My take on Christianity
#MayNeedPolish
I had a rational reason as to why God is conscious. But I forgot it because it always ends up complicated. The reason for that is because it's like writing a manual on how to ride a bike. You don't learn to ride a bike by reading about it. So I'll skip this for now.
God as the material cause of the world would be like the ocean. The power of the ocean would manifest as waves in the ocean. God would not constantly control the ocean, because the will of God is simply non-different from perfection. Free will and determinism converge into one.
God as the efficient cause would be like the energy, and God as the formal cause would be like the patterns. In this manner, God is present with in the world, as the waves, but is also transcendent, as the ocean. In this case, the ocean and energy are not different.
Patanjali's Yoga school posited that Purusha and Prakrthi were different, while the Vedanta schools consider Eeshvara to be not separate from Shakti. Mostly, the difference is semantic.
Then, this is the description of the world from the big picture. The waves end up creating limited conscious beings - by reflecting consciousness on itself. Then, from the perspective of the limited beings, who live in duality, they will seek completion.
To pursue the worldly life is to demand more and more out of duality. It will not end. To attain true self-knowledge, one must detach from the world of waves. Instrumentally, the Yoga school provides many methods, which are based on the Karma Kaanda of the Veda-s. I say instrumentally, because though the being made of waves appears to act on their own, it is truly the power that causes the waves that cause the being to act.
However, performing actions would never get you to perfection. What is meant by perfection? Simply put, certain paths give a good outcome, and certain paths give you a bad outcome. But to always be on the correct path requires one to be constantly monitoring their actions. This is difficult on one level, and is impossible on another. It is difficult because your circumstances and desires are not of your own choosing. It is impossible because perfection is like drawing straight lines. No matter how hard you try, there will always be some deviation from absolute perfection.
In this case, knowing that we are waves, we can also recognize that the only one who can modify the waves is the one who created the waves itself. Now, the one that modifies the waves is God in his immanent form, that is, as the wave. The transcendent form provides the immanent form when it becomes necessary. The immanent form would also be called the incarnation of God, as it is the way by which God connects to the World. Just imagine a whirlpool popping up, acting like a black hole, and sucking out some excess waves.
This same idea has been expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, but Jesus has been the most clear example of this act. When God comes to remove sin, he would not do so by fighting, he would simply bear the unwanted fruits of our actions. Again, the Bhagavad Gita also states this, but in his life, Krishna was more like a tactician than Jesus, who was seen performing the action all by himself.
For this reason, I consider Jesus as my most appropriate Godhead.
But I do not agree with other things like eternal hell. Well, if one chooses to eternally defy God, they would choose hell, simply because they wish to be independent from God's grace. In that case, a simple separation from God itself would be Hell. But that would mean total chaos too. Because it is only structure that prevents an earthquake from forming all the time. Yes, material forces explain them, but they explain them after the fact that they exist. For this same reason, when one chooses to be completely be separate from God, they would perish forever. Another analogy is that it is like a program asking to be separate from power, or a program asking to be free from the OS. It simply would lack an ontological ground.
Aside from that, I do not understand what the Holy Spirit is, and why it is a separate prospon of God. At best, I can say God the ocean, God the energy, and God the whirlpool. So God the energy would be the Holy Spirit.
Then, I do not agree with the Christian take by which all those who accept Jesus are the only ones that have God within them. Because by my ontology, nothing can exist without the ocean and the energy as their substratum. But well, I guess you actually do need to accept Jesus to clear yourself of sin. Then of course, the ocean as the substratum, and the energy as the efficient cause both exist within the forms, but God as the whirlpool would not. That makes sense, as the Holy Spirit is said to be transcendent and immanent. But this analogy has a problem in that the Holy Spirit is said to have proceeded from the Father and the Son. But in this analogy, the Son would proceed from the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Now, further, I do not think anyone can independently choose to believe or not believe, as their feelings and choices too are dictated by the power. The beliefs would then simply be instrumental. But instrumentally, when one starts to believe would be when they achieve liberation as well. So in that sense, the knowledge is useful.
Next, as for afterlife. Considering that we are in theism, and believe in the eternality of souls, the world is just like a veil that keep changing around the soul. Death would just be a momentary experience, then to be followed by some other experience, perhaps in another world, or by a rebirth in this another womb in this world. Either way, any exlerience is simply a change in surroundings.
So I follow agree with Christianity, but not with many Christians. Not to mention all the denomination conflicts and anathemas.
Comments
Post a Comment