On finding God (Part 4) [View all]

[rrneck]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4


The vast majority of people who have ever lived spent their unremarkable albeit peaceful and productive lives believing in something they called God. I find it difficult to believe that the concept of God did not play a significant role in the survival of the species. Spirituality and all that entails may be considered a recreational activity now, but some caveman didn’t stay up all night drawing figures on the wall because he just wasn’t tired enough from chasing Mastodons with a pointed stick all day.


These people aren’t crazy, they’re just assholes. Okay, some of them are crazy assholes.

Of course everything is thoroughly modern now what with all the newfangled gadgets like the internet, which seems to be used primarily for distributing kitty pictures and porn. While the utility of porn is obvious, it’s hard to imagine people devoting so much time to cat pictures because of an interest in phylogenetic research. No, there is more to life than solving the puzzles of the universe and forty seven cup holders in Chevys. People are spiritual critters and that spirituality is an important part of our existence. The traditional focus of that spirituality, alas, has been the source of a certain amount of mischief throughout our history. My objective here has been to postulate the actual object of our spirituality and build a narrative around it with which we might all live without butchering each other over it.

Call it what you will; initiative, curiosity, id, moxie, chutzpah, guts, drive or ants in your pants there are more names for God than for Satan. But each moniker points to something within each and every one of us, and that thing is as much a part of us as our pulse. It’s standard equipment in our model rather than an aftermarket option. It may become little more than another appendix some day, but right now it’s still as important as lungs.

I prefer my narrative right now because it offers me a perspective that I think is important. It offers me the opportunity to see a reflection of myself in others, and a reflection of them in me. A Theory of Mind has been crucial to the survival of the species and without it civilization could not exist. We already have lots of Chevys with lots of cup holders, but simple empathy appears to be lacking.

I usually have to wait for what people seem to call God to show up before I can really get anything meaningful done. Sometimes I have to struggle to make it appear. And I do it every day without the help of some guy with a special hat or Bronze Age text. I think the truth is that the arts are not a tool used in the expression of religious faith, but rather that religion is just another one of the arts, and the arts are just another way people build a narrative in response to the compulsion to “go”. Some of us build a narrative with science, others with images of flaming genitalia. Who am I to argue which is better?

We have come so far in the development of our understanding of the boundaries of outer and inner space. Our knowledge has become so esoteric it is completely removed from the everyday experience of life as we know it. Our theories and ideologies have run away and left us to become realities in their own right – realities that are used against us for all the same reasons any other weapon has been used since we discovered our thumbs. One narrative is no more good or evil than another. I think the greatest evil today is not any particular narrative, but our lack of desire to develop our own narrative and make it work. We are all too willing to let someone sell us something that we’ve already got.

I’ve often heard it said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think that’s true. It might also be argued that any sufficiently advanced art is also indistinguishable from magic. It’s all just form and content after all.