I Dunno

[poliphilo]

I'm not a believer. Not any more. But I'm not an atheist. Atheism is also a belief.

I suppose the word has to be agnostic. A know-nothing. I will sniff at any nebulous theory you choose to float under my nose- I love that sort of thing- but I'm afraid I won't be buying it- thanks all the same.

Is there a God? Any God worth its Name has to be utterly unknowable- and unknowable is practically the same as non-existent.

Are there gods? Of course- hundreds, nay thousands. They are the faces we see in clouds, in patterns of vegetation, in rock formations, in wallpaper. Most of my favourite gods are goddesses.

Is there Life after Death? I've had too many "intimations of immortality" to deny it. But I'm not going to affirm it either. Why don't we all just wait and see?

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading about your childhood picture of God-in-a-shroud, flying low over the ground.

A friend once told me that, as a child, he thought he had to sit up very straight and use his best printing when writing the words "God" or "Jesus." He said he had the impression that God frowned a lot while He watched him.

I have felt guilty when wondering how the perfect Jesus could wither the fig tree in a fit of pique. Didn't he have perfect patience, too? If I'd done that, I'd probably have to pay somehow. And what about the woman he chewed out because she kept pestering him for a miracle?

It was such a relief to realize that the Biblical stories about Jesus were, to my mind, PR for the Christians in the field. But it was at the same time a little sad to let go of the idea of a perfect human being.

Jung once told a priest that Jesus couldn't be human, that it was not possible for a human being to have a supernatural father, and that was that.

The question I spend my days wondering now is: Where are the miracles? What are miracles? Are we slowed down here, in this 4-D world, and when we die will our minds (the real us) be released into a speeded-up world of 10-something dimensions?

And where do ghosts come from? And what goes on when someone almost dies and sees Jesus or his relatives?

One man supposedly returned from death mumbling something about Plank's theorem (I think it was)--which is, if I can recall it from the days of my fascination with quantum/string theory, the discovery that paired electrons (oh, dear, my brain doesn't remember well enough) that are split off will still communicate with each other at infinite distances--which means (if one wants to make the leap) that time is meaningless at a quantum level, and that it can flow backwards.

The mystic Eckhart once said "heaven is speeded up" beyond our imagination. That's what I hope: that when we die, our minds get out of our 4-D universe and speed back up to where the physical isn't necessary.

Of course, if who we think we are is really the Self (God) mixed up with a human body and brain (and perhaps that is the REAL meaning of the archetype of Jesus: Everyman), then only the Self, God, lives on, and our little personalities, so full of ourselves, will fall away with our brains. That's sorta where I am right now. I hope that who I am, as a result of my life, is conscious somehow and contributing somehow, to God's Self. Even if I stop, I have (at least according to Teillhard) given the gift of my life to God.

But I want to know--that's my last request--what's going on?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What's going on? What indeed? I don't think any of our theories- religious, scientific, atheistic- comes close to doing justice to the universe.

Some scientist said that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine.

I don't know about Jesus as Everyman. I don't think he's universal enough. I find it hard to identify with him. How can I identify with someone who- as Jung pointed out- isn't human? Where, for one thing, is his sexuality?

I decided the other day- having just seen the movie- that Peter Sellers was Everyman. I don't think I'm being entirely flippant when I say that I find the life and death of P.S. more engaging and instructive than the life and death of J.C.

Actually, for what it's worth, I don't believe Jesus ever existed. I think he's a made-up figure. There was a First Century fashion for Saviour Gods and a bunch of Hellenistic Jews (fronted by Paul?) decided they wanted one of their own and invented the Jesus myth. No-one was meant to take it literally. But some did. And after lots of unpleasantness the literalists triumphed and suppressed their opponents (the gnostics) and what had started out as an exclusive mystery cult turned into the universal church....

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I hate to admit it, because I am a communicant in good standing, but I think it would be a relief to find that Jesus was most definitely a mythical figure. Because it is flat scary to think that God is expecting Jesus to judge us all, one by one. And I suppose one must buy all of it, or none of it.

If one buys only part of it, the whole thing falls apart.

(Our human version of the Judgement, of course, took place in the concentration camps in an archetypal form, when What's-His-Name the evil doctor pointed to right or left and sent people to the crematoria or to the work camp. What's-His-Name took on the archetype of Jesus. Boy, was he doomed.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Mengele. That was the guy's name.

The archetype of the Last Judgement is truly horrific. The medieval church used it as an instrument of control. Over every chancel arch of every parish church there was a painting of the Doom, with sinners tumbling into the gaping maw of the hell beast. I think we have to rise up and protest against it!