The human mind seems to tell itself that there is obviously one formula or idea to explain every question they could concoct. Religion, Political Ideology, Social Theory, Arts Movements, whatever… These are efforts to create Belief Systems to make sense of this crazy world.
I will use Robert Anton Wilson’s abbreviation to Belief Sytem in this post… BS.
Once people started becoming self aware, and aware of their environment, they start asking themselves questions “Where did this shit come from?”, “Where did I come from?”, etc.
The obvious answer for many seemed to be: Everything originates somewhere. So what do you call that? Well one word is God.
The word God seems to be quite useful in symbolizing that which is beyond the comprehension of human consciousness. I mean, that which is beyond the comprehension of human consciousness is a very tricky thing for a human consciousness to comprehend. This reality can really make you crazy. People spend some time thinking about it, and they start going crazy, so they concoct some BS to help make sense of their reality.
People like to fight over their BS. A lot of people define God in their BS as something that exists, but they still disagree as to how God exists. Some peoples’ BS says that God doesn’t exist at all.
I try not to adhere to any rigid BS, but I’m not afraid of trying to understand the language and ideas of different belief systems and using them to communicate with people.
What I don’t understand about the debate between the existence or non-existence of God seems to lie somewhere in the problem I see in most human iquiries into the nature of reality, that being that most of this inquiry is predicated on the concept that EVERYONE AGREES THAT “THINGS EXIST”, and that ALL THINGS THAT EXIST, EXIST IN THE SAME WAY.
So to me the best explanation I can come up with is that almost everyone can agree upon as being “real” or “existing” are things that can be experienced by the human nervous system via sensory information. Most people agree on the reality of these things. Some people agree on some things beyond the senses like God, Truth, Beauty, Sin, but can’t agree on an accurate definition.
My intuition says that “reality” is a construct of human consciousness, and that there may, or may not be some deeper underlying truth as to the nature of that experience. In my BS, that deeper truth can be symbolized with language, but not accurately defined in a way I feel is absolutely “TRUE”.
I am likely to believe in lot’s of complicated words put together to explain things I can’t understand by people who do experiments and collect data to describe causes of phenomena in the material world in the from of a BS called Science. These people argue about the nature of physical reality all the time, and there is certainly no definitive truth available there, but it is a useful resource for lot’s of practical information you can use to make things happen in the material world.
I am also likely to belief that there is a force outside of human consciousness from which “THE UNIVERSE” originated (as much as a universe can originate). I also am very inclined to believe that the force or being or whatever you call it, could not be defined in terms of human consciousness, so trying to “understand” it or explain it with language never really works too satisfactorily. IT would be something better experienced than explained. I think some experiences serve as much better metaphors for “truth” or “God” than words or ideas. I think the exoerience of God transcends to duality of language. I mean it only makes sense to me that God would transcend duality. God would have to be outside of all, and within all. God has to BE EVERYTHING.
I am not inclined to believe what many people these days go for. That’s a BS that says God is SOME GUY sitting on a cloud with a beard reading a book of names judging human souls’ worth. This doesn’t quite mesh well with my understanding of God existing outside of human consciousness, or something that exists within all life. SOME GUY is just some guy. I think the mythology of this BS comes from a desire to oversimplify the experience of reality, and create a definition of Truth that makes it easy to define who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. That way you can fight each other.
I have a hard time believing that’s what God is for. I think it might just be peoples’ BS.
I also see Atheism as a direct response to all the havoc wrecked on humanity by the BS of a materialistic God. I think the Atheist is not disagreeing with the existenc of God, but making a defiant stand against a particularly oppressive definition of God. In that sense, the Atheist is only making up a sub-sect of the same BS: Those who don’t believe it.
:-X