God??

According to Joseph Campbell, 'God' is a metaphor. If you believe that god is nature, the universe, the force, the tao, Walt Disney, or whatever, it might be interesting to ask yourself why you use the word 'god' to refer to whatever it is.

There may be social pressure to 'believe in god' because if you don't, you may be thought to have no basis for moral behavior. So you make up something which you call 'god' in order to comply.

Also, there is the possibility that you retain a remnant of childhood religious conditioning. Your unconscious prompts you to think that you are supposed to believe in god, so you create your own meaning for 'god' which you can rationally accept.

Of course, some people really believe in the god of a theistic religion because it fulfills a psychological need.

The fact remains, however, that the word 'god' has no definite, concrete denotation, only vague and variable connotations. 'God' is a fugitive component of otherwise rational discourse.

I once heard a theory, maybe in a documentary, that all human faith is born from the trauma of disconnection that occurred when humanity gained a consciousness other animals did not possess. Animals know instinctively which course is wisest for them, they recognize poisonous foods and are more aware of nature than most humans. When humanity evolved that separation (between "me" and "I?") a solution to the new problem of finding the assurance we lost was answered with "God," a promise that somewhere there was a reason and truth to all that humans found so terrifying in the new world they found themselves in. It might even be because human babies leave the womb weak and unformed, and so there is a search for a return to the womb.

It certainly is an interesting theory, although it doesn't explain the abstraction of God.

closrapexa said:

I......When humanity evolved that separation (between "me" and "I?") a solution to the new problem of finding the assurance we lost was answered with "God," a promise that somewhere there was a reason and truth to all that humans found so terrifying in the new world they found themselves in.....

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That seems related to the search for the 'meaning of life.' But whatever it is, we cannot find it 'out there' since it is due to the separation of 'me' and 'I.' This maybe was in the back of Waite's mind when he wroth in Azoth: "There is and there can be only one way by which we can approach God, and that is by the way of the interior life. The reason is plain. God is the absolute reality, and there can be but one means of seeking Him, and that is through the reality which is in ourselves." He goes on to say that 'it' cannot be found in religious institutions.

LRichard said:

That seems related to the search for the 'meaning of life.' But whatever it is, we cannot find it 'out there' since it is due to the separation of 'me' and 'I.' This maybe was in the back of Waite's mind when he wroth in Azoth: "There is and there can be only one way by which we can approach God, and that is by the way of the interior life. The reason is plain. God is the absolute reality, and there can be but one means of seeking Him, and that is through the reality which is in ourselves." He goes on to say that 'it' cannot be found in religious institutions.

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In But Not In

It is said that after Muhammad (p) and the prophets

revelation does not descend upon anyone else.

Why not? In fact it does, but then it is not called 'revelation.'

It is what the Prophet referred to when he said, 'The believer sees with the Light of Allah.'

When the believer looks with Allah's Light,

he sees all things: the first and the last, the present and the absent.

For how can anything be hidden from Allah's Light?

And if something is hidden, then it is not the Light of Allah.

Therefore the meaning of revelation exists, even if it is not called revelation.

***

Allah

I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.

I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Ka'bah in Mecca, but He was not there either.

I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their understanding.

I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found.

Jalaluddin Rumi

Yes. Rumi and the Prophet would agree with Waite that finding 'god' is the way of the mystic, the inner way. Of course, ultimately All is One anyhow, the inside and the outside are the same. This is expressed in the (presumably Gnostic) Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus saw some infants who were being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom. They said to him: If we then become children, shall we enter the kingdom? Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom].

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Thou Art God.

Lotus Padma said:

Thou Art God.

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So art thou.

तत्त्वमसि = TAT TVAM ASI = THOU ART THAT

I wonder if that idea of "the all" isn't an interpretation of of a mostly Western concept. Many answers here have been basically non-subscription to any one religion but at the same time a non-denominational belief in a unity of thought and existence. Is this kind of agnostic thought influenced by the supposed beliefs it doesn't actually hold? Would "agnostic" answers coming from a polytheistic societies be any different?

closrapexa said:

I wonder if that idea of "the all" isn't an interpretation of of a mostly Western concept. Many answers here have been basically non-subscription to any one religion but at the same time a non-denominational belief in a unity of thought and existence. Is this kind of agnostic thought influenced by the supposed beliefs it doesn't actually hold? Would "agnostic" answers coming from a polytheistic societies be any different?

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Didn't the classical Greek philosophers come up with a fairly cogent concept of 'the all?' This happened within a polytheistic context. However, Greece is considered Western.

Christianity is super-dualistic, making a radical distinction between the spiritual and physical and coming dangerously near to considering the former good and the latter evil, Christ the mythical god-man notwithstanding. They ascribe rulership of our planet to Satan (which they identify with the Devil, as the personification of evil). I suppose my own philosophical monism could be ascribed partly to a reaction against Christian dualism, but more than anything, I find dualism distasteful. I don't want to tread those murky waters. Call it a poetic preference if you will.

FWIW, Waite was a monist: "The distinction between matter and spirit is not recognized by the true philosopher, who is aware that there is but one nature infinitely differentiated in the universe." [Quote from Azoth]

closrapexa said:

I once heard a theory, maybe in a documentary, that all human faith is born from the trauma of disconnection that occurred when humanity gained a consciousness other animals did not possess.

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That's a variation of one I heard - that god (and myths) were almost subconsciously invented to explain things that we could not understand (like the sun rising, rain, thunder, grass growing.) And the corollary was that atheism is on the rise as we can rationally explain more and more of these things.