i like the 3rd one. however if thats the case, I must be in the "god don't talk to me cause I'm insane or to confused" catagory. [img]confused.gif[/img]
OK, there is very little point to this thread, except that I have been "trying to figure things out" lately, and sometimes have insights, and sometimes seek input on those insights. All are invited to either shoot down these insights, expand on them, or to simply share their own. I would like to politely ask that we keep the usual STP staple of inane babble to the necessary minimum for us to communicate. [img]smile.gif[/img]
_____
Insight #1:
Two gods theory.
I sometimes wonder if there aren't two gods at work in our world. If you look at us, as humans, and the world that we live in, it sometimes seems as though we don't fit. Nature, when left to itself, works as a system, but it is a gruesome system. In order for any one organism to live, another must die. Cute little baby birds eat worms. Sweet little kitties eat baby birds. Adorable little wolf cubs eat kitties. It's a balanced system, it works, but it is gruesome if you look too closely at it. Even the plants are in on it. They are eaten, and they grow well in soil enriched with organic matter. It's a stunningly simple and beautiful and awful system. There is no organism that I'm aware of that is capable of surviving solely on inorganic matter in order to live.
Now, take a look at human beings. We are, undeniably, part of this system. We need to eat. Whether we eat flesh or plants, something needs to die in order to live. And yet, you add to this system the gift/curse of intelligence. We are capable of perceiving the system, and not just living in it. We don't always perceive the system, but we have the capacity to. We also have the capacity to disrupt the system.
Wherever we go, we disrupt the system. We cut down the trees to house ourselves, and because the trees stand in the way of what we want to reach. We clothe ourselves with plants or with the byproducts of former animals. We are creatures in a hostile world, and we act, and react accordingly. We respond to the fundamental imperitive of reproduce or die, and yet, we have made ourselves the kings of the world, and that imperative no longer applies to us.
We have broken ourselves free of the system, and yet we still cling to it. We don't fit, and yet we still act as though we are tied into the system.
This connection and dislocation from the system has tranlated itself into our religions. We say things like, "you are for me, or against me." Our religions believe that there can be only one, that in order for any one belief system to survive, the others, whether older or newer, must die. Everything in our world shows this. We must eat, so plants and animals must die. We must be clothed, so plants and animals must die. We must have space to live, so plants and animals must die. This last one we extrapolate into our relations with each other. They live there, we live here. We have too many people here, we must move there. They must die, so that we can live there.
We are utterly different from all other components of the system, and yet, at the same time, we are fundamentally a part of that system. How do you break free of everything your world teaches you, and find another way to interact?
I say two gods, perhaps what I mean is two creators, competing with each other. One creates a viable and working system, in which the components don't perceive the system, they simply work within it. Big fish eats little fish. Tiny microbe eats big fish. The other creates a being inimicable to the system, one that the system cannot survive, and then places it within the system, to be raised in it, to conquer it, to turn it against itself.
_____
Insight #2
God as the alien. (Old Testament vs New)
Now, I'm not saying that God is a little green guy from outer space. I'm just saying taht God is different from us, utterly and completely.
God is infinate, and contains infinity. We are finite. We sweat. We breathe. We itch. We lust. The God of the Old Testament has never had these limitations, has never experienced these things. God created us as we are, and set us loose in the world.
There follows, in the Old Testament, a long history of God attempting to communicate with us, directly and indirectly. Holy men and women, prophets, people directly touched by the source of all things. Rules for behavior, attitude, dress, marriage, relationships. Famine, destruction, a flood that wipes out all but one family, cities razed, people turned into pillars of salt.
And then...
God suddenly understands that he can't understand us because he isn't one of us. We interupt our prayers to him, because we get a sudden butt itch. "What is this butt itch?" God wonders, "And how can it be more important than communing with ME?"
So, God takes a part of himself, and incarnates himself. He lives as us. He sweats, he itches, he walks from one place to another, and his feet get blisters. God deliberately imposes limitations on hinself that he has never experienced before. He limits his perceptions to those that his body can provide him with.
And he listens to us. He learns from us. He takes what he learns of us, and teaches us. He sees the flaws in his old laws. He takes the teaching of an eye for an eye, and then says, "no! I never meant that you were required to take revenge! I simply said that revenge should be limited to an exact repayment of what was taken in the first place. It is not necessary to you... you can turn the other cheek." He says, "Yes! I told you to love your neighbors! But all mankind is your neighbor! You must love those that oppose you, as well as those who agree with you! You must love your enemies, as well as your friends."
A friend of mine, who I am not entirely convinced isn't a holy woman, tells me that only once has God changed, and that is when he decended to earth and became one of us. The trinity is a simple thing... God, the father, the alien, the ineffible, the one the only, the all encompassing, and unlimited. God, the son, the part of God that came to us, as us, and learned to accept that we have limitations, and taught us to see past them. And God, the holy spirit, a part of himself that he leaves inside us all, a continuing communication between the finite and the infinite.
