Monday, November 28, 2005
Is God Good?
If you want an all powerful god, there can be no limits to God. We of the Patriarchal Culture say God is almighty. I ask, if there is a almighty God, can that God be good? No. God is neither good nor evil.
The almight Mystery, the infinite, omniscient God to be all powerful must be beyond and include all categories because separate categories are limitations. Those who say God is good, limit God. Result? They always have to wonder why God allows bad things to happen. To wonder thus is silly because by doing so they make God into a limited idol no better than the golden calf. That is idolatry and idolatry is an evil to religious persons. To be truly religious they must see that God is without limit.
Those who say God is good are simply making God into a mere reflection of human beings, a reflection of what we want to be, a mirror image of humans and thus limited. The image of the personal father god may be a hyper-super powerful image but it cannot be the true Great Mystery because the true God is unlimited and indifferent. So God is no more a super and personal human-like father than Satan is a super and human-like monster. They are both images of aspects of our limited selves. And that limitation doesn't work for the all mighty, the unlimited Mystery.
So, the literal idea of God and the Devil at war with each other is a silly idea. It can only be a metaphor of workings within ourselves. The Immense Mystery we call God is beyond competing with anything. The idea that God cares about galaxies, stars, planets, creatures, weather, anything, also limits God. Either God is both loving and hateful thus good and evil like us or God is indifferent. Your choice.
The idea that God looks after each of the 6.5 billion people on Earth (plus any inhabitants of the multi billions of galaxies with their multi billions of stars) every second of their entire lives deciding what should happen for them or what is good and bad for them is a silly idea. The idea that God might become angry at New Orleans for sinning is a silly idea. God is beyond all that and indifferent to the lives of people just as God is indifferent to the actions of the multi billion galaxies of the cosmos.
We like to say, “God is Love.” Yes, love is in the Great Mystery, but Love does not define the Great Mystery because to do so limits the Great Mystery. God can only exist without limits or be a minor god. The Big Daddy image of God is inevitably limited. Therefore God has to be non-personlike and beyond all definitions. If you speak of God as "He" or “She” you limit God. If you limit God you create an idol. Again, limiting God is idolatry. Thus God, the Indifferent Almighty Mystery (I AM!), does not define either Good or Evil.
The almight Mystery, the infinite, omniscient God to be all powerful must be beyond and include all categories because separate categories are limitations. Those who say God is good, limit God. Result? They always have to wonder why God allows bad things to happen. To wonder thus is silly because by doing so they make God into a limited idol no better than the golden calf. That is idolatry and idolatry is an evil to religious persons. To be truly religious they must see that God is without limit.
Those who say God is good are simply making God into a mere reflection of human beings, a reflection of what we want to be, a mirror image of humans and thus limited. The image of the personal father god may be a hyper-super powerful image but it cannot be the true Great Mystery because the true God is unlimited and indifferent. So God is no more a super and personal human-like father than Satan is a super and human-like monster. They are both images of aspects of our limited selves. And that limitation doesn't work for the all mighty, the unlimited Mystery.
So, the literal idea of God and the Devil at war with each other is a silly idea. It can only be a metaphor of workings within ourselves. The Immense Mystery we call God is beyond competing with anything. The idea that God cares about galaxies, stars, planets, creatures, weather, anything, also limits God. Either God is both loving and hateful thus good and evil like us or God is indifferent. Your choice.
The idea that God looks after each of the 6.5 billion people on Earth (plus any inhabitants of the multi billions of galaxies with their multi billions of stars) every second of their entire lives deciding what should happen for them or what is good and bad for them is a silly idea. The idea that God might become angry at New Orleans for sinning is a silly idea. God is beyond all that and indifferent to the lives of people just as God is indifferent to the actions of the multi billion galaxies of the cosmos.
We like to say, “God is Love.” Yes, love is in the Great Mystery, but Love does not define the Great Mystery because to do so limits the Great Mystery. God can only exist without limits or be a minor god. The Big Daddy image of God is inevitably limited. Therefore God has to be non-personlike and beyond all definitions. If you speak of God as "He" or “She” you limit God. If you limit God you create an idol. Again, limiting God is idolatry. Thus God, the Indifferent Almighty Mystery (I AM!), does not define either Good or Evil.
