synthesis
5th October 2007, 12:44
An excerpt:
The time has come for our species to abandon the distinction between God and Reason.
To be sure, the Gods of Jesus and Mohammed are false Gods, for they are the result of humans foisting their own characteristics upon God, such as judgment, emotion and forethought.
The Old Testament tells us that Yahweh is jealous and the Koran tells us that Allah will curse the unbelievers (33:64-8).
In Truth, no God who can be reduced to such base human characteristics is worthy of our worship.
No, it has become crystal clear that the God that is worshiped all over the globe is a result of the attempt to condense the infinity of God into a form that is easier for the human mind to comprehend.
This is the God that often demanded faith without proof, that science showed us we could do without, that Nietzsche declared dead.
But how does God still survive?
For one thing, the social scientists of our time have addressed the role of religion in social cohesion and regulating morality.
But that is a shallow perspective.
Many enlightened philosophers of ages past, such as Epictetus and 'ibn Arabi, have touched on the idea of the God within us all.
These ideas, sometimes mystical in nature, still hold a great deal of appeal in places where organized religion is dying.
They only just hint at the Truth, which I shall announce without fanfare:
We are all Gods in the Bodies of Beasts.
The time has come to remove mythology from the concept of God - to finally reach a perfect synthesis of religion and science.
There is God in all of us, and it is called Reason.
But why worship Reason?
Reason is perfect; humans are not.
Experience has taught us that our base animal impulses are the source of all our faults science has proven it.
In the long term of evolution, we are not very far removed from all other beasts - but God, Reason, is guiding us out of it.
We became divine when God, Reason, entered us. There is a God in all of us, and we must always be striving for the divine over the animal that is the only way we shall ever rise above the savage state of nature.
But do not religions necessitate Faith? Is not Reason the very opposite of Faith, why religion and science are so diametrically opposed?
The Gods of history, that require blind faith without evidence, are dead or dying.
Yet Reason itself requires Faith, because while Reason is a tool of scientific explanation, there is no scientific explanation of Reason itself.
For example, one could take the most basic use of Reason you could find, the Law of Identity:
A=A
In other words, a thing is itself.
An arm is an arm.
The Law of Identity is an obvious one, yet it is a necessary principle in mathematics.
The principle itself exists whether or not there is a human present to observe it.
It can provide an explanation for why something is, but there can be no explanation for why A is equal to A.
It just is.
We cannot fully comprehend this abstraction yet we know it exists and it lies within us.
Reason is perfect in itself and thus demands worship by imperfect humans.
This is the God in all of us.
Wisdom lies in awareness of our beastly state of being and striving towards divinity. You will worship in the form of subjugating what is animal and imperfect in yourself and submitting to the perfection of Reason.
In this way, Reason is Allah - God - its religion is Islam - submission to God - and its followers are Muslims those who submit to God.
It shall be our only ruler; after all, as a wise man noted, if men are incompetent to rule themselves, how can they be competent to rule others?
So spread the Word:
The old, false Gods - Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh - are long dead.
The time has come for a new God, that which resides within us.
The punishment for unbelievers is ultimately their own ignorance - we need not make threats or promises, for all we can promise is truth.
My cousin wrote it. What do you think?
pusher robot
5th October 2007, 22:04
Originally posted by Edric O+October 05, 2007 04:54 pm--> (Edric O @ October 05, 2007 04:54 pm)
pusher
[email protected] 05, 2007 05:33 pm
Is your cousin a fan of Ayn Rand?
No, no, you got it backwards. The essay posted here is an attempt to present an argument for reason in religious language. Ayn Rand created a religion and presented it in the language of reason.
But to address the original post: Who is the intended readership for that essay? [/b]
I ask because this:
For example, one could take the most basic use of Reason you could find, the Law of Identity:
A=A
In other words, a thing is itself.
An arm is an arm.
The Law of Identity is an obvious one, yet it is a necessary principle in mathematics.
The principle itself exists whether or not there is a human present to observe it.
It can provide an explanation for why something is, but there can be no explanation for why A is equal to A.
was one of Rand's most favorite philosophical premises.
synthesis
6th October 2007, 00:11
I'll just let my cousin respond to questions directly.
"why dosn't your cousin just come stright out and say it bluntly; one needs to dump faith and take up reason?"
One must have faith in Reason itself, while recognizing that our animal ancestry prevents us from ever fully understanding its infinity.
"But to address the original post: Who is the intended readership for that essay?"
It does not seek to make a point; its "point" is truth. You are free to ignore it as you please.
"True, but this essay certainly does contain a few of Rand's slogans. The phrase A=A is a bit of a give away. She used to use that to try and justify literally anything after all."
The new God cannot be used to justify anything in and of itself; that is "of the old Gods." The fundamental idea is that the capacity for divinity exists in us all, though we are still possessed of such things as emotion and judgment as a result of our animal origins.
"Easy answers" are traditional of the old religions; the purpose of the new religion is to provide guidance and higher meaning - that of the old religions which remains divine - in a world that cannot sustain a God demanding blind faith.
