On finding God (Part 4)

[rrneck]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4


The vast majority of people who have ever lived spent their unremarkable albeit peaceful and productive lives believing in something they called God. I find it difficult to believe that the concept of God did not play a significant role in the survival of the species. Spirituality and all that entails may be considered a recreational activity now, but some caveman didn’t stay up all night drawing figures on the wall because he just wasn’t tired enough from chasing Mastodons with a pointed stick all day.


These people aren’t crazy, they’re just assholes. Okay, some of them are crazy assholes.

Of course everything is thoroughly modern now what with all the newfangled gadgets like the internet, which seems to be used primarily for distributing kitty pictures and porn. While the utility of porn is obvious, it’s hard to imagine people devoting so much time to cat pictures because of an interest in phylogenetic research. No, there is more to life than solving the puzzles of the universe and forty seven cup holders in Chevys. People are spiritual critters and that spirituality is an important part of our existence. The traditional focus of that spirituality, alas, has been the source of a certain amount of mischief throughout our history. My objective here has been to postulate the actual object of our spirituality and build a narrative around it with which we might all live without butchering each other over it.

Call it what you will; initiative, curiosity, id, moxie, chutzpah, guts, drive or ants in your pants there are more names for God than for Satan. But each moniker points to something within each and every one of us, and that thing is as much a part of us as our pulse. It’s standard equipment in our model rather than an aftermarket option. It may become little more than another appendix some day, but right now it’s still as important as lungs.

I prefer my narrative right now because it offers me a perspective that I think is important. It offers me the opportunity to see a reflection of myself in others, and a reflection of them in me. A Theory of Mind has been crucial to the survival of the species and without it civilization could not exist. We already have lots of Chevys with lots of cup holders, but simple empathy appears to be lacking.

I usually have to wait for what people seem to call God to show up before I can really get anything meaningful done. Sometimes I have to struggle to make it appear. And I do it every day without the help of some guy with a special hat or Bronze Age text. I think the truth is that the arts are not a tool used in the expression of religious faith, but rather that religion is just another one of the arts, and the arts are just another way people build a narrative in response to the compulsion to “go”. Some of us build a narrative with science, others with images of flaming genitalia. Who am I to argue which is better?

We have come so far in the development of our understanding of the boundaries of outer and inner space. Our knowledge has become so esoteric it is completely removed from the everyday experience of life as we know it. Our theories and ideologies have run away and left us to become realities in their own right – realities that are used against us for all the same reasons any other weapon has been used since we discovered our thumbs. One narrative is no more good or evil than another. I think the greatest evil today is not any particular narrative, but our lack of desire to develop our own narrative and make it work. We are all too willing to let someone sell us something that we’ve already got.

I’ve often heard it said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think that’s true. It might also be argued that any sufficiently advanced art is also indistinguishable from magic. It’s all just form and content after all.

[JDPriestly]

1. You say: It’s all just form and content after all.

I would say it a little differently. It's all energy after all.

We feel energy, therefore we move forward. We feel energy, therefore we create form and content.

Except that when we talk about God, we are really talking about the energy that is created and that we feel and that moves us forward, the energy in which we see or sense form and content or the energy from which we create our own form and content. But the essential in all this is that energy from which we and everything around us and the whole universe is made -- and that is what we know as God.

A lot of people will disagree with me. And many will be disturbed because my theory does not characterize things as good or evil and certainly within human experience good and evil from our point of view exist. But then taking a wider view, what I may perceive as evil and what a polar bear may perceive as evil are two different things. So maybe "evil" is really a word I use to characterize energy that opposes my personal will.

So maybe if God is the energy of the universe, we can't rely on that energy to provide us our morality. Maybe morality and God are two different things. Maybe morality is what we create for our human society so that we can live in harmony, in security and in peace and flourish.

But then God is that energy as you say that makes us go forward -- that moves us.

Am I understanding what you mean?

[rrneck]

2. I like the sound of it.

I live in an area that uses the word "energy" interchangeably with other references to spirituality. It beats the hell out of hearing "Jesus" every five minutes.

I think morality is part of whatever narrative we build and share with others. Since we have this energy or what I obliquely called "go", morality helps us know what to do with it in relation to others.

I like your narrative, and I can find a lot of what I was thinking in it.

[Thats my opinion]

5. Solid analysis.

I too have often here defined God as energy, but I nuance that notion by saying God is "power with a purpose." It takes the seed and forces it through the hard earth to produce a green shoot and finally seed and fruit. I suggest that history is going somewhere--thus evolution in biology and ethics in human behavior.

[JDPriestly]

7. Thanks. Agreed.

In my opinion, religions are fine as far as they go, but they don't go nearly far enough. There is so much more to a spiritual life than what your mind thinks about things. It is so great to know that on DU there are others who agree with me on this, who perhaps have experienced it themselves.

I don't think it is a coincidence that this kind of spiritual experience is especially known to people who have developed some expertise in some artistic field.

[dimbear]

3. Interesting posts. There is certainly a significant share of art which is clearly irreligious,

and ought to come into the argument somewhere. I'm thinking of Fuseli and Felicien Rops for starters. Maybe the last works of Goya thrown in too. My point is that a logic diagram showing both art and religion would be complicated.

[rrneck]

4. Andres Serrano sure got people torqued.

Religions lambaste each other all the time. And add to religion all the other ways that people cluster together like sports and politics and it's not hard to see why those complications can result in a bad case of anomie.

[JDPriestly]

6. I think the OP is talking about the God that exists but is not defined or confined

by religion, the God beyond religion. A person with a sense of that God beyond religion could care less about religion or irreligion. I am being presumptious in speaking on behalf of the person who posted the OP in this thread. So take my statement as my personal feelings and beliefs on the matter.