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A Riddle Within a Riddle: 1) God in the Mind of Man...and
2) Man in the Mind of God.
Dear Friends:
I ask you to read what follows with a view toward expanding your mind...to thinking beyond the imagined limitations of your own thought processes. This process, in itself, is deeply meditative, vigorously enlightening and a powerful opportunity at a uniquely detached form of self-awareness. The simplest way to describe this last form of self-awareness is to "be as if standing outside of yourself, and intellectually observing yourself." It is an infinitely recursive potential for an inner journey. Comically, and carried to an extreme, it is ultimately like watching yourself watching yourself in a mirror.
Here are some preliminary thoughts, to prime the cerebral engine:
1. The existence of God cannot be scientifically proven;
2. The non-existence of God cannot be scientifically proven;
3. Belief in God is based upon faith;
4. Faith is a belief in something based either upon: some knowledge or inclination (whether intuitive, instinctual, or developed through other revelatory means) not acquired through any of the acknowledged senses or science, or b) which may be a psysiological or emotional mechanism for dealing with fear, the unexplainable, or a quest for reason in all things experienced in life. Everyone has faith in something or someone, either because of the necessity for faith as a defense (a survival mechanism which strengthens our resolve during times of great stress or threat), or because of desire for a good thing to either be true or to come to fruition.
5. Some claim that Man had to have invented God for a variety of reasons, but many today believe that we may be biochemically hard-wired to believe in God, and that we may have a certain need to believe in him. My questions are:
What great master programmer or force created or designed us with such a powerful compulsion, propensity or a need to believe in God, or in a Creator? If this was indeed done toward for some deliberate purpose, might this purpose be a basis of commonality necessary to our survival (recognizing our beligerance toward each other and our violent aspects) as a species?
Questioning my doubts about God's existence when I was in my twenties, a good friend of mine said, "Don't worry. Just because you don't believe in Him doesn't mean that He doesn't believe in you."
Did Man Create God to simply abdicate responsibility and to explain complicated phenomena? Is it possible that God created within Man the need to believe in Him, or in a creator of His magnificent magnitude? Did God create a "hunger" in Man for faith, and for belief? Who was the cause and who was the effect?
Here's the subject article, which I have excerpted from a recent review of a book (which I have not yet read) by the editorial staff, reviewers and critics at BuzzFlash.com:
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Did People Create God, Rather Than the Other Way Around?
Bestselling "
The Evolution of God" (Hardcover) -- 576 Pages
by: Robert Wright
BuzzFlash.com's Review (
excerpt):
"In this bestselling book, Robert Wright exhaustively explores monotheism as a way of coping with the world. That is to say, the creation of a God is a "hot-wired" sociological attempt to cope with some sort of moral order.Wright presents an optimism that in the face of a world without the "concept" of God, anarchy would prevail.
He looks at the overall trajectory of religious evolution, which allows him to explain the wars fought because of religion as deviations from an overall trend of acceptance.Wright is hardly for the true believer, in that he explains the development of Christianity, for instance, as one of political negotiation and marketing savvy.
But he offers dazzling insights into why most men and women need a God -- and that religion is, perhaps, preferable in terms of social order than warring tribal identities, because it offers the possibility of "negotiated" reconciliation between religions that supersede national and tribal identities. You can watch Robert Wright talk about the book by clicking
here. Obviously, this is a provocative, thoughtful reflection on how God was created due to social needs -- and that there may be, ironically, something mystically divine in that need, although without the dogma of any given religion. Fascinating stuff.
"In his brilliant new book, The Evolution of God, Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up. He starts with the deities of hunter-gatherer tribes, moves to those of chiefdoms and nations, then on to the polytheism of the early Israelites and the monotheism that followed, and then to the New Testament and the Koran, before finishing off with the modern multinational Gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Wright's tone is reasoned and careful, even hesitant, throughout, and it is nice to read about issues like the morality of Christ and the meaning of jihad without getting the feeling that you are being shouted at. His views, though, are provocative and controversial. There is something here to annoy almost everyone."-- Paul Bloom, New York Times.
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What do you think?
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
p.s. If you haven't already done so, please grab your free subscription to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER Weekly Newsletter at http://twitlik.com/OK. This August some great things are headed your way.