______
Insight #3
Denominations as the faces of God
My friend, the one mentioned above, has many strange beliefs for one who likes to call herself a fundamentalist Christian. One of her beliefs is that the various denominations and religions are not diametricly opposed to one another, they are simply God's way of communicating with us in ways that we can understand.
I like this theory. We are all worshipping the infinite, whether we kneel in a Catholic church, preach on a curbside, dance in a grove, visit Mecca, or hold imaginary conversations with the lady of Chaos.
God is one, we are many. God understands that we are limited in our understanding, and so comes to us in ways that we can understand. God knows that I cannot understand a God who places a bet with the devil, and allows that devil to torture a holy man. God comes to me in the guise of the lady of Chaos, where things happen and don't happen because they happen or don't happen. God comes to Tyle as a loving, laughing Christ, because Tyle is a loving, laughing person. God wants us to be the best that we can be, and gives us advice and rules to follow so that we may have a light to guide us in the darkness of mere being.
i like the 3rd one. however if thats the case, I must be in the "god don't talk to me cause I'm insane or to confused" catagory. [img]confused.gif[/img]
I like the two gods theory. How do you explain the pantheons that were worshipped by earlier civilizations. They created multiple deities to explain different phenomena, right? As science advanced, and continues to do so, these dieties were no longer required to explain these phenomena. There are still multiple things that defy our reasoning. Why the consolidation into monotheism? Is it easier to conceive that there's only one all powerful being that designed everything?
Random responses:
on Jace's pantheon question: I've never been fully swayed by the idea that religion was created as a response to lack of scientific knowledge. That may be a factor, but I think more important is the role that deities play as metaphors for psychology and sociology. The Greeks, for example, created gods with extremely passionate personalities and still worshipped them (or at least still respected the idea of them) long after their science explained some of their natural roles away. Like Zeus may throw lightning bolts, but he's also an unrepentant womanizer (Cassanova at best, rapist at worst) and stuck in a bad marriage with a woman he's forever at odds with. And Artemis (to pursue the point further) hates men with a passion and hunts the forests eternally free of the shackles of sex, marriage, or any domestic responsibilities. No doubt many Athenian husbands and wives despised and identified with both of these figures.
The Israelites (who always had a more sophisticated sense of spirituality than the Greeks) employed the same process and ended up with a god who served a similar function but in an opposite way. The nameless (or at least unnameable) Hebrew god displays only the qualities that these people most admired, and he practices them ideally. He strikes deals and delivers justice of a type that is infinitely equitable and beyond reproach. The people of Israel, who seem constantly under the thumb of neighboring powers and live in a place that is a wasteland compared to Greece, don't end up with a god they can identify with or despise -- they get one that they can rely on. For though they certainly were acquainted with the hardships of life in the ancient world, they clung unswervingly to the idea that the world need not be so cruel if people were willing to deal with each other fairly and equitably. The psychotic catch is that the 12 tribes believe themselves unable to practice true fairness and justice, so they find themselves with a god who punishes them constantly for it. It's not fun, but it's impeccably logical and (most importantly) ordered with clockwork precision. The most amazing part is that the Israelites prized this orderly universe to such an extent that they never copped out by inventing some pie-in-the-sky paradise after death -- no Heaven, no Elysian fields, no path to ultimate enlightenment. As Ecclesiastes points out, whether you're good or bad doesn't mean anything. Everyone gets the same thing when they die. Everyone goes to the same gray place. Again, not fun, but equitable. God's covenants only extend to the temporal. Nobody gets anything better than anyone else gets when life comes to a close.
Ooh! _X-Men: Evolution_ is almost on! More later... maybe...
take care
---jones()
Jones, have you ever considered writing a book (or 20) on comparative religion? I know I'd read it, by god...
Eris, I don't know enough about the various religions to do a book (though I'm flattered you'd read it). I've really only studied any of them from a literary standpoint -- like how they use dramatic methods or influence storytelling and such. Also, I'm heavily biased in favor of the Judeo-Christian angle. I think it's the most poorly understood religious conglomerate in the world -- oversimplified by both its detractors and adherents (except for Jews, I guess, most of whom seem to get the darkly ironic undercurrent running throughout the Old Testament).
Moving on...
<font size="2" face="Comic sans ms, Helvetica, sans-serif">The smug Catholic in me can't resist pointing out that you should feel bad when you make mistakes. No offense intended -- you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I just have problems with the idea of using religion to make oneself feel better. The only thing Catholicism has managed to do consistently and correctly over the ages is to make people feel worse about themselves. I'm instinctively convinced that there's merit in that.Originally posted by JaceSan:
If the gods can screw up then I shouldn't feel so bad when I make mistakes.
<font size="2" face="Comic sans ms, Helvetica, sans-serif">Again, I can't agree. Jesus Christ is one of the least efficient, least pragmatic figures in history. Even when he was alive, he divided more people than he united. Just going by the Gospels, you find that some of the Apostles weren't entirely on board with what he was saying. And we all know that Christianity has historically been responsible for setting people at odds on personal and national levels.Jace also wrote:I know the stories were created to try and help people relate to one another more efficiently, but that seems to be the purpose of Christianity as well.
