Immanence

[Sceptisk]

The meta theory of the civilized religious habit:

Our culture evolved its conceptions of the world from a polytheistic mindset with gods that ruled the destinies of men. One reason for this particular idea might come from the beginning of this civilization and its desire to form empires. All empires are built by rulers that would become like gods for the common populace. Some rulers would gain such following and fame that even during their life they would be seen as supernatural beings. This is found not only in mesopotamian and european civilization but also in south american civilizations, the Maya and Aztecs. Empires are typically based on the ownership of land, lifestock and people, or slavery. Slaves are always slaves to someone and the owner is therefore the master of that slave. Since the general principle of empires is to have a crowd of workers that all follow the dictates of a supreme ruler, this ruler becomes ultimately the master not only of all slaves but also the master of the masters. This master therefore achieves a quality beyond being mere human, and the stage is set to deify this ruler as being superhuman.

After some time when the meso-european civilisation spread out and encompassed more territory, there would be constant wars also internally between factions within the civilization itself. Each faction would hold on to their particular god and believe that their god would bring them victory. This war between the gods ultimately led to the idea that there can only be one ultimate god. This is where monotheism comes from. Originally monotheism didnt say that other gods didnt exist, but that they were "false" gods, gods not to be trusted. The jewish civilization was the first to create a religion upon the idea of a one single supreme god that rules everything and that denies the legitimacy of all other gods. Then after many years the christian conception of a ruler deity was superimposed upon the older monotheistic religion of judaism wich invented the idea of a Messiah that would come and secure kingship for the Jews. But the battle between gods for the throne led to a new conception of what that supreme ruler has to do in order to make his rule legitimate, and that led to the story of Jesus and a new idea of the jewish messiah, that the messiah was God incarnate and sacrificed himself as a way to prove his true kingship or divinity to the world. However after some time yet another conception of monotheism emerged with Islam, where another supreme deity would be the one true god and Muhammed being his true prophet, wich rendered all other conceptions to be once again inferior or false. Now Jesus was no longer God incarnate but only a prophet.

So from the building of an empire, and the desire to rule the world, came three super-dominant monotheistic religions that all competed for the throne of being the one ultimate ruler deity, wich deity that would sit on the throne of ultimate world power. In Judaism the throne is secured through the chosenness of the jewish people and their faith that the messiah will come, in Christianity the throne is secured through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and their faith that Jesus will come back and rule the world, in Islam the throne is secured through the correct teaching of Muhammad and their faith in Al-Mahid that will come back as the Messiah and rule the world. All three groups competing with eachother for the supreme throne.

In the fight for the supreme throne all religions have their supernatural competitors that are typically labeled as false competitors or inferior competitors. In Judaism other gods are "idols" and therefore by definition not really gods but only dead images. In Christianity this is taken into another direction where Satan is the arch enemy of Jesus that wants to crush his power. In Islam the antagonism towards idols is taken to another level or puritanism where nothing whatsoever, no image in any way may be used to convey the supreme deity. Muslims therefore thinks that Christians are idol worshippers since they have pictures of Jesus and even God in various paintings.

The theory of our religious habit:

Our religions seems to be fundamentally a war between gods that leads up to one supreme ruler deity that discards all other deities as "false". The warrior aspect of our religions is clear in that the God of the coventant wages war on the world and is trying to achieve victory for his chosen people, wether it be jews, christians or muslims.

The Bible in itself is written in such a way that it works as a constitution for an empire. The rules are no longer in effect, but if there comes a time when there will be a global world empire, and that the God of the Bible will be victorious in this battle then perhaps these regulations will suddenly be implemented in a new world theocracy. And then the people might bring back slavery, death penalties for unruly youngsters as well as homosexuals, animal sacrifice, etc. If the Bible is the word of this supreme ruler deity, then the entirety of the Bible has to be implemented if the deity would become successful in his conquest.

The spiritual aspect of this war is that only some people are chosen to be in heaven with God and others are sent to hell and eternal torment.


The scientific inquiry:

After some time with the Bible God we began to understand that the original conceptions of the universe found in the Bible no longer held water. The world is no longer 6000 years but billions of years old. Humans was not created separately by an external god, but evolved together with the other animals. The world was also no longer the center of the universe, and therefore man was also no longer the center of the universe. And so far science has not found a shred of evidence that there actually exists a spirit, a God, a heaven or hell, or any of the main characters written about in the Bible such as Moses and Jesus.

