Statements like that should be countered with;
"I can resist everything except temptation." Oscar Wilde
That is where Yoda comes undone, you see, he is fighting a losing battle for our hearts as well (mostly our minds are well aware of the preposterous nature of Yoda's existence). Essentially our instructions are to avoid that which makes us happy because sufferance will bring you closer to the sufferance of God on your behalf. What utter bilge! You will be dead soon enough, why wait to see if there is eternal bliss in 'kill-your-kids-to-prove-you-love-me's' kingdom. On the basis of accepted interpretation of Christian heaven, endless delirium in the majesty of God, count me out. How dull; I love beer, if I were forced to drink beer all the time, even without the toxic effect of beer, I would get bored. Eternity is quite a while you know.
We here, quasi-religious, authors (perhaps I am more 'quasi' than anything else), postulate that spiritual power (from within, not from elsewhere) has bearing on interpersonal interactions and the environment. They say, 'we are connected, that much is clear, not simply by physical form but by desire and thought also'. Science, you see, would never dispute this; it would only provide the information currently at our disposal and either formulate theory to be explored or develop a method of enhancing 'the known'. Desire is derided as obstructive, particularly by some eastern philosophy, but desire does indeed move mountains and is probably the 'fuel' of transcendental thinking, anyway. It's the fuel of scientific research without a doubt. We are desire because we are flesh. The bible says it, (and that book, without the 'worship me or die' bloke, is a nice collection of useful, morally guiding, stories, who's origins have many sources from all over the 'middle-east'. All those prehistoric tribal groups contributed, from the cities of Babylon and Thebes to the foothills of the Caucasus mountain range. Way before Abraham shook his Dads workshop down), and so does Takuan Soho (Zen (Rinzai sect) monk 1573-1645). Although I do realise that even all 'the ten thousand things' stating a point does not make it true.
I would suggest that there is both healthy desire and desire that is not (greed, hedonism and lust for example, although I must allow debate on my valuation of good/bad healthy/unhealthy in this). When desire becomes engendered by the will of an individual it can bloom and find fuel subconsciously of the entity of its origin (by others perhaps, or the effects of the environment on the seed I plant for example). We should simply try to be aware of this and shift the focus of our desire to that which makes us happy. Desire never dies, its metaphorical fire is inextinguishable, transferable maybe, dampened or even transmuted. Besides, you want to feel good, what else have you got?
"The motivation for all personal behaviour is to produce a sense of "FEEL GOOD," a sense of inner peace and well being. To expect a person to go against his desire to feel good or as good as he can feel under any momentary condition is illogical and irrational. In the observation of human behaviour, one will notice every human act is a response to a personal need. People will do things which seem contrary to this concept, but the bottom line is they perceive some kind of payoff which will make them feel good. And the payoff is almost always emotional. When you ask people why they want to be financially independent, they might say that they could buy things without having to worry about where the money will come from. And when they worry, they don't FEEL GOOD. A drug addict, a compulsive eater, an alcoholic and anyone with a compulsive habit will continue with their habits because at the moment of action they believe and feel it will make them feel good."; Sidney Madwed
Anything that we can offer others from the point of, or as near to, altruistic intent, in the pursuit of happiness, as is humanly possible (Sharp intake of breath); is of benefit to the whole species.
No, I won't prove it now.
I can prove it; I intend to tell you all about it. For now, however, you will just have to take my word (oh my him, I sound just like Yoda).
Mr. Pat.
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