Now when you confront most Christians (even non-Christians) with these facts, they'll usually mumble something about the religion being incorrectly interpreted or manipulated by the unscrupulous. And that's what I used to say too. But lately I've been thinking that things have gone pretty much the way Jesus intended. He does, after all, say that he has come to "set brother against brother, father against son," etc. (I think that's in Matthew) -- and that's not just metaphor. Many parts of the Gospels have Jesus predicting all the terrible shit that will come down because of him.
I'm not exactly sure why God or Jesus or whoever would set out to cause such strife, but it does follow logically from God's behavior in the Old Testament where he continually makes covenants that he knows will not be honored. Of course, this doesn't make for a nice kind of God -- but an interesting one certainly. The more I look at Judaism/Christianity, the more I'm convinced that it's designed to appeal solely to the bi-polar. How cool is that?
(btw, I've always thought it would be fun to start my own religion and call it "Church of the Sarcastic Jesus: the Savior You Love to Hate")
Anyway, I think I meant to start this as an answer to your question about monotheism and why societies gravitate toward it. My take on that has always been that religion follows the pattern of science. I think Stephen Hawking was correct when he wrote that the final destination of physics has always been one single equation that captures the relationship of matter to energy (he, incidentally, was encouraged to find that we've currently got much of it down to two: Einstein's e=mc? and Planck's e=hf). Religion, I think, follows a similar pattern. At some point in its development, every society begins to recognize the interconnectedness (what a stupid word, but I can't think of a better one) and unity of people places and things. Or if they don't recognize it, they at least begin to desire it subconsciously. It's at this point that pantheons of gods existing as metaphors for human interaction give way to a single intelligence representing an all encompassing ideal.
take care
---jones()
That's precisely what always appealed to me about the religions that were not monotheistic. Norse mythology, Native American mythology, etc. The deities are more human and easier to relate to. If the gods can screw up then I shouldn't feel so bad when I make mistakes. I know the stories were created to try and help people relate to one another more efficiently, but that seems to be the purpose of Christianity as well. (I think some people miss that point.) When I was younger the stories had entertainment value. As I matured I could understand the morals behind the stories and what they were trying to teach me.
Maybe I like the idea of many gods acting on our behalf because we need all the help we can get.
Catholicism isn't about using your guilty conscience to make you feel bad.
You feel guilty because you know you did something wrong. The point is to stop, look, re-evaluate and try to make yourself a better person. Not to just feel better about yourself. Forgiveness is the big issue often overlooked. You are supposed to feel bad, try to fix it and apologize and seek absolution, and MOVE ON to trying to be a better person, learning from your mistakes.
ok, end that rant
On a slightly different note, I think there is a huge difference between using religion to make you feel better, and using religion to try to make yourself into a better person. And the struggle to do the latter can definitely at times be opposed to the former. If all it does is make you feel good, then it isn't challenging you to grow, in yourself, in your relationships with people around you, or in your relationship with God. and that, i think, is very bad. if it is doing its job, and you are holding up your end, then its a life long search, and you feel good about yourself because you are on struggling down that path, not because it pats you on the back and tells you that you are doing the right thing.
ok, sorry, I'm ranting again.
I'm gonna reply to more of this and post something more original when i get off my roomate's laptop, which has a keyboard that hates me.
I'll hold off on the whole religion vs spirituality discussion until I've had something that resembles normal sleep.
But... while I agree that religion is supposed to help you try to be a better person, it is also there to help you make sense of your world. And so, if believing in one god, ineffable, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniyadayada helps you in that goal, then you are following a god that you need to.
If, however, you can't comprehend a perfect god, who somehow, through no error of his own (because he's perfect, see) allowed evil to be set loose in the world; if you understand things better in smaller terms, like, a god of trees, and a god of water, then maybe that's what you need to use to help yourself understand how all the small things connect and interact in the world.
These are, of course, entirely divergent ideas. One is true, or the other. But, to bring beloved science back into the equation, I have been assured, repeatedly, by people who claim to know about these things, that light is both a particle and a wave. If I can accept that, then the idea that god is singular and plural at the same time isn't quite so hard to grasp.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 16, 2003 10:15 AM: Message edited by: erisesoteric ]</font>
The Unification Theory applied to religion. I like that explanation. It makes sense. The fact that Christianity had zero tolerance for "heathen" beliefs probably contributed to their demise.
Catholicism is using your guilty conscience to make you feel bad about your shortcomings? So isn't that supposed to help you become a better person? Or am I missing the point?
I personally don't use religion to make myself feel better, but I know people who've turned their lives around after finding Jesus. I think that whatever helps keep them from destroying themselves is good. Be it Jesus, Allah, or Ganesh.
What if god, or whomever, was here to help guide us at the beginning? Now that we've been told how to act and what's expected of us he/she's moved on and left us to our own devices?
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks