Thursday, March 13, 2008

WHAT HE SAYS



This talk by Douglas Adams is as close to my view of religion as anything I've heard. My only addendum would be that the advantage we gained by our creative tool making began to turn against us when the god-in-our-image-therefore-we in-god's-image idea convinced mankind that the energy being however manipulated through the tool need not be that of the employer (mini-god) himself, ie. slavery, monarchy, fire arms, remote control, fuel consumption. Any tool that further removed us from the nature of our actions for the pleasure of effortless convenience has accelerated the evaporation of the puddle as surely as the artificially fed overpopulation's belief in it's exceptionality to the ways of nature.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's all a matter of perspective. We do create our own reality, not only by our toolmaking but by conscious directed observation and thought, and this is the essence of all creation.

Douglas Adams may not have believed in God, but it is rather like not believing in one's own existence, Douglas Adams was a being of directed observation and consciousness, he created a new and different reality.

Yodood said...

Quite true, but it was his "reality tunnel" as Robert Anton Wilson liked to call our idiosyncratic world views.

What you have referred to as the essence of all creation, "conscious directed observation and thought" seems to me to be only the purposeful cherry picking of ones life experiences to fit a montage whose outlines one drew early on. To me the essence of creation is more a purposeless grok of all the variations existent at any now to enable a beholding of their theme, not unlike the appearance of a three dimensional figure in an apparent jumble of color. This is the tao. This is the well of all creative metaphors and original thinking where curiosity finds no preconceived mazes or barriers, imagination finds infinite symbols and manners and intellect finds unique expressions for what everyone knows from where they forgot.

Garth said...

In many ways creation is the spewing forth of synaptically connected abstracts to form a new whole. The 'self' involved is merely the particlar brain in which the abstacts are stored.
It is this self that we associated with 'god'. We are all capable of creation and are therefore all gods.
Contrary to Michael's comment, not believing in the biblical god does not necessarily equate to not believing in the god that exists within.

Anonymous said...

I don't think I said anything about believing in a particular scripture, PI.

Though if you make a particular scripture your guide book it can have a profound effect on your reality tunnel.

We are all each of us aspects of God and we are co-creators of reality, our consciousness is being shared even now by the exchange of words which are only meaningful in the context of a consciousness on all sides and this consciousness is connected.

But those are just my words, and nobody has to agree with them. I think it's important to have some kind of metaphor for the purpose of communicating, or else we need to create a new one, and maybe that becomes a scripture for someone down the line. Why not use the Hitchhiker's Guide as your metaphor? It works fine. Just a bit...unpredictable. :)

I'm also a big fan of Neil Gaiman's observation that the number of people who focus on a particular metaphor cause that one to become more real to more people, so we should choose carefully what metaphors we use and how.

I quite like the Christian eschatological metaphor being immanentized because it allows the new reality tunnels to be introduced in a way that hopefully ends this last cycle of warfare and emerges a consciousness of humanity as a whole.

Why not?

troutsky said...

I think Michael is right about the need for a new perspective, paradigm shift, opening in the "tunnel", whathaveyou. Unless you can explain creation you must embrace some god-concept, but as light can be both a particle and wave simultaneously, we can be both mortal and gods.

Yodood said...

Thanks for this good discussion folks, it is why I blog.

I feel like using the word "god" distorts any conversation about the creative self.

I cannot begin to consider my "self" a god knowing the extent to which my actions are held in thrall to the will and whimsy of my cells, no matter how hard I try to imagine myself in control. In the same way, I see that I and all the other planetary selves are connected at our essence in a greater whole which could be thought of as the soul plane of earthly life as we make up the body, the gestalt of mother earth, which in turn is a part of a galactic body and so on.

Particles (whole bodies), appear at any point one cannot keep up with the light (years). Time appears whenever one attempts to express the immense content of the eternal present. Creativity appears whenever such expressions communicate original thought. No god to blame, thank, fear, beseech, mimic or be. God is whistling in the dark.

Anonymous said...

Good. I like that. The Adams video, I mean.