These discoveries ultimately undermines the entire claim of the Bible. That man evolved together with the other species, then there is no reason to think man is special. If man is not special there is no particular reason to think that some particular group of man has been chosen. There is also no reason to believe that man is a fallen race, wich in turn undermines the whole idea of Jesus coming to our rescue. That there are and have been many other cultures on this planet and that the world is much older than 6000 years old undermines the idea that western civilization was there with the creation of the world. Instead the civilization is just another human enterprise.

People of civilization hated to learn these things, but has come to sort of adapt to them. But then came the discovery that the civilization is in fact is acting as a destructive force on the planet earth, and this is a discovery that people still havent gotten used to, or know how to deal with.


The benevolence principle:

In scientific inquiry anything that doesnt fit the evidence is discarded as just a hypothesis. For a hypothesis to become a theory it needs to have evidence that also fits the theory. When the evidence changes however, from new discoveries, the theory has to be either modified or discarded. When a theory is discarded and a new theory put in its place that is called a paradigm shift.

What seems to be a general principle is that any theory that doesnt align with the evidence will eventually be discarded.

I would like to put a different approach to this methodology. Suppose that there is such a principle that is a general benevolvence factor. Everything that happends in the world happends from the benevolence factor. Everything that goes against the benevolence factor is eventually discarded and put into extinction. The benevolence factor (B) means that ultimately, for life to exist there has to be a benevolence at work. The world needs to be benevolent towards life, or else life would never happend. If the world would be hostile, the hostility principle (H) then life couldnt emerge. Life cant emerge on the sun for example, because the sun is an environment that is hostile to carbon based life forms. The earth however, is benevolent towards carbon based life forms, and that is why they can emerge here. We dont know if there is a benevolence factor at work on Mars, but we understand that on Venus the dominant principle is hostile.

Therefore, if we want to understand life, we might have to align all our theories about carbon life with the B-principle. Any theory that goes against whats ultimately benevolent for carbon based biological life forms, must be discarded as illogical.

So if we begin to investigate what actually works to be benevolent towards life and establish a set of general principles. Then we might be able to put the question of religion and culture into another light. Are the religions and cultural ideas utlimately benevolent or are they ultimately hostile. And we can use ourselves to measure this against, as well as looking at how these religions and cultures treat other lifeforms. Are their ultimate conception benevolent or are they hostile?

The idea of man having been created separately from all other creatures on this planet, that is to say that man is special, put here for a reason that is beyond all other species. In this particular idea we can see that there is a hostility involved with mans relationship with other forms of life. If one would extend the idea of man being separate, to mean that a particular race or group of humans are special or separate from all others, we see again that this is an alignment with hostility again. It is a hostility towards all other human beings since if group 1 is superior, that also must imply that group 2 is inferior. Racism therefore is inherently aligned with the hostility principle. And since the earth is ultmately a benevolent place for all races, racism cannot be considered to be scientific. It may not at the time we measure the group be waging war on all others, but nonetheless it is hostility in embryo. If group 1 thinks it is superior, and tells group 2 that they are inferior, then group 1 has transfered the hostility principle also over unto group 2. Group 2 then can either respond with aligning themselves with the benevolence principle and forget about it, or they can also align themselves with the hostility principle and say "no you are wrong, you are not superior and we are not inferior, you are inferior and we are superior". And then the situation has allready turned into a conflict.

The hostility principle is destructive, and if one aligns oneself with it and becomes its host, one will become self destructive. The benevolence princiople on the other hand is constructive, familiar with life and whats nessecary for life and health, and one who is a host of the benevolence principle never becomes self destructive but finds a way. Life is ultimately an expression of benevolence, therefore life will always find a way.

Basically every idea can be measured against the benevolence principle, and if it is found to be alien to B and instead belonging to the hostility principle H, then ultimately it is an idea that is nonscientific. How can this be? Because we then have to look at what is actually there, what sort of conditions is it that life evolves from. If we have an idea that ultimately is found to be at odds with how life evolves, then that idea has to be nonscientific.

The idea that man is meant to rule the world, and that civilization is the means to do so, is based on the religious conquest of civilization itself and found to be at odds with the benevolence principle, and therefore ultimately unscientific and damaging to all species including our own.


Immanence:

The conception of deity in the civilization typically follows the paradigm of human exclusivism and superiority, therefore the deity is believed to be ultimately beyond time and space, outside the world, somewhere far away, high above, far more superior, far more exclusive than anything, and acting as a judge on all earthly affairs.

