20050302 (J)
Journal: March 2,2005
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Appearance and Reality                        Idea of "Other"                        Language

written today The Dealer

(note added 20200614: an early version of the the big MMMs of God, Morality, Mortality, and Meaning)

The Tao or God is just a name we give to the understanding we WOULD have if we could perfectly understand everything about the universe. We can’t. So we can’t know God or the Tao, only that maybe, just maybe such a thing “could” exist. But even this idea limits God, because it anthropomorphizes the idea by defining it in terms of understanding (or love), uniquely (?) human processes. If we perfectly understood all, we would be God, or maybe God is just the concept of “perfect” understanding or love. Either way, it anthropomorphizes the idea, so even our very concept of God falls short of God, if indeed God exists, which I greatly doubt. So all we can do is name an idea that we assume points toward something beyond our capacity to define, toward a “superior” being EVEN to man.

We are quite arrogant to assume a human trait (understanding or love) is the basis of defining God. Who are humans, self-replicating chemical reactions that we are, to presume to tell God the traits it, he, or she must have? Maybe understanding and love, reason and compassion, justice and crime, individual and community, time and space have absolutely nothing to do with God. How can we presume to know? Oh, yes, I forgot, the bible, vedas, Quran, etc. …… Right!!, Next joke please, oops, sorry. I don’t see how humanly written books interpreted by human theologians, philosophers, and other cretinous believers of all ilk can rise above humanity and shake hands with whatever it is, if anything, in the super or sub human realm. I can assert there is no God. You can assert there is, but no one can rise (fall) to God’s realm, if it exists, to mediate our dispute. However, I can’t understand how you can believe in something for which there is no verifiable, empirical, sensual evidence?

What a GREAT fantasy we have created, God in all its human-defined manifestations. If you are going to tell a lie to yourself, tell a big one – IMMORTALITY!! Wow!! That is a temping lie. Arbiter of morality!! Another wonderful, related temptation. Proferer of purpose and meaning to otherwise sordid lives (worship “me”, God and live by my rules and maybe I will let you live forever). A seductive siren song. Justifier and giver of political ambition and even war (Iraq, Crusades, Indian Wars, etc.). What a handy tool to use to help spread one’s own way of doing things than by claiming God approves, even of killing unwilling Infidels (e.g. Iraqi “insurgents”, {who became ISIS} or “godless” communists (terrorists now). Forgiver of sins, another great chunk of meat in the stew of reasons to believe in God. But none of these can be shown to me or anyone – I am told I just must “believe” and then wait till I die. Well, I will grant the enticement is tempting, but not convincing.

Oh, oh – I forgot the other side of the “heaven and hell” coin. If temptation of immortality, moral righteousness, meaning and purpose of life, power on earth, and cleansing of sins cannot sway me – how about eternal damnation in hell, if I DON’T believe? Well, now you just completely lost me as a potential convert. What God would be so petty, devious, and teasing as to condemn someone for NOT believing something for which there is NO empirical evidence? That is a very strange basis on which to build one’s personal mental and moral framework. But if you persist in believing, I understand. It does appear to provide all those benefits and also appears to bring some order and meaning to the chaos of colliding atoms, within which the self-perpetuating chemical reaction got started and continues to this day.