Smuggling In A Fictional "Who", As A Means To Hijack Ours
Today, our journey begins with a loaded question.
In reply, I offer this:
Although, to be fair, I don't really want to get technical and philoso-nerdy about it.
--
Maybe
all known physics had a true beginning.
Nobody knows if that's the case.
--
Maybe
all the energies this universe consists of
had a true beginning.
Nobody knows that either.
--
Maybe
there was some literal "who" that started those things.
Nobody knows that either.
--
Maybe
there were many of those "who".
Or maybe
there was only one.
Nobody knows that either.
--
According to known human history,
monotheism is a late invention.
Although, you can call that a discovery or a "revelation" if you want to.
The first known monotheism was introduced by an Egyptian king; as a way to consolidate power;
for violently predatory and mostly selfish purposes.
All later created monotheisms were created for the same reasons;
for the selfish and violent purposes of cult-personality leaders.
The "Biblical" Hebrews journey towards monotheism took many centuries.
They started off
as a tribe of Canaanites who broke away.
This is why their texts are so heavily polemicized against the Canaanites.
When their "Torah" was written (borrowing concepts from other older religions), they were all still polytheists.
Later bibles were altered, to make that fact less obvious.
However, reverences to other gods still remain in their texts.
Yahweh was not originally a part of the Hebrews religious lore.
"He" took many centuries to develop.
Even still today,
the ideas about who and what Yahweh is
continue to change.
From the very beginning of that character's lore,
to build "Yahweh", they scavenged parts from (metaphorically) 'dead and buried' gods.
For those people, it was part of a larger effort to create a cohesive, useful, and satisfying group-identity;
by creating fictions about themselves and then agreeing to carry those forward as "who they are" in the world.
[a special thanks to renowned Bible scholars, archeologists, and other qualified religious historians (in no particular order)
Elain Pagels,
Kipp Davis,
Joshua Bowen,
Megan Lewis,
Jennifer Bird,
Bart Ehrman,
James Tabor,
Kara Cooney,
Christine Hayes,
William Dever, and others;
for educating me on these topics]
If we go back further, we discover that all theists were polytheists.
If we go back even further than that, we discover that theism in general is a concept which evolved from primitive people assigning agency to natural phenomenon.
Eventually, in Greece, a quasi-theistic world-theory called "Stoicism" emerged.
Early Christians borrowed and adapted some parts of Stoicism, to create their own "word(s) of God".
For example, that's where early Christian writers got the idea of "the logos" from.
They borrowed heavily from Hebrew religion too.
This, at least, they admit.
They had to do that, in order to use the Hebrew religion as a foundational premise for their own emerging claim to 'moral authority'.
Although, to be fair, Christianity started "in earnest". It wasn't always a willful conspiracy to hijack other people's lives by hijacking their minds.
At first, it was just an obscure Jewish sect.
They became a militant messianic doomsday cult.
-At first under a guy named "John", and then next under a guy called "Jesus" (both very common names. Jesus was just a variation of Joshua).
It changed the most, however, decades later;
after some covert clinical Narcissists named Saul took over.
Their "messiah" was executed by the Romans for being a militant political enemy to Roman authority.
At the time, Judaism did NOT include the idea that the promised messiah would die for anyone sins.
Instead, that local and obscure cult developed that idea after their cult-leader died;
as a way to turn their crushing defeat into a spiritualized victory.
Failed apocalyptic cults always do that.
They always re-imagine their own believe systems, so that their own failed "end of the world" prophecies become "spiritual" and thus "actually succeeded".
They also borrowed heavily from the much broader scope of Hellenism.
[Hellenism is a noun that refers to ancient Greek culture, ideals, or the adoption of Greek language, customs, art, and thought.
It can also refer to the principles, ideals, and pursuits of classical Greek civilization, or the national character of the Greeks.
The word Hellenism comes from the Greek word Hellēnismós, which means "an imitation of or similarity to the Greeks".]
Along the way,
they created something unique with all those borrowed and adapted pieces.
Personally, I think the Stoics had things worked out much better.
They believed the universe has always existed.
They believed it just keeps getting recycled and reborn.
Early Stoics did not believe in a literal, personal super-authority-figure who willed nor spoke this universe into existence.
What they called "God" was an impersonal intelligence and virtue that imbued the universe with those properties.
It wasn't a person.
It wasn't many persons.
There was no political agenda.
No coming king-dom.
No king to speak of.
It had nothing to do with moral or political authoritarianism.
There was no threats made; not even as a "friendly warning" to require everyone to embrace some bizarre religious narrative "or else".
No religious platform given to humans upon-which predators-wolves could gain power by posing as fellow sheep.
No authoritarian pyramid organizations that
put women and children at special risk of being sexually assaulted.
No system of emotional and cognitive manipulations meant to bend "reality" (and knees) where those in power "just coincidentally" gain direct personal benefit to their egos, their desire to control others to make the world feel safer for themselves, and their bank accounts.
No need for our money.
No attempt to generate intense and irrational shame; just so self-"authorized" agents can then 'white knight rescue' us by helping us alleviate the crippling shame they intentionally caused in the first place.
-And in a way that creates a cycle of dependence and exploitation; via the way it places the "rescued" under the authority of fallible men who merely CLAIM to be wielding that power (over every meaningful facet of our lives) in the name of a "God".
No demons or devils.
Thus, no framework for literally demonizing everyone who thinks, lives, and loves differently than a self-select tribe of special people.
No artificial narrative framework that 'others' people by treating an ingroup as a uniquely valuable people-group.
[replacing one form of racism for another]
No intentionally fictional accounts of world-history and religious history.
No mystical curses.
No blaming any individual for the "sins" of others.
Nobody shaming all humans for merely being imperfect.
No de-valuing of THIS life
with a priority-focus on the next.
No de-incentivizing
the goal of making this world better for everyone ...
with the idea that this world is scheduled to crash and burn anyways and "any day now" (for thousands of years and counting).
Mental illness was not given magical explanations as "spiritual sickness" that ultimately and unfairly blamed the afflicted.
There was no pressure on young people to get married before their brains are even done forming; let alone before they've really matured enough to make such a commitment.
No pressure on abused married persons to remain with their abusers.
No indoctrinating of children into a complex and irrational belief system;
which attempts to force their developing minds into an organized form of 'learned helplessness' so that they'll remain obedient sheep for their whole lives.
No systematic infiltrations of political systems as a way to leverage exploitable control (basically mafias) over entire societies.
No brain-F#@king games like: Telling people they owe their creator an apology for HOW HE MADE THEM. Nor telling they can't have true love, or joy, or purpose, and even VALUE as a PERSON
until-and-unless they embrace a set of irrational dogmas "as true" (or, at least fake it; as Pascal wagered).
--
So yea.
Sure.
You can ease us into the mess
and 'hope it sticks'.
You can begin that process
by asking a few simple and loaded questions; questions
designed to smuggle non-facts into my headspace as facts. It's a longshot. But if it works, I'll join you in pretending those are facts (ie. that physics had a true beginning; or that such a beginning requires a "who"; or that it could only be one "who", or a three-in-one who).
That way, you can build a model of alleged-reality (in my head) upon faulty premises.
- And if that works, to then trap me there.
[link]
But first you'd have to assume I'm woefully uninformed, emotionally desperate, and have easily manipulatable cognitive faculties.
I wouldn't make that bet, if I were you.
But I'll admit. It could be fun to try.
:)
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