But if we again apply the benevolence test to this idea, what does the idea of a fully transcendent deity mean in comparison to whats actually of benevolence. A deity that acts as a judge, is that benevolence or hostility? While civilization believes strongly in justice, ultimately justice is hostile towards life. Justice could be compared with a well polished effective weapon that is constantly aimed at the citizens of society. If someone steps in a way contrary to it, then it will trigger a violent effect. Those who hold this weapon can also ultimately not be totally benevolent, but has to remain hostile towards the society wich they work against. The judge cannot be benevolent, he has to remain distanced, superior, as a judge and therefore hostile. There is therefore nothing scientific about the legal system or the concept of justice. But it only means that if justcie is the final resort before hostile elements within society starts to destroy society from within, we as a culture has only justice to work with to try and stop internal hostile elements.

The whole idea of a ruler acting superior to the ruled, is that aligned to the benevolence principle or the hostile principle. Obviously, if someone acts as if he is superior to others, he makes them inferior and that is in itself a sign of alignment with the hostility principle and therefore it is unscientific.

The cultural habit of thinking of man as exclusive was found to be wrong under the inquiry of science. Instead of being superior and exclusive, man came from the same place as ringworms, snails, rats and monkeys. This is one example of how the benevolence principle shows to be true and bridge between morality and science. Because in classical morality; humility is a virtue while pride is a sin. Man thought he was better than everyone else, but then he found he was of the same stuff as everything else. In the morality contest humility won over pride, and in the scientific contest evolution won over creationism.

Suppose then that if we would put God under the same principle and see how the theistic arguments of God aligns with the benevolence principle. Then God no longer can be either superior nor inferior to his creation, he cannot be external and special and superior and he cannot be a judge. He cannot be the God of the bible since that God demands worship and condemns all other gods away from him as false. So what kind of conception of God could work within the context of the benevolence principle?

For the longest time in civilized history, man has looked up, out into space to search for his origins and the meaning of life. He has always had his mind fixated upon whats over there, beyond, somewhere else, and hoped that he would be taken away and enjoined with those blessed and happy creatures that had finally escaped from this world and its sufferings. However, modern science with Daniel Dennet is taking a closer look at matter and wonder what is matter? And how does consciousness exist in relationship to matter. And it has led to functionalist theories that consciousness is something that evolves with complexity of atoms, a product of molecular complexity. This has led to some sidetracks such as that the complexity of the brain proves that AI is possible and that computers can have consciousness and sentience one day. Perhaps they might. But what Daniel Dennet wrote in his book "Sweet Dreams" was fascinating; he wrote about Liebniz mill, the idea that consciousness cannot be produced from a mechanical process of wheels and cogs and ropes. But Dennet wrote that maybe we dont see the forest because of the trees. Because while we dont see any consciousness in the cogs and wheels of the mill, the mill itself could instead be a continuation of consciousness.

Our view on matter has classically been rather pessimistic if not downright profane. Matter is dead, and a rather unimportant substance, we use it to build things with and thats it. We ascribe nothing particularly sacred to matter, but view it as a resource to be used. For matter to be sacred it has to be made sacred by an external agent, and for that purpose we have God that sanctifies matter such as water, wine and bread in church. In order to build a church the land must first be consecrated through ritual so as to remain pure from outside impurities. Therefore our view on matter is that it is base, impure, profane, dead, unimportant. This is in part due to the civilizations insistance on human exclusivism, that life is an exclusive ingredient that comes from another dimension. But also that the evolution of life is in human experience a very slow process.

But science shows that life comes from matter, evolves with matter, and that we cannot find and distinction between spirit and matter. So what is matter? And again, does this not yet again show the benevolence principle at work? Instead of a superior force working from above and making things sacred, we have again the humility of matter, a substance we all take for granted and doesnt think of at all as something of much importance. Even tho we dont really know what it is, and we are sure we cannot live without it. But we poison the waters, we use water in our toilets and so on. We throw away toxic waste and dig it down into the ground only to discover that we cant continue like this because the poisons we put in the ground will come back and destroy our bodies. So we have to do something else.

So if the benevolence principle would be applied again on this idea that the living organism is a continuation of a consciousness that exists within matter itself, or that matter is visible, tangible consciousness, a divine substance. how would that fit with the benevolence principle? We do know that we require matter to be alive, we seem to find that there is no distinction between matter and spirit, and we also find that living in a manner that is looking down upon matter as a trivial substance ultimately makes us put poison in the ground that ultimately poisons us as well as all other life. Therefore the idea that matter as a divine or sacred substance, is aligned with the benevolence principle.

Therefore if matter is a sacred substance, wich the benevolence principle does not deny, then we might wonder what matter is. How come it can form complex conscious beings. And we might wonder if there is something within matter that leads to an ultimate inner essence of matter that is the ultimate benevolence, the ultimately sacred source of all life of wich matter is the visible side. Matter is like a magic substance, but because of the slowness of evolution, we dont recognize the magic that is happening. But we can discover this magic by seeing the intelligence in all life all around us.