What you have read is only an excerpt, that which justifies a God which humans must be eternally striving after. The surrounding philosophy is constructed mostly on the philosophy of a Greek slave - but again, use of the word God must be tempered with the truths that science has given us.
If God had made that part of His own nature which He severed from Himself and gave to us, liable to be hindered or constrained either by Himself or any other, He would not have been God, nor would He have been taking care of us as He ought . . . . If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you need blame no manaccuse no man. All things will be at once according to your mind and according to the Mind of God.
But God hath introduced Man to be a spectator of Himself and of His works; and not a spectator only, but also an interpreter of them. Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself.
See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.
The other day I had an iron lamp placed beside my household gods. I heard a noise at the door and on hastening down found my lamp carried off. I reflected that the culprit was in no very strange case. "Tomorrow, my friend," I said, "you will find an earthenware lamp; for a man can only lose what he has."
The reason why I lost my lamp was that the thief was superior to me in vigilance. He paid however this price for the lamp, that in exchange for it he consented to become a thief: in exchange for it, to become faithless.
If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Man be true, what remains for men to do but as Socrates did:never, when asked one's country, to answer, "I am an Athenian or a Corinthian," but "I am a citizen of the world."
Asked how a man might eat acceptably to the Gods, Epictetus replied:If when he eats, he can be just, cheerful, equable, temperate, and orderly, can he not thus eat acceptably to the Gods? But when you call for warm water, and your slave does not answer, or when he answers brings it lukewarm, or is not even found to be in the house at all, then not to be vexed nor burst with anger, is not that acceptable to the Gods?
"But how can one endure such people?"
Will you not endure your own brother, that has God to his forefather, even as a son sprung from the same stock, and of the same high descent as yourself? And if you are stationed in a high position, are you therefor forthwith set up for a tyrant? Remember who you are, and whom you rule, that they are by nature your kinsmen, your brothers, the offspring of God.
"But I paid a price for them, not they for me."
Do you see whither you are lookingdown to the earth, to the pit, to those despicable laws of the dead? But to the laws of the Gods you do not look.
I do not think that an old fellow like me need have been sitting here to try and prevent your entertaining abject notions of yourselves, and talking of yourselves in an abject and ignoble way: but to prevent there being by chance among you any such young men as, after recognising their kindred to the Gods, and their bondage in these chains of the body and its manifold necessities, should desire to cast them off as burdens too grievous to be borne, and depart their true kindred. This is the struggle in which your Master and Teacher, were he worthy of the name, should be engaged. You would come to me and say: "Epictetus, we can no longer endure being chained to this wretched body, giving food and drink and rest and purification: aye, and for its sake forced to be subservient to this man and that. Are these not things indifferent and nothing to us? Is it not true that death is no evil? Are we not in a manner kinsmen of the Gods, and have we not come from them? Let us depart thither, whence we came: let us be freed from these chains that confine and press us down. Here are thieves and robbers and tribunals: and they that are called tyrants, who deem that they have after a fashion power over us, because of the miserable body and what appertains to it. Let us show them that they have power over none."
Nay, young man, for heaven's sake; but once thou hast heard these words, go home and say to thyself:"It is not Epictetus that has told me these things: how indeed should he? No, it is some gracious God through him. Else it would never have entered his head to tell me themhe that is not used to speak to any one thus. Well, then, let us not lie under the wrath of God, but be obedient unto Him."-Nay, indeed; but if a raven by its croaking bears thee any sign, it is not the raven but God that sends the sign through the raven; and if He signifies anything to thee through human voice, will He not cause the man to say these words to thee, that thou mayest know the power of the Divinehow He sends a sign to some in one way and to others in another, and on the greatest and highest matters of all signifies His will through the noblest messenger?
God is beneficent. But the Good also is beneficent. It should seem then that where the real nature of God is, there too is to be found the real nature of the Good. What then is the real nature of God?Intelligence, Knowledge, Right Reason. Here then without more ado seek the real nature of the Good. For surely thou dost not seek it in a plant or in an animal that reasoneth not.
A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right pathhe does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.
We see that a carpenter becomes a carpenter by learning certain things: that a pilot, by learning certain things, becomes a pilot. Possibly also in the present case the mere desire to be wise and good is not enough. It is necessary to learn certain things. This is then the object of our search. The Philosophers would have us first learn that there is a God, and that His Providence directs the Universe; further, that to hide from Him not only one's acts but even one's thoughts and intentions is impossible; secondly, what the nature of God is. Whatever that nature is discovered to be, the man who would please and obey Him must strive with all his might to be made like unto him. If the Divine is faithful, he also must be faithful; if free, he also must be free; if beneficent, he also must be beneficent; if magnanimous, he also must be magnanimous. Thus as an imitator of God must he follow Him in every deed and word.
I think I know now what I never knew beforethe meaning of the common saying, A fool you can neither bend nor break. Pray heaven I may never have a wise fool for my friend! There is nothing more intractable."My resolve is fixed!"Why so madman say too; but the more firmly they believe in their delusions, the more they stand in need of treatment.
