Is God a Useful Concept?

Having passed through multiple different "incarnations" of my "self" - or different ways of "being me" - I have come to see the vagaries of Human awareness as exactly like that described by the physicist and feminist philosopher Karen Barad.

“Making knowledge is not simply about making facts but about making worlds, or rather, it is about making specific worldly configurations – not in the sense of making them up ex-nihilo, or out of language, beliefs, or ideas, but in the sense of materially engaging as part of the world in giving it specific material form. And yet the fact that we make knowledge not from outside but as part of the world does not mean that knowledge is necessarily subjective (a notion that already presumes the pre-existing distinction between object and subject that feeds representationalist thinking). At the same time, objectivity cannot be about producing undistorted represented from afar. Rather, objectivity is about being accountable to the specific materializations of which we are a part.” – Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway; pg. 91, Duke, 2007

The above image is profoundly non-dual, and in all likelihood, probably the truest portrayal to date of the sort of world we emerge within and mutually act upon - as it continuously acts upon us. It is deeply unfortunate that the concepts of systems theory are not better appreciated - as the sort of authority and magic attributed to numbers, are, in Camelo Castillo's terms, not real: the Fibonacci sequence, for instance, is an abstraction - a phenomena that is dependent on all the interacting agencies that make the sequence appear and become realized in nature. The tendency to abstract and objectify the creative transformations of nature - to simplify what is fundamentally complex and beyond Human powers of computation (see Wagner, 2014) - and to put yourself outside the semantic context of Human evolution - is to truly be stuck in La La Land. And so it shouldn't surprise anyone that a movie with just that name is apparently very "hot" right now.

How did we Humans get here? The freakishness of this situation is the delusion of it all. If you don't think of yourself in the context of history - of biological evolution - you have an untrue representation of what you actually are: you are existentially dissociated from knowing what you are.

Is God a Helpful Construct?

In one sense, no. I'd like to think that God represents a sense of awareness that emerges between and within Human beings who have been evolving around one another, supported by the contingencies of history and the security of their environments, to grow more and more coherent in their representations of both their own self-experience and the experience of the other's they interacted with and loved.

Why is this? It is simple. Living amidst one another - with no rooms to hide in or jobs to fly off to, our bodies grew very responsive to one another's cues - such that our brain-minds generated a consciousness - a phenomenology of being - that grew more and more cognizant of the social-dynamics that organized their self-structure.

Mind and Body - consciousness and feeling - would have emerged as a normal "diffraction pattern" (Barad, 2007) in the minds of highly evolved Hominids. Since diffraction is the basic phenomena of nature, Barad's theorization of evolution as the entanglement of 'matter and meaning' rings very true when considered in terms of human phenomenology - or relational psychoanalysis. For instance, say you are currently activated: your amygdala-brainstem have been activated, and your emotions are beginning to run wild. You begin thinking about this girl you know who irritated you, without recognizing the cause of your rumination: the passing by of an attractive girl, which triggered the image of the other girl, and so brought you to the past irritation.

Conscious energy from an emotional experience is "built" into the brain: as in more molecules (i.e. metobilism) is moving in and out of this particular network of brain relations, leaving an "imprint" that resonates with associated 'environmental cues'.

If you happen to think of you old therapist, you may be pulled into a past negative ideation about her too: simply as a function of the long-term impact of cortisol and adrenaline in the central nervous system, the flush of energy you feel will take you into an exaggerated and unjustified ideation about your therapist. Indeed - when you calm down another "diffraction" will likely occur: you will reflect upon your past judgement and recognize how '#ty' it was of you to think of a woman who has been patient and caring so many times with you.

You are an embodied being structured by this one, singular universe. There is nothing but the one thing - we are of it and within it - no outside, no escape from our effects within the system: since the system is one Whole - the Whole will no doubt continuously re-experience itself in the afterlife experience, or so I imagine. I don't think there is any "God" besides the continuing discovery - growth - and coherence - accomplished by the beings who hold the fate of our own existence as Humans, and as potential guardians of the Earth - instead of its executioner.

Is God a helpful construct?

Based upon the complexity described above, it would seem like making recourse to an imagined, or projected third party, is helpful.

Mind you: I believe in a whole - and thus a dimension of myself that is greater than my present awareness. I therefore subscribe to God of infinite possibility. However - I would never personally bring such a topic to a conversation because I believe the language of logic, reflection on personal experience, and reflection on the nature of reality - i.e. ONES OWN INNER PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK, will produce the sort of awareness where you too may feel like I do - that God is a beautiful idea - but not a necessary one.

The main point, for me, is understanding of relational processes between Humans, and in doing so, discover the pleasure of making your relationships more deep, reflective, and inter-connected. Knowledge of self intersubjectively shared "creates worlds" - where depths within you become informationally entangled to depths within me. Language: the heart must speak its truths through the mouth - out into social world - and heard by Human ears: and via this illusory portal (there is only one reality: entangled monads within a universe shaped by 4 forces in its emergent becoming) the heart on the other end is riveted into awareness.