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My dear Mr. Weet,
I need not remind you, an educated man, educated by both the holy fathers and the secular sages, that the Hellenes invented both philosophy and science, i.e. natural philosopy, which you revere so much as a guide to your religion, as well as mathematics, which that contemporary secular sage Roger Penrose places among the (un?)holy trinity that makes up the cosmos: the physical world, the mental world, and Plato's world of ideal mathematical forms. And why did the Hellenes invent and develop these things while the ancient Israelites, the Egytians, the Chinese did not? Some say because they were assuredly not a secular society but their gods were capricious, though powerful, and unreliable in their aid and comfort for mere men. Furthermore, their priests and oracles were not authorities, whose word required faithful attending to else death might ensue. Thus, the Hellenes, while recognizing the definite need for religion and ritual but realizing that they were on their own when it came to figuring out who they were, where they were, and how to survive as individuals and as a "culture" in a hostile and dangerous cosmos, invented philosopy, mathematics, and science and that legacy makes your modern world what it is, for the moment anyway.
Your Hellenic, yet divine, correspondent,
Hephaestus
I need not remind you, an educated man, educated by both the holy fathers and the secular sages, that the Hellenes invented both philosophy and science, i.e. natural philosopy, which you revere so much as a guide to your religion, as well as mathematics, which that contemporary secular sage Roger Penrose places among the (un?)holy trinity that makes up the cosmos: the physical world, the mental world, and Plato's world of ideal mathematical forms. And why did the Hellenes invent and develop these things while the ancient Israelites, the Egytians, the Chinese did not? Some say because they were assuredly not a secular society but their gods were capricious, though powerful, and unreliable in their aid and comfort for mere men. Furthermore, their priests and oracles were not authorities, whose word required faithful attending to else death might ensue. Thus, the Hellenes, while recognizing the definite need for religion and ritual but realizing that they were on their own when it came to figuring out who they were, where they were, and how to survive as individuals and as a "culture" in a hostile and dangerous cosmos, invented philosopy, mathematics, and science and that legacy makes your modern world what it is, for the moment anyway.
Your Hellenic, yet divine, correspondent,
Hephaestus
# posted by 
: 10:25 AM
: 10:25 AM
Dear H! Thank you for your analysis of the spiritual/religious aspects of our Greek heritage. Too bad they lost the game to the Patriarchists when it came to passing on that heritage resulting thus in 20 centuries of superstition more damaging than anything the Greeks did to themselves which was demonstrably selfish, greedy and cruel thus emphatically human religion or no.
Hephaestus and Wally,
Thinking your entries concerning the purported goodness of God and godliness of good to be a worthy topic, I add the following background information to your quest.
Finding our way down to the original words, at least in this case their English translation, Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, in his book "Physical Opinions" describes Anaximander (610-546 b.c.) by saying:
'Anaximander of Miletus, son of Praxiades, who was the the successor and pupil of Thales said that the first principle and element of existing things is the Infinite, and he was the first to introduce this name for the first principle...from which all the heavens and the worlds in them are produced; and into that from which existent things arise they pass away once more,
[now Theophrastus quotes the words of Anaximander] "as is ordained; for they must pay the penalty and make reparation to one another for the injustice they have committed, according to the sequence of time", as he says in these somewhat poetical terms.'
Not a bad beginning for someone founding Greek and therein western philosophy, both natural and metaphysical.
Pylos of Nestorville,
by the wine dark sea
Thinking your entries concerning the purported goodness of God and godliness of good to be a worthy topic, I add the following background information to your quest.
Finding our way down to the original words, at least in this case their English translation, Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, in his book "Physical Opinions" describes Anaximander (610-546 b.c.) by saying:
'Anaximander of Miletus, son of Praxiades, who was the the successor and pupil of Thales said that the first principle and element of existing things is the Infinite, and he was the first to introduce this name for the first principle...from which all the heavens and the worlds in them are produced; and into that from which existent things arise they pass away once more,
[now Theophrastus quotes the words of Anaximander] "as is ordained; for they must pay the penalty and make reparation to one another for the injustice they have committed, according to the sequence of time", as he says in these somewhat poetical terms.'
Not a bad beginning for someone founding Greek and therein western philosophy, both natural and metaphysical.
Pylos of Nestorville,
by the wine dark sea
# posted by : 3:31 PM
: 3:31 PM
Dear Pylos and Hephaestus too,
I need not tell either of you what you already know so well, but perhaps other readers need to be reminded that Aristotle was born about 380BC. I've been reading about the Peloponnesian War (431-404). It ended a generation before he was born.
The history of that war as told by Thucydides and now retold in a new history by Victor Davis Hanson which I'm reading is a story of a 27 year holocaust that involved all the cities, towns, and Hamlets in Greece and the region from modern Turkey all the way west to Sicily.