As for the conversation here; I used to believe in god, strictly out of fear. I don't know what exactly changed that, but somehow I finally managed to be truly honest with myself(well, up to a point;-). You face fear, seems it weakens. From my current perspective, I can't see any need at all for any kind of god.
I suspect we're somewhat more intimately involved in what we call 'creation' than just being objects that had it done to them. Heh, heh...

Nice one, G.
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Oh! I just got what you meant, "God is whistling in the dark." Exactly!

Anonymous said...

We all have different metaphors we may be more or less comfortable, but it is helpful to be able to understand the metaphors that others use, and have enough of a comfort level with them to be able to discuss them intelligently with people who use them.

I have no problem saying that we are more than matter, we are consciousness creating reality, and we know nothing of matter but what we perceive of it.

Names like God can confuse people who think this must be a being outside themselves, but if we are all cells in a larger organism, what name do we give the larger organism? It is not right to term it only Humanity or Earth or even Solar consciousness, for each of these is in turn part of something still larger and all pervasive, life communicates with life and so all life is one.

Yodood said...

An onion has many layers, none less onion than any other. Is god the seed or the onion? Or is it even necessary to posit a creator/controller of the natural processes of evolution? Certainly not required for its eternal occurrence. Creativity is relative the efficacy of expression of ones observations about the natural proliferation of variety.

Lilwave said...

The video gave an interesting view so I continued to listen to the series. What an interesting way of saying that all things, especially man, has no purpose other than survival. For the heavens and earth to be so mapped out and hold such beautiful complexities, yet be so meaningless..... To exist for the sake of existing and that God came from early mans need to have a reason to survive.
Could it have been just as likely that he had a need to understand the spiritual dimension of himself and the desire to connect with something much deeper driving him to find God?
Why does anyone think they have the ability to understand all things enough to be convinced without doubt that God doesn't exist? To me, it's like holding an a baby and someone trying to convince me the baby isn't really there.
Man hasn't created anything but rather re-created by manipulating what was already here. It was all created by something in the beginning but what? Whatever created it with all it's wonder, certainly has the ability to communicate with it's creations. God may get lost in mans religious interpretations for the same reasons that science get lost in theories but, I am convinced, through my own reality tunnel, that there is so much more that can be understood through a spiritual dimension. At least that is where I have found communion with God. The continued search for God would never make sense if no one had ever found a real spiritual relationship with God along the way. Gods existence should never be made by what we can prove but rather what can be disproved. (Not to be confused with giving up too soon)
The best "Tool" man can use to test the physical world is science and math but even there man has limited ability. That is where theories are born in place of facts. It most definitely falls short when testing the spiritual world.

Yodood said...

So you would go along with Adams if he had just given existence a purpose? And what purpose do you feel authorized to assign to existence? I am perfectly comfortable in seeing purposelessness, the tao, the way of nature to be empowerment of evolution to diversify infinitely forever. When you use survival I hear a different tone than is implied by the imperative that we adapt to natures ways, as purposeless as they may appear, which takes no more basic sense or science than to not put your hand in a fire twice. Insertion of a god between a person and their basic sense as the watcher over cause and effect, the awarder, the punisher for the alignment of all our actions with his purpose is just too bogus a ploy to fool anyone capable of thinking for themselves. The idea of karma returns to the truly chaotic realm of cosmic cause and effect in union with the spirit of our own purposes with no need to mention the purpose of a supreme being. We'll talk further upon your visit, I imagine. ;•)

Lilwave said...

Go along with Adams? No, of course not because I found something spiritually that Adams obviously is convinced doesn't exist. I am convinced that God IS the only authority. Not out of fear or because someone told me it was that way but because God himself showed me. We absolutely have no authority to assign purpose to life but we all have a choice on how we live, whether you know God or not. That in a way does give life purpose doesn't it? Unfortunately, the lives that some choose to live is very destructive. Your life HAS had a purpose whether you believe it does or not. I choose to live my life according to what God communicates to me. It is just unfortunate when man uses the ability or more the lack of ability to communicate with God to justify their own selfish agenda by misrepresenting God's intentions. That is where most religions are formed. And before you say it, YES, I do read the Holy Bible. So far, I have not found one message that goes against what God has already shown me. I find the interactions with God described by the men who wrote the scriptures to work in the same ways that God speaks to me now. Unfortunately, many twist scripture without ever realizing just how out of context they are taking the original message that God gave.