In short, I wonder whether God is like a transitional object. Has human history been so war-ridden, so traumatic: do we hold that trauma in our autonomic nervous system - our tendencies to be speechless? God has been one big massive projection - and tool - that to the non-introspective became the very opposite of what the mystic or introspective looking mind understood "God" to be.

If we can stay in our bodies and not dissociate from the "ground" - the matter - from which we self-organize, we can actually make ourselves understood to the other person. If we watch ourselves and keep close to our hearts i.e. speak with care and a true desire to resolve conflict, we increase the probability of getting through to the Other, and so actually produce productive conversation.

We have been living in a culture where people talk past one another.

We don't seem to notice cause and effect - or just don't care about it. The apathy is unbefitting of the traumatic consequences. Play - goofiness, family guy, etc - comes with an intellectual price tag - a tag that most of American culture (and its effects on the world) has not paid - cannot handle, and so naturally become silly puddy in the hands of clever demagogues.

Our culture is stupid and has produced simplistic minds - and because minds are only one side, brains as well - that cannot regulate their affect properly when they speak: they shout, they get irritated and have downloaded into their unconscious hundreds of go-to cliches for "how to be" to bring about a desired state of affect.

Donald Trump is a consequence of this Human inattention to itself. The idea that we can be Human without being Human is the primary cause of the autism epidemic: the transformation of our culture into a world of people who talk past one another and don't work to realize in their awareness the perspective of the other person. No - insanity has been rewarded time and again. Impulsivity - impishness - tawdriness, and a crude senselessness to the future which awaits the part which causes suffering to the others who are really his own Self.

I think above all else, we can't lose touch with what our bodies teach us: how they inform us of what's really happening i.e within us. Losing touch with the base spins us outward - centrifugally - into the narcissistic ideation all of us have crammed into our minds. We get lost if we don't name our affects properly - if we ignore the meaning of irritation (effect) without interest into the reason for its emergent causality (being shamed by your dad for being weak). Diffractions. The mind is a wave - and we - us Humans, are not really as we seem to ourselves.

I don't mind play - making fun of things when there is agreement and an actual maturity about it.

Just look at the world around you, all the pain and suffering, death and famine.. then ask yourself if god is real. If this is the best "god" can do, I'm not impressed.

Sooner and Later the world will crumbles. It will only takes time before people give in. Can you feel it? Can you feel how everything just leads to nothing. Yep. Tic Toc.

As long as there is unrest. There will be chaos.

We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

a reply to: Astrocyte

God as a concept is very useful depending on the individual. Many people have been positively affected by their belief in God. Religion is another matter.

originally posted by: Dnied
As long as there is unrest. There will be chaos.

We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

Who exactly are you and should I be cleaning my .45?

originally posted by: eXia7
Just look at the world around you, all the pain and suffering, death and famine.. then ask yourself if god is real. If this is the best "god" can do, I'm not impressed.

he created us with free will, if this is the best we can do in our life then it was our choice not his and he doesn't care, he did send messengers but most of the people refused to listen, so is it his fault or was it our fault?

Sure , its good for parting all the suckers from their money and gives people something to blame for their screw-ups .

Depends on how you define a god.

If you go with anything even remotely attached to a religion..no. the religion god(s) are absurd and tiny planet landlords with human emotions and more flaws than a psychopath during a purge night.

But if you see "god" as a term that simply identifies a greater structure of the universe that you are a part of, and if you get peace by that enough to ward off nihilism, then sure..useful.

Another concept that I find nice is that God is like..technology, and life..this earth, is like a video game. It sort of resolves the whole why do bad things happen to good people.
If technology exists, why are there monsters in the video game?...well, because you chose that video game. technology is simply what the vid game sits upon, but end of the day, its just a game. it will end eventually and you can play a new game if you want using the tech.
So in this case, "god" would be the system of things, but neutral in regards to how you explore and experience it.

originally posted by: VengefulGhost
Sure , its good for parting all the suckers from their money and gives people something to blame for their screw-ups .

Thats religion and deities.

As an excuse to all things and for all things... the extreme of one and the other and yet the same. The part that denies itself claims truth, the part that accepts itself claims ego... the separation of the "I am" from all that is. In such a thing of judgement of all not oneself in such an ego manifestation? All else is an abomination as it is not oneself, attachment to all that "I Am" finds pleasing in an extreme, and all the "I Am" finds displeasing in an extreme.

The sense consciousnesses attached to name and form as pleasing or displeasing is an ego self of that sense consciousness, the eye conciousness attached to concepts of beauty and ugly, will judge things beautiful or ugly, the ear, things heard pleasing or displeasing, things smelled pleasant or unpleasant, things tasted appeasing or unappeasing, things felt pain or not pain. The mind consciousness or awareness attached to the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, taste consciousness, touch consciousness... judges all senses in contact as they arise and pass; memory holds these past judgements against all it has contacted as positive or negative one extreme or the other via that attachment to the ego self or form, it recalls via label or form what is pleasing or displeasing.

