Insert from Writings: Supplement to 2014-03-20:
Started on 2014-03-19, since I’ll be having an early coffee with John tomorrow at 9:30am.
Other ideas needing elaboration.
- Necessity for earthly existence relating to temporal/ eternal existences.
- Continuity of existence.
- Transition of the high god image.
- Physical states: Matter, radiation (e-m), plasma, particles.
1. Necessity for earthly existence relating to temporal/ eternal existences.
The following train of thought dates back several decades for its very beginning. The time is 1955/6 when I had discussions with new classmates in our first year at the HTS-polytechnic (Land Surveying) in Utrecht, NL. One class mate - Jaap Elze - introduced me to some Eastern religious ideas from Hinduism and Buddhism, which emphasise the need for meditation, non-materialism and non-violence.
I was open to new ideas at that time, because I had lost my held Christian beliefs as sole means to salvation. Both of us read, discussed and visited back and forth over the span of several years.
However, I could see that India had its own problems in just feeding its people back then, not to mention the cast system. So, Eastern thoughts and ideas yes, but not without western commitment to the material aspects of society was my sentiment at the time.
The notion that lingered in my mind was, that if human existence on this earth was such lowly and tiresome an affair, how come we have so many people being born and coming to this earth. What is the significance of life on this earth was the question that slowly emerged in me over time.
This time takes us all the way to about the 1980-ties, when I came into contact with the New Thought movement. At that time I had become convinced through the reading of books such as Moody’s “Life after Life” that a strictly material secular view was inadequate model. It could not account for the totality of human experience and in addition I felt that the accumulation of materialistic goods was inadequate as a touch stone of human conduct.
I was looking for a more comprehensive model for human existence, incorporating a sense of meaning and one with guidance for human conduct.
Existence, such as Moody and others after him, inferred was one not bound by place and time, which could be equated to the traditional notion of ‘eternity’. Eternal then would mean not being bound by place and time. What ever you could conceive in this eternal mode of existence would be a reality as soon as you thought of it. Eternal is being without time and this not being limited by the material aspect of being, means it is there when you think of it.
But, I soon realised that this would work both ways, namely that you would just as easily return to your previous state of being since there would be no time and material boundaries to keep you in any one particular state. This means that permanent change of the person would not be possible in this ‘eternal’ or maybe ‘heavenly’ state of existence and experience.
Changes to the person can be affected only under the restrictions of the time and material bound earthly existence. If you want to go to the tropics from freezing Canada, you need a ticket and that means money, which you can obtain by working. Once in Mexico you may recall being in Calgary at minus thirty, but that thought will never return you to that state and you’ll keep enjoying the warm sun, at least in day time!
Putting the playful nature of this example aside, we can see that the resistances that earthly existence puts up to change are exactly the ingredient for making such change permanent. You quit smoking here on earth, not by thinking about it, but by doing it and that means going through the emotional agony of withdrawing from your addiction. You can’t withdraw from an addiction while in heaven, to put it bluntly.
We all know how difficult this is to do, but that is how change is effected and affected in the person itself. It is this change that we can bring to ourselves, by living our bodily lives on this material earth.
We live our lives on this earth for this human experience, while in the other non-3d-time bound world, we gain the insight and understanding of the processes that may be obscure to us here in the human realm.
9:13pm, 2014-03-19.
End of insert.
2014-03-20; 7:14pm.
Topic 3: Transition of the high god image.
Every religion has a description of that culture and society’s high god. By this idea of high god I mean the God creator' and ruler in most cases, who is the originator of the world of that religion and its society. A well known instance it the Creator God described in the Scroll of Genesis of the Hebrew Teachings and the Christian Bible. There are many other such examples.
The image and description of such high gods changed with time and circumstance. In the case of the Old Testament Genesis, Abram’s god is ‘Al Shaddah’, the god from the mountain. Later on in the same ‘book’ Moses is confronted with the god of the burning bush who identifies himself as “I am That I am.”
