What Has Religion Got To Do With God?
Seriously, What Has Religion Got To Do With God?
I don’t ask that to be ironic, I mean it just as it appears.
To illustrate, let’s compare religion with something I will call an unreligion.
Animism is the name commonly used for the unreligion of various indigenous tribes around the world. In animism the Creator of everything, including ourselves, is called by various names such as “The Great Spirit.” There’s no more complexity to it than that: somehow we got here, along with other animals and plants and stars, and all we know is that it’s all amazingly complex and intricate, and so we attribute all that to a Creator whom we will never begin to comprehend. There is profound respect for the Creator, the Great Spirit, or whatever name they give to that entity.
Philosophers often use the term Infinite Other when they want to refer to that entity.
In our video we refer to the entity as TWCYAM, for That Which Created You And Me.
As the “primitive” tribes begin to acquire the baggage of civilization, including power hierarchies, some of their members perceived that power can be gained by convincing other members that they are closer to The Great Spirit than the others. To support that claim they come up with creation mythologies, which soon beget hierarchies of priests, uber-priests, uber-uber priests, and small-g gods.
Certain “civilizations” settled on the capital-G “God” as the name for that which created everything. Those who came up with that word tended to be men, so in spite of the fact that the word “God” is as simple as any pronoun, its problem is that it doesn’t suggest a gender. Therefore, the personal pronouns “Him” and “His” were applied.
In this age of pronoun ambiguity, we need to define this one. In my suggested extensions to Ambrose Bierce’s dictionary I offer these two:
God (1), n: In animism, the source of everything, hence an entity deserving of respect. See also Infinite Other and TWCYAM (That Which Created You And Me).
God (2), n: Any of a vast set of myths created for the purpose of aggregation of power. See also Religion.
That second definition was invented for the purpose of self-aggrandizement of some bishops and theologians and imams, etc. It’s just people being people, fond as they are of power. They just want to wear funny hats that signify the power of being closer to your creator than you are. As long as you don’t drink their kool-aid they’re harmless. Humor them.
There’s probably no word in any language that carries more baggage than the various words for the supreme deity or That Which Created you And Me. But when you strip away all the mythology, and when you admit that you didn’t create yourself, then That Which Created Yourself (and, logically, 8 billion others like you) clearly exists.
However, if you do believe that you created yourself then it naturally follows that you created all the other organisms that resemble you, particularly other human beings. They’re all your creation, right? That means you’re entitled to do whatever you want with, and to, us. So… how do I say this… the rest of us feel that you’re not well. We would appreciate it if you would please get some help, OK?
Are there really people whose narcissism reaches that level, that they actually believe that they created themselves? Let’s hope not.
That leaves the rest of us, the set of all people who believe they didn’t create themselves. You and me and the rest.
Now let me ask you to consider something imminent.
Consider your next heartbeat.
What did you do to get that heartbeat?
Here, let me suggest an answer. You did nothing. Nada. Zippo.
One reason why you didn’t make that happen is simply that you have not a clue how you would create your cooperating autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular system. Yes, you may be a Harvard MD-PhD so in that case you have a bit more of a clue than the rest of us do but beyond a most superficial level none of us has a clue how this all came together. We are clueless.
Your life is a pure gift.
Somehow in this mysterious place called reality, with matter made of particles that could well be infinitely scaled, that is, no smallest particle, and a universe of billions of galaxies that is very likely only one of an infinite number of universes, none of which is remotely understandable… in the midst of all that amazing and unfathomable environment, something gave you life. Including this next heartbeat… and this one… and this one…
You did not make your next heartbeat nor did you make any of the thirty trillion cells in your body. You did not, nor could you, come up with the amazingly intricate and complex design of any one of those cells.
You know what did create that heartbeat, and everything that went into making that heartbeat possible?
It’s the subject of that video. The Infinite Other. TWCYAM.
The video shows that the argument over whether or not TWCYAM, or Infinite Other, or God, exists is just a semantic parlor game, as philosophically meaningful as a card trick.
So, do you, in spite of the facts that you did not create yourself and that you would have no idea how to create another you (cloning yourself would be simple plagiarism, it doesn’t count); do you feel yourself to be somehow the equal of the Infinite Other, TWCYAM, The Great Spirit, etc.?
If you are not in awe of the amazing engineering behind the systems that keep you and other mammals alive, then your ego is a bit out of control.
If on the other hand you are indeed in awe of the thing that did all of that amazing design engineering, then you don’t need to be reminded to “Humble thyself in the sight of TWCYAM.”
When you do that, you are set free. Free from a lot of things, not the least of which is the need to understand how everything ultimately works. Because you never will. Scientific curiosity is useful and fun, but expecting to find the complete explanation of everything is futile. Be OK with that.
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Humble thyself in the sight of God.
Accept that you are a child of God;
Be still and remember that you didn’t create yourself;
Be still and know that you have not a clue how to create yourself;
Be still and know that you are not God;
God says quietly, “Be still and know that I am God.”
Be still and know that that is OK.