I like to relate my understanding of god with the concept of technological progression, which came to me just today when lying on my rug. When I first got into computers, I remember having to leave on my PC day and night in order to get whatever mp3 album it was that I lusted to sink my ears into. Much of my time, as the download ticked along, was spent anticipating the music to come. But the internet speeds of today let me listen to albums faster than I can click. I can get more music than what I can listen to, and it has actually led to me not using up as much time finding new music. The anticipation was such a part of the excitement and when the anticipation could not build I decided to spend my time on things that would take longer periods of time until the reward set in. It could be why people love downloading movies. You still have to wait for them. It is certainly true that the intensity of the seretonin reward is somewhat proportional to the period of time spent getting from the idea to the result; or the wish to the reality; or the desire to the fulfillment.
I do believe that gods were created out of a projection of the impossible wishes and goals that we can never attain; in our image instead of vice versa. Wherever we find limit we cast out the limitation and attach that attribute to some kind of entity that is greater. We live our fantasies vicariously through, respectively, other fantasies. But the assemblage of adjectives never makes sense. Let's rehash the familiar critiques. We have omnipresence: the idea that god is everywhere. It doesn't exactly make sense in the same way that the clouds of nothingness which line the universe do not make sense. If god can be and is everywhere, what is its size? Omnipotence means that, simply, anything can be done and that by thinking alone anything can be changed, created, or destroyed. Omniscience is the removal of any limitation on intelligence. But there not a certain enlightenment in ignorance? How can something know and not know all at once?
People are always dingbatting around with the paradoxes inherent in the removal of limitation, but the computer age really lets us see what happens when limitations start getting removed from our own lives. The needs and desires of past days—obtainable only through time and sweat—have become ready to activate and enjoy at a finger tap. This is great from one perspective but what happens, really, to those old desires? They change. They aren't so rewarding. It is not hard to see the ever-growing ease and efficiency in our age expand to the point of god's omnipotence and omniscience and then… wonder what we would do with that kind of ability.
Would this be a fun thing to imagine? While I moved from downloading music albums and watching youtube to creating photographs and music, what of god? The rewards were greater when I made it harder . The time between the desire and the payoff amp up the anticipation so that seeing the finished works are much more gratifying. A god, or me as god, would want to paint a picture and it would be painted, mounted and dried. A god would want music and be listening to divinity before the thought had completed (in the temporal stasis where god languishes). I, with the cursed luxury of limitation, struggle happily to overcome them. Gods do not have that luxury. Sadly, any god that existed in this sense would envy the human condition and wish it could break the prison of omnipotence—in order to sip from the stream of limitation and drown blissfully in a sea of stupidity.
I do believe that gods were created out of a projection of the impossible wishes and goals that we can never attain; in our image instead of vice versa. Wherever we find limit we cast out the limitation and attach that attribute to some kind of entity that is greater. We live our fantasies vicariously through, respectively, other fantasies. But the assemblage of adjectives never makes sense. Let's rehash the familiar critiques. We have omnipresence: the idea that god is everywhere. It doesn't exactly make sense in the same way that the clouds of nothingness which line the universe do not make sense. If god can be and is everywhere, what is its size? Omnipotence means that, simply, anything can be done and that by thinking alone anything can be changed, created, or destroyed. Omniscience is the removal of any limitation on intelligence. But there not a certain enlightenment in ignorance? How can something know and not know all at once?
People are always dingbatting around with the paradoxes inherent in the removal of limitation, but the computer age really lets us see what happens when limitations start getting removed from our own lives. The needs and desires of past days—obtainable only through time and sweat—have become ready to activate and enjoy at a finger tap. This is great from one perspective but what happens, really, to those old desires? They change. They aren't so rewarding. It is not hard to see the ever-growing ease and efficiency in our age expand to the point of god's omnipotence and omniscience and then… wonder what we would do with that kind of ability.
Would this be a fun thing to imagine? While I moved from downloading music albums and watching youtube to creating photographs and music, what of god? The rewards were greater when I made it harder . The time between the desire and the payoff amp up the anticipation so that seeing the finished works are much more gratifying. A god, or me as god, would want to paint a picture and it would be painted, mounted and dried. A god would want music and be listening to divinity before the thought had completed (in the temporal stasis where god languishes). I, with the cursed luxury of limitation, struggle happily to overcome them. Gods do not have that luxury. Sadly, any god that existed in this sense would envy the human condition and wish it could break the prison of omnipotence—in order to sip from the stream of limitation and drown blissfully in a sea of stupidity.
Labels: Writing