I cannot recall a more horrible story. Even the 20th century falls short on barbarities enacted, almost all of them, by men wielding spears and swords, fire and starvation, but the worst was done with the swords. There were battles that claimed as many lives with swords and spears as WWI battles or Civil War battles or the worst bombings of WWII and much of this was simple slaughter by victors over the vanquished.
And the most brutal city, the most barbaric city, the one that inflicted the most horror was ... ?
Athens. The glorious Athens of Pericles, builder of great beauty, great theatre, great sculpture, great philosophy and the first general to lead Athens in that long and senseless war.
It reminds me of Hitler and Richard Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, etc.
My point? I guess my point has something to do with the indestrucible and uncompromisingly vicious aspect of our humanness. There is a side to us, all of our great philosophy notwithstanding, that is as indifferent to the cruelty we are capable of and act out as the cosmos itself is indifferent to destruction in the vastness of space where stars explode and galaxies collide.
Perhaps our cruelty is more evidence that we are simply an aspect of the cosmos only now coming to the awareness that we are that aspect.
I don't think Anaximander, Thales, or even Aristotle himself ever saw us from that point of view; the pov which suggests that our brutality is an aspect of the cosmos therefore absolutely and forever a part of us ready at any time to express itself volcanically.
Wally
I need not tell either of you what you already know so well, but perhaps other readers need to be reminded that Aristotle was born about 380BC. I've been reading about the Peloponnesian War (431-404). It ended a generation before he was born.
The history of that war as told by Thucydides and now retold in a new history by Victor Davis Hanson which I'm reading is a story of a 27 year holocaust that involved all the cities, towns, and Hamlets in Greece and the region from modern Turkey all the way west to Sicily.
I cannot recall a more horrible story. Even the 20th century falls short on barbarities enacted, almost all of them, by men wielding spears and swords, fire and starvation, but the worst was done with the swords. There were battles that claimed as many lives with swords and spears as WWI battles or Civil War battles or the worst bombings of WWII and much of this was simple slaughter by victors over the vanquished.
And the most brutal city, the most barbaric city, the one that inflicted the most horror was ... ?
Athens. The glorious Athens of Pericles, builder of great beauty, great theatre, great sculpture, great philosophy and the first general to lead Athens in that long and senseless war.
It reminds me of Hitler and Richard Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, etc.
My point? I guess my point has something to do with the indestrucible and uncompromisingly vicious aspect of our humanness. There is a side to us, all of our great philosophy notwithstanding, that is as indifferent to the cruelty we are capable of and act out as the cosmos itself is indifferent to destruction in the vastness of space where stars explode and galaxies collide.
Perhaps our cruelty is more evidence that we are simply an aspect of the cosmos only now coming to the awareness that we are that aspect.
I don't think Anaximander, Thales, or even Aristotle himself ever saw us from that point of view; the pov which suggests that our brutality is an aspect of the cosmos therefore absolutely and forever a part of us ready at any time to express itself volcanically.
Wally
Dear Wally, thanks for the opportunity to explore the concept of guilt by association. In fact, perhaps the concept of guilt by
association leads to unfortunate excesses along the lines of
the type of ethnic cleansing we have seen much of in the last few
years.
Let's take a case in point: Danish is a Germanic language very
similar to the Low German spoken up around Bremen and the North
Sea. It certainly would be a mistake to hold the Danes responsible for the behavior of the Nazis? I think we would all agree.
Extend this concept backward in time and it should still hold true.
The Ionic and Aeolian speech is notably disctinct from the mainland
Athenian speech. Let's forget about Theophrastus, he's only the
source of the surviving writings. Let's consider some notable people from Ionia, Smyrna, Halicarnassus; across the sea from Athens:
Homer, Sappho, Alcaeus, Thales, Anaximander, Archimedes, Aristarchus, Herodotus,...
Must they be judged for living in proximity of language, time, and space? Is it better to eleminate art, literature, philosophy, science because the world we inhabit is far, far from harmonious. Europe tried it in
the years after the failure of Roman culture and before the Merovingians and Carolingians - 400 years worth of dark ages. I doubt if it was better for them.
So, when we pick up this conversation in that Irish pub let's drink one for Art is long and Life is short!
Pylos
association leads to unfortunate excesses along the lines of
the type of ethnic cleansing we have seen much of in the last few
years.
Let's take a case in point: Danish is a Germanic language very
similar to the Low German spoken up around Bremen and the North
Sea. It certainly would be a mistake to hold the Danes responsible for the behavior of the Nazis? I think we would all agree.