Such a path is not a path of non-differentiation, the discriminating mind one of bias and duality.

It is what it is until the ego makes it different; ignorance and delusion attached to all experience one thinks one knows? Is carrying a corpse of the past like a shadow to weigh oneself down and anchor them in some place of "selfhood" this is done out of greed for all that the senses find pleasurable and hate for all it finds displeasurable... in non discrimination the present in which things arise and past is infinite in both directions attachment or detachment it arises and it passes, the mind attached to these various affinities of the eye, the ear, the, nose, the tongue, touch... then becomes bound to them and not free, one becomes a slave to their own attachment.

The reason being? Intent, chasing pleasure and running from displeasure... this is action and action towards positive or negative builds cause and effect... the ripples of tossing all of those intents out there of grasping cause ripples. Ceasing intent of positive or negative, eventually becomes awareness or simply being. There is no pure or impure as such things are a judgement of extremes or a straightline that only binds or attaches itself like a magnet of opposites attracting, thinking only positive the negative also arises, thinking negative positive also arises.

Neither positive or negative? The great balance of neutrality and equanimity, non discrimination, non bias, non duality.

Ceasing one's own attachment to such however... does not cease that in others, it is a task each must to themselves as walking the path each moment in practice. Once that is done, then one must work on removing others attachment... by simply pointing the way as one has walked it. Once one has walked it then what use is the path? The pointing is simply an expression of life itself; taken as knowledge? Then there is attachment to name and form, unaware of the opposite of formlessness as it is also continually arising. The mind attached to such as name and form becomes the chatter or thought. Unattached it is formless and only awareness, that arises in the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, in touch occurs.

Attachment is the I Am the ego self, deattachment it is what it is, the energy that makes it different arises via intent positive negative or neutral. One can simply be in full awareness without intent or attachment a state of neutrality, or point to what may be creating suffering in one in whom is suffering, suffering arises from oneself and no other, that very attachment becomes cause for duality as an effect. Ceasing suffering in oneself, one ceases to blame others for their suffering, and then works out of empathy to help others remove their own suffering that arises from that attachment.

Many attached to concepts of gods, devils, saviors when all concept is a bubble a moment in time that arises and passes relative to the moment in which it is arising and passing in awareness as past cause or intent has become cause for it to arise. Such a thing is termed karma. When the intent for positive or negative ends there is simply awareness of what arises and passes without judgment... of pleasing or displeasing leaving it in the it is what it is state of being. Becoming is the change, I am now becoming this and that, now angry, now sad, now, happy, and those changes that arise are from intent... the water did not intend the ripples that arose, yet it accepts the rock which caused them and the intent that threw it? In a state of neutrality empathy in hopes that others will learn.

Pointing does not have to occur it is a path and many have walked it, there are many of them... once knowledge of the path one has chosen is known? It is time to take to the task, pointing to others can stall one's own journey in the walking... as awareness still goes on arising and passing embracing that impermanence is to embrace permanence itself.

a reply to: Astrocyte

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain" (John Lennon).

Actually, it's a little more than that. I believe in the One who appeared to Moses and sent JC.

originally posted by: eXia7
Just look at the world around you, all the pain and suffering, death and famine.. then ask yourself if god is real. If this is the best "god" can do, I'm not impressed.

It is not God doing it, it is you. Every time you drive your car you are destroying the earth a little bit. Check out all YOUR actions and see that it is you combined with all the other "Jacob worms" (7 + billion of them) that is your own plague.

God is perfect. Don't blame God. We decided we would do this thing without Him and we must suffer the consequences of our actions. He will step in at the last minute to stop us destroying His painting. At that time our lives will not be worth living and our haughtiness will turn to humility as we become fully conscious of our inability to discern good from evil. That is the whole point, we think we know and we do not.

Blame God if you like, but you are just projecting your own failings onto Mr Perfect.

God bless.

God is not a concept...
How could man conceptualize that which he has no hope of conceiving?
We are Gods creation not the other way around...

a reply to: Dnied

If it does, it will all be for the best.

God is very much a man-made concept. All the way back to sun/moon worship.

If wishes existed and I had just one of them, it would be to erase religion completely and all beliefs in god/s from everything, everywhere.

a reply to: gottaknow

If God was a man made concept we would have a fuller understanding of him...
Also wishes do exist...
That does not mean they all come to pass...
Not many wishes are fulfilled without effort...
Those fulfilled without effort are best known as miracles...
Im also rather pleased to further rain on your parade by informing you that the wish you just made will never be fulfilled...
It was rather odd of you to claim wishes do not exist then immediately make one... lol

originally posted by: eXia7
Just look at the world around you, all the pain and suffering, death and famine.. then ask yourself if god is real. If this is the best "god" can do, I'm not impressed.

If the God you have in your head exists.... What do you want God to do? Step in and let everyone live happily forever and never die? How do you think that would work?

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