Posts Tagged Philosophy

Date: March 7th, 2010
Cate: Philosophy, Spirituality/Religion
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This Afternoon’s Thoughts [Oneness and Detachment]

To the extent you trust existence to take care of itself, you can be said to be “one” with it and also, quite ironically, practicing detachment. Changing things is a fundamentally egoistic concept. Political revolution comes from the ego-driven feeling of being “right” in opposition to an obvious “wrong.” Once righted, the situation reverses itself, with the former liberators now finding themselves in the position previously occupied by their oppressors. This is only one practical example of the phenomena known as Samsara, or the Wheel of Death and Rebirth.

Date: February 7th, 2010
Cate: Philosophy
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Philosophical Thoughts

I understand atheism, believe me. Growing up in the Black Baptist church, I have no difficulty relating to an aversion to dogmatic certainty and unsupported absolutes. But it occurs to me that an atheist should be the first person to realize that if God does not exist, it cannot be God who inspires such absurd conclusions. It is humans who desire justification for their actions, people looking for solid ground to base their assumptions about the world. In essence, the same kind of people as atheists.

The difference, or so it seems to me, is in the semantics. God means different things to different people. Not only might not God exist, but a coherent and universally shared meaning of God definitely does not exist. It seems problematic, if not ridiculous to disbelieve in an object about which nothing concretely is known or agreed upon.

My worldview works fine with or without reference to God, but I enjoy the poetry of it’s anthropomorphic connotations, the symmetry of macro to micro, body of man to universal body, all the cute mystical stuff. It informs and enriches my primary preoccupation – writing.

Moreover, I see abolutely no exclusion between God’s role and God’s nonexistence. Things, objects and creatures exist. Ideas do not exist anymore so than inactive computer programs. They are conceptual entirely, abstract utilities. God in particular is the idea of the role of supreme creator. As supreme creator, God is uncreated. Nothing uncreated exists. God is unlike all its creatures specifically because it does not exist and, yet, it is. It is analagous to space which, though it cannot be located, informs the location of everything that is.