Extend this concept backward in time and it should still hold true.
The Ionic and Aeolian speech is notably disctinct from the mainland
Athenian speech. Let's forget about Theophrastus, he's only the
source of the surviving writings. Let's consider some notable people from Ionia, Smyrna, Halicarnassus; across the sea from Athens:
Homer, Sappho, Alcaeus, Thales, Anaximander, Archimedes, Aristarchus, Herodotus,...
Must they be judged for living in proximity of language, time, and space? Is it better to eleminate art, literature, philosophy, science because the world we inhabit is far, far from harmonious. Europe tried it in
the years after the failure of Roman culture and before the Merovingians and Carolingians - 400 years worth of dark ages. I doubt if it was better for them.
So, when we pick up this conversation in that Irish pub let's drink one for Art is long and Life is short!
Pylos
# posted by : 8:40 AM
: 8:40 AM
I agree with you, Pylos. The point I'm trying to make is that I've come finally to believe that there is no sensible reason to ever think mankind's capacity for unbounded savagery can be permanently suppressed. Like you I believe in our equal capacity for creativity, for unbounded compassion, for intelligent choices, for all that art and
science, literature and philosophy offer and have ever offered.
Without these creative expressions of ourselves we humans would be a hoggish tribe indeed. And I don't wish to demean swine by the comparison.
Finally, there is a terrible irony that we are also capable of combining in ourselves that capacity for acting in the worst ways imaginable with an appreciation for the most sublime and expressing both at the same time: Hitler, perhaps Alcibiades?
science, literature and philosophy offer and have ever offered.
Without these creative expressions of ourselves we humans would be a hoggish tribe indeed. And I don't wish to demean swine by the comparison.
Finally, there is a terrible irony that we are also capable of combining in ourselves that capacity for acting in the worst ways imaginable with an appreciation for the most sublime and expressing both at the same time: Hitler, perhaps Alcibiades?
Dear Wally and Pylos,
Well said, indeed! What a piece of work is man, capable of the sublime and the hideous, in one and the same body and mind and sometimes at the same time. What, then, are we to do?
Hephaestus
Well said, indeed! What a piece of work is man, capable of the sublime and the hideous, in one and the same body and mind and sometimes at the same time. What, then, are we to do?
Hephaestus
# posted by : 9:10 AM
: 9:10 AM
Dear Wally,
I refer to your first reply above, regarding the "Patriarchists". Even though I am a god, I bow to your knowledge on matters of (I presume) Christian theology. I understand from the lectures of Professor Daniel Robinson on "The Great Ideas of Philosophy", Great Lectures Series, The Teaching Company (even gods have to have something to listen to, especially if you live in the bowels of Mt. Etna), that there was a difference between the response of the early Christians to the Greek philosophers, depending whether it was the eastern Christians or the Western Christians. For example, the eastern Christians tended to follow the medical philosophy of the school of Hippocrates (which was not itself secular but followed the religion of the day and its rituals). The school of Hippocrates believed that all kinds of disease, even mental illness, were earthly phenomena, subject to empirical study and philosophical discourse, and thus subject to earthly understanding and remedy. However, the western Christians regarded illness as being a punishment sent by their god because of their sins. Do you know anything about this? Was there, and is there, a difference between the authority of the Pope and the authority of the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church regarding matters of epistomology?
Your ignorant, yet still divine, correspondent,
Hephaestus
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I refer to your first reply above, regarding the "Patriarchists". Even though I am a god, I bow to your knowledge on matters of (I presume) Christian theology. I understand from the lectures of Professor Daniel Robinson on "The Great Ideas of Philosophy", Great Lectures Series, The Teaching Company (even gods have to have something to listen to, especially if you live in the bowels of Mt. Etna), that there was a difference between the response of the early Christians to the Greek philosophers, depending whether it was the eastern Christians or the Western Christians. For example, the eastern Christians tended to follow the medical philosophy of the school of Hippocrates (which was not itself secular but followed the religion of the day and its rituals). The school of Hippocrates believed that all kinds of disease, even mental illness, were earthly phenomena, subject to empirical study and philosophical discourse, and thus subject to earthly understanding and remedy. However, the western Christians regarded illness as being a punishment sent by their god because of their sins. Do you know anything about this? Was there, and is there, a difference between the authority of the Pope and the authority of the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church regarding matters of epistomology?
Your ignorant, yet still divine, correspondent,
Hephaestus
# posted by : 10:29 AM
: 10:29 AM << Home
