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.
