Monday 25 February 2008

Who or What is God? Life and Laws!


You may be asked, "Do you believe in God?"

If someone asks you the question its because they are not sure themselves because if they were sure then the question would be irrelevant, like asking someone if they believed in wind. The existence of wind would be obvious as would the existence of God.

The fact that many people ask the question whether God exists may mean that they are unsure whether they themselves exist.

Is God Dead?

The "God is Dead" discussion in the 1970s was about whether a particular definition of God was acceptable to people because many could not see evidence of God according to that definition. The fear was that the established church would lose adherents if people attending church could not experience a meaningful God, or God did not exist for them.

If we examine the question of whether God exists from what we now know of the scientific process, the religious process, the spiritual process, and the mythological process, we have to say that opinions differ greatly. The fact that people do frequently ask the question and people are nervous about how others will interpret their response means that we have a long way to go as a community of minds.

Did God Create Life?

Everyone believes that life exists and that the basis of their life is really something that should be preserved at all costs. There is within normal healthy people the desire to live and an empathy for life in general. This is to be expected because it is pretty obvious. Even though almost all people believe in life, there are many who would rather skip the notion that life in general is a good thing. Such people take a very narrow view of life and act as though only their selection of life matters.

Almost everyone knows that laws exist. Even though laws exist many people behave as if they don't. Observing other people's behaviour may not be a good way to judge whether they believe in something. Many people will behave as though all the laws do not exist. They will be selective about which laws they will obey because they know that for those laws, there is little escape from punishment if the laws are broken. So the question is whether God is a Law or, a Set of Laws that should not be broken?

Are there Laws About Life that We Cannot Break?

Many people behave as if God is nothing to do with Laws or a Set of Laws. Does this matter?
What we do know is that there exists a set of laws that we cannot break. These are physical laws. Is God the set of physical laws that we cannot break?

Another set of laws has to do with living entities, such as human beings and the laws of life that seem to govern our planet. We as a world community are pretty ignorant, even stupid, when it comes to understanding the laws of life that govern our planet. It is pretty obvious that we have failed miserably in understanding life laws. Most life laws are invisible to us. Could it be that we don't see God even though God may exist and may have some influence on the laws governing life. Are we that stupid?

Probably yes!

Pathways to Revelation or Invention

Revelation or invention are processes whereby a sentient being acquires useful information that is extremely difficult to obtain in normal circumstances. The process is so rare that a community regards such events with extreme respect whether it occurs within religious or scientific community. We often speak of revelation in the context of prophets and prophesy when they state that they have received a message or understood a message from an esoteric or exoteric source. Invention we think of as a secular event, but the process of revelation and invention are almost one in the same.

In the case of invention, the inventor or recipient of the revelation is regarded as the active participant in the revelation process, whereas in the case of revelation, the recipient is a channel through which an exoteric or esoteric entity is the active participant. Revelation is not confined to the religious or spiritually focused community, but is part and parcel of scientific discovery and invention. One might use the term discovery instead of revelation in cases where the person from or to whom a revelation occurs accepts a minor role.

The reality is that it does not require a prophet for the process of revelation to occur. Its not so much the participants in revelation that matters as much as the process and meaning of the revelation to the wider community. Its also quite natural when an amazing revelation occurs to regard this as a supernatural event whether it is supernatural or not.

In any event, the person receiving the revelation, or making a deiscovery, becomes a hero to the community. The fact that a reward is obtained as a result of the revelation process means that many might be tempted to claim a revelation even though the process has not occured.

In ancient communities, the stability of the community often depended on revelations being monopolized by a group of individuals or a single individual who claimed to be responsible for the process of revelation. With the printing press and the age of discovery, the fact that many more people and people outside the monopoly group to which revelations were accepted to occur could claim inventions and revelations. These were feared by the status quo which thought that new ideas or discoveries would destabilize the existing structure of authorities, especially if they ranked highly within these structures.

The monopolization of revelation by a specific group of individuals within a community gave them enormous power to keep authority structures as they were and rather than sharing revelations they would guard them and keep them for themselves. In a very real sense, revelations being new knowledge were power. Inventions were power. Prophesy was power. Those in authority grabbed power by monopolizing the process of revelation.

We now know that revelation is a process that can occur to the least individual in a community, and does not necessarily require an enormous education. Communities that realize this progress far more rapidly in knowledge creation and dissemination thatn communities that don't. In turn, communities that innovate from invention and revelation progress far more rapidly in power than those which don't. Knowledge and invention when applied to innovation grant enormous potential and capacity to communities.

By opening up pathways for revelation, the internet and information spreading technologies can produce genuine democratization of power within communities and this can lead to more even distributions of wealth and authority by means of pluralist politics. The greater sharing of authority is a good thing because it means everyone in the community and the community as a whole can progress and make better decisions. With pluralism everyone potentially is a winner. In game theory it has been shown that cooperating is a much better strategy for a community than outright competition. A mix of competition with cooperation is the way for communities to build pathways to rapid revelation, invention and progress through innovation or creative destruction that moves a community forward and assists in adaptations to complex world environments necessary for the survival of life and living entities.

It follows that free education and liberal education is a very powerful instrument in development. It has been shown that countries that provide low cost education right up to university entrance and beyond progress more rapidly that communities that allow groups to monoplize education processes. This is why people in some countries like the UK and USA are failing economically as their education systerms are inadequate and high cost to the vast majority. It is why people from other countries with better education systems and more liberal attitudes to education will overtake them very rapidly in the new internet age.

YOU HAVE REACHED WOOH'S STREAM
The Internet User's Best Kept Secret

Sketches from scratches is a provocative blogspot that has grown out of the Wuh Lax experience. It is eclectic, which means that it might consider just about anything from the simple to the extremely difficult. A scratch can be something that is troubling me or a short line on paper. From a scratch comes a verbal sketch or image sketch of the issue or subject. Other sites have other stuff that should really be of interest to the broad reader. I try to develop themes, but variety often comes before depth. ... more!