But is it true?
What do we mean by God?
God is defined, for most, by the religious community that surrounded them during the early years of their development. As a means of tradition, it is assumed that what is said by everyone around you is true. The problem is, that, we cannot accept everything as true. The very nature of belief is situation within the statements of our language. People around you speak meanings with language and we develop the capacity to discriminate if those meanings make sense or are nonsense. What about God? Well, this is a problem because the concept of god is super meaningful. If anything, one could say that the concept of God is the most meaningful. The most meaningful thing has a lot of impact on our lives, decisions, and sense of purpose. This is why people have embarked on large scales wars and atrocities because of the meaning of 'God'. (2)
So, it is important for us to have a sense of what God means, what the truth of the matter is.
Unraveling the spool of truth of a certain concept is has a process we can apply for all concepts. There is a method of being reasonable. One develops skill, over time, in learning the practice of 'Critical Thinking.'
Critical thinking is the evaluation and assessment of the truth, integrity, reasonability, soundness, coherence and accuracy of empirical claims(evidence), beliefs, a priori truths, and the dialectic process while being mindful that formal/informal errors in reasoning and cognitive biases are accounted for. (Justice 2021)
The monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are all derived from the same theological source. That being the case, we can look at the axioms or assumptions behind all three in our endeavour to understand the meaning of 'God.'
Judaism is based on the books in the old testament. These books discuss the creation of the cosmos and humanity by a supreme being and a story of a man named moses who was in contact with 'God,' this supreme being, and many parables which are a guide to being a moral person. There are several functions of the religious text at this point. The cosmological explanation is clearly not true. Many of the stories depict this being as one with a serious personality disorder who is rathful when disappointed in the beings that 'he' created. [....continued]
Christianity continues by adding a new character, Jesus, to the story. Jesus is now the main character who advances the moral teachings of being a good person.
Islam takes a step back morally and actually propagates violence and expands the ingroup/out group bias because of the extreme indoctrination muslims are exposed to.
What has religion done to these people? What has happened to the minds of these people from the kind of environmental constraints and socialization they are exposed to?
Polytheism
Hinduism
Buddhism
Taoism
Philosophy - existentialism
Science - what is science? only an accurate ruler. nothing to be scared of, as long as you don't get hit with the ruler.
(anything can be abused, do not just science or the scientific method because of a practitioner's mistakes.)
Cosmology - what do we know from the cosmos?
What is God?
What can god not be?
- if god is the greatest thing, it is something that makes sense for sense is greater than nonsense.
- if god makes sense, then we do not need faith to understand what it is.
- whatever does not make sense is not god.
Oops! It's one of those situations again. Apparently, this chapter is still being researched and written. Achilles has been busy coordinating the Community Housing Program and designing the Flow Optimization consulting program. Check back soon for the completion of the first draft of this chapter!
Footnotes:
2 (Crusades, Protestant Reformation, the Great Witch Hunt, 9/11)
(the Matrix Revolutions: Deus Ex Machina. https://moviesandscience.com/blog/movies/the-matrix/faq-zion )
© Achilles Atlas Justice and achillesjustice.com, 2018-21. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Achilles Atlas Justice and achillesjustice.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Comments