Later on in the old testament we find ‘Lord of Lords’ a war god, Jehovah a weather god, the Ancient of Days in Antiquity (Daniel?) and ’lord Sebaoth’ among others. In the more ancient Egyptian culture religion we find besides the various localised gods in the Nomes, the central god Amun, who undergoes various changes. The powers and attributes of these high gods change and are adapted to circumstances.
The above is a cursory overview of the various descriptions I have encountered in my readings, but at the time when I adopted of the faith of my youth and up bringing (Calvinist Protestant) those earlier ideas were far from my desk.
I belief in God the Father, creator of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them, and in Jesus his only begotten son, …
As a youth I believed in “God the Father, creator of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them, and in Jesus his only begotten son, …” as the Apostolic confession carries on to complete its twelve articles. As for the Muslims, there was no other beside this god for me and certainly not the pantheons that I just referred to earlier. Such was the stuff of heathens, who lived in ignorance. They would do well to convert as soon as possible if they were to take part of the promised heavenly existence here after.
That belief I lost when I was almost eighteen and still in High school. What I lost was my belief in the historical truth of the Jesus story after reading Albert Schweitzer’s ‘Quest for the Historical Jesus’. Jesus became a human person possibly, but could no longer be the son of god and the personal saviour up in heaven.
What I did not loose was a belief in a higher power, but that belief became less personal with time and more abstract. Though I did go through periods of feeling that ‘humans were all there was’, I felt that this would lead to human hubris and was too dangerous to adhere to. The tragic case of Nietzsche played a part in this as a possible instance.
I also knew well enough, that humans could do terrible things to each other and that humanistic rules of behaviour could and were often pushed aside. Placing humans in charge of the ‘universe’ would lead to disaster I felt and I still do.
In this manner, at the age of eighteen I entered a decades long period of secularity, which I once read described as ‘a bleak and lonely road’, with which I concur. However, over my latest decade I have come to understand that secularity is best viewed as a state of transition, where one lets go of one set of beliefs and slowly acquires an other.
This has certainly be the case for me, as you may glean from my writings and talks about religions and belief frameworks over the last decade and posted on my website.
I have come to recognise belief frame works in science, in business and even in secularity. Humans have an inherent need to model their world of experience, lest they go mad. In our Western society we have many institutions that over the ages have taken over the tasks that religions still provide in many other society on our planet.
Structure and security have to be present for society to function, which ever way that is provided. In the ancient societies these two aspects, among many others, rested with the local high god, its worship and interaction.
An example is the tablets A and B of law and legislation that were presented to the Egyptian high god on his yearly public journey. If he staggered at A, it was thrown away and he was presented with alternative B, at which he would neigh in acceptance - compare Moses from the mountain. All this took place while the god in effigy was carried around on his litter for the crowds to see, an early form of democracy you might say.
Over time then the powers and functions of such high gods have changed, but have not gone away. They have altered and adapted, staying functional as time went on. Today our authority comes from many different institutions, but all are surrounded and cloaked with ceremony, reference, celebrations and at times disapproval.
If we are willing to recognise that we too have our structure of security and authority, then we can also acknowledge the roots and origins of the same, as well as the processes that shaped them over time.
This lead to the very first formulations of what we now cherish as universal human rights.
For example it was the Jesuit priests in the early Spanish colonies that drew the attention of their superiors in Spain to the abominable treatment of the indigenous population there and then. This lead to the very first formulations of what we now cherish as ‘universal’ human rights.
Recognising that when we formulate sets of values held most high and beyond dispute, we are engaged in a tradition of formulating and describing the high god as humans did in ancient times. This should encourage us to continue in this tradition, but now as a conscious and deliberate process.
In this manner we can then facilitate change for others with respect, patience and understanding, in the making of their transitions in a changing world and avoid becoming imperialists - of ’universal’ rights - all over again.
<8:30pm and 8:56pm.