Yodood said...

"We absolutely have no authority to assign purpose to life but we all have a choice on how we live"

Okay, finally we have a another touching point in what may well be a lifelong sore point unless we find the way to hear each others words the way they were meant.

I could not agree more with both parts of the quote above

there is no authority to determine purpose to the universe but we are totally responsible for the choices we make in our live. You are totally responsible for listening to whatever you claim tells you things when he, she, it told you I would not be in heaven with you if I didn't believe such and so. That very same responsibility is the survival, the sanity to detect nature's ways and adapt to them, that Adams spoke of. What we interpret our responsibilities to be IS that purpose which can only grow as we behold our interrelatedness as a part of a larger body, not the silver chalice inheritor of some creator's sandbox.

As I have said more than once in this blog, the only thing predetermined in this life is the karma that makes life easy for people able to be symbiotic with nature and torture for people who try to exploit nature as if it was ours to treat any damned way we want without suffering because some bogie man made it just for us to do just that with it.

We rape our mother upon being told by supreme authority that she was a whore for our exclusive pleasure.

Anonymous said...

"We rape our mother upon being told by supreme authority that she was a whore for our exclusive pleasure."

Amen

Lilwave said...

NO, we rape our mother because of our own selfish agendas by deciding we have the right to do as we please as long as it feels good.
All things have rules and limits. So who had the authority to decide what those rules and limits were and at what point do we take responsibility for them?

Yodood said...

And whose gift spoiled us into the selfish state you rue? If we felt more a part of the family of earth, rather than its landlord as the Christian god is claimed to have told us we are, we might be a little more considerate of our fellow life forms; all cells in the larger cell of the earth, itself part of the larger body/cell of the galaxy and on into infinity … which the whole biblical myth dismisses as mere markers to count our our selfish days.

How can one not be selfish believing the entire universe was made exclusively for them? This is the core belief of the controlling religious and political activity afoot in the world today as they milk the sheeple for all their blind faith in external authority. authority.

Lilwave said...

HA...seems once again that we agree on the problem but are looking at each other from opposite side of the looking glass. (I'm waving with a great big smile throwing you kisses!!)

The closer my spirit is to God the closer I am connected with all things. Through that my responsibilities are found. God IS the spiritual current that is never ending,connecting me to everything.
Considering that the majority of the world doesn't even acknowledge God it cannot be the reason for selfishness. BUT, for those who use God as an excuse for selfishness exploits the true message of God. There is plenty of that I cannot deny!! Faith in external authority comes from the lack of spiritual authority. I, myself, seriously lack faith in man.

Anonymous said...

You cannot have a truly rational discussion with a "believer." I hate to stir it up, but this is my real life observation. "God said it. I believe it. That settles it!"
Did they never hear of the Council of Nicaea?

Yodood said...

in the US the indivisibility of church and the state, designed within the myth and from the model of Christian theocracy, creates believers in a value system where mankind is the ultimate goal of all creation. I hate to break it to you, Lilwave, but I think your god has the voice of nature's ways. We may have the same guide, mine relishes the freedom of purposeless, chaotic diversity and yours, I am glad to finally say, doesn't sound all that Christian, especially seeing as how you seem to have a pretty dismal picture of
Christians yourself. I guess my one great wonder all this past year or so has been why you insist your belief is Christian. I have an inherent understanding of my sister Susan when she formed her own church so she could practice her own beliefs.

When you visit you will stroll through my church harvesting veggies and free range eggs. I love you, daughter.

Lilwave said...

It's Christian because I follow Christ's teachings. You don't have to agree nor understand that. Church for me is the light God has ignited inside, not a building.
I look forward to seeing you. I'll be there as soon as I can work it out.
I Love You Too :)

karoline in the morning said...

(((lil'wave)))

(((mr.g)))

reason enough