If you have given way to anger, be sure that over and above the evil involved therein, you have strengthened the habit, and added fuel to the fire. If overcome by a temptation of the flesh, do not reckon it a single defeat, but that you have also strengthened your dissolute habits. Habits and faculties are necessarily affected by the corresponding acts. Those that were not there before, spring up: the rest gain in strength and extent. This is the account which Philosophers give of the origin of diseases of the mind:Suppose you have once lusted after money: if reason sufficient to produce a sense of evil be applied, then the lust is checked, and the mind at once regains its original authority; whereas if you have recourse to no remedy, you can no longer look for this returnon the contrary, the next time it is excited by the corresponding object, the flame of desire leaps up more quickly than before. By frequent repetition, the mind in the long run becomes callous; and thus this mental disease produces confirmed Avarice.
One who has had fever, even when it has left him, is not in the same condition of health as before, unless indeed his cure is complete. Something of the same sort is true also of diseases of the mind. Behind, there remains a legacy of traces and blisters: and unless these are effectually erased, subsequent blows on the same spot will produce no longer mere blisters, but sores. If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend its increase. At first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not angry: "I used to be angry every day, then every other day: next every two, next every three days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to the Gods in thanksgiving.
"Epictetus, I have often come desiring to hear you speak, and you have never given me any answer; now if possible, I entreat you, say something to me."
"Is there, do you think," replied Epictetus, "an art of speaking as of other things, if it is to be done skilfully and with profit to the hearer?"
"Yes."
"And are all profited by what they hear, or only some among them? So that it seems there is an art of hearing as well as of speaking. . . . To make a statue needs skill: to view a statue aright needs skill also."
"Admitted."
"And I think all will allow that one who proposes to hear philosophers speak needs a considerable training in hearing. Is that not so? The tell me on what subject your are able to hear me."
"Why, on good and evil."
"The good and evil of what? a horse, an ox?"
"No; of a man."
"Do we know then what Man is? what his nature is? what is the idea we have of him? And are our ears practised in any degree on the subject? Nay, do you understand what Nature is? can you follow me in any degree when I say that I shall have to use demonstration? Do you understand what Demonstration is? what True or False is? . . . must I drive you to Philosophy? . . . Show me what good I am to do by discoursing with you. Rouse my desire to do so. The sight of a pasture it loves stirs in a sheep the desire to feed: show it a stone or a bit of bread and it remains unmoved. Thus we also have certain natural desires, aye, and one that moves us to speak when we find a listener that is worth his salt: one that himself stirs the spirit. But if he sits by like a stone or a tuft of grass, how can he rouse a man's desire?"
"Then you will say nothing to me?"
"I can only tell you this: that one who knows not who he is and to what end he was born; what kind of world this is and with whom he is associated therein; one who cannot distinguish Good and Evil, Beauty and Foulness, . . . Truth and Falsehood, will never follow Reason in shaping his desires and impulses and repulsions, nor yet in assent, denial, or suspension of judgement; but will in one word go about deaf and blind, thinking himself to be somewhat, when he is in truth of no account. Is there anything new in all this? Is not this ignorance the cause of all the mistakes and mischances of men since the human race began? . . ."
"This is all I have to say to you, and even this against the grain. Why? Because you have not stirred my spirit. For what can I see in you to stir me, as a spirited horse will stir a judge of horses? Your body? That you maltreat. Your dress? That is luxurious. You behavior, your look?Nothing whatever. When you want to hear a philosopher, do not say, You say nothing to me'; only show yourself worthy or fit to hear, and then you will see how you will move the speaker."
To you, all you have seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied. See children thrusting their hands into a narrow-necked jar, and striving to pull out the nuts and figs it contains: if they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out again, and then they fall to tears."Let go a few of them, and then you can draw out the rest!"You, too, let your desire go! covet not many things, and you will obtain.
"But," you say, "I cannot comprehend all this at once."
"Why, who told you that your powers were equal to God's?"
Yet God hath placed by the side of each a man's own Guardian Spirit, who is charged to watch over hima Guardian who sleeps not nor is deceived. For to what better or more watchful Guardian could He have committed which of us? So when you have shut the doors and made a darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone, but God is within, and your Guardian Spirit, and what light do they need to behold what you do? To this God you also should have sworn allegiance, even as soldiers unto Csar. They, when their service is hired, swear to hold the life of Csar dearer than all else: and will you not swear your oath, that are deemed worthy of so many and great gifts? And will you not keep your oath when you have sworn it? And what oath will you swear? Never to disobey, never to arraign or murmur at aught that comes to you from His hand: never unwillingly to do or suffer aught that necessity lays upon you.
"Is this oath like theirs?"
They swear to hold no other dearer than Csar: you, to hold our true selves dearer than all else beside.
These are not political prescriptions; these are truths of the God that lives in all people. Wisdom starts with the realization of its absence. Epictetus was a prophet of the Religion of Reason, yet his teachings are always to be built upon; they are the Old Testament, and it is time for a New Testament to adapt these truths to a new world
Wisdom. (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/871/871-h/871-h.htm)
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