2. Cosmic Conspiracy - Part 1 - Deus Absconditus
This is the second article in the series From Particles to Angels. If you are interested in this article you should read the first article in the series (On Happiness).
In the article On Happiness I attempted to define the necessary prerequisites of happiness, and suggested that they depended upon things for which we have no solid evidence. In this article, we take a closer look at this question of evidence. If we attempt to assert the reality of immortality, there are two basic approaches: "spiritual" or "religious". Here I use the term "spiritual" as some non-religious people use it, to refer to some extra-material reality, devoid of a personal god, but which may offer the hope of some manner of immortality. By "religious" I mean the belief in a god, theism, either as a solitary god, or as a chief god at the top of a pantheistic hierarchy of lesser gods and demigods. By a "personal god", I mean a personality, to distinguish it from conceptions of god such as might be described by words similar to: "something we might call god" but which is not a personality, such as an impersonal force or principle. A belief system with an impersonal god I will group under the heading of "spirituality", while that possessing a personal god I will call "religion".
Whether we are considering religion or spirituality, when we speak of the kind of evidence we require to demonstrate their truth, we are referring to supernatural events. Much has been written and said on the subject. Some have even claimed some manner of physical evidence, but at the end of the day no-one can provide definitive proof. The absence of proof has therefore been incorporated as a key element into the belief systems of spirituality and religion.
In the case of spirituality, we might claim that the absence of proof of immortality and an immaterial existence is merely an accident of nature. In nature, something just happens, there is no requirement for it to provide evidence of a certain kind to demonstrate the truth of its existence to those it hasn't happened to yet. It is up to us to be clever enough to discover it. Buddhism offers this kind of a solution, where the effort and discipline of meditation is the means of connecting with the truth. In this case, we can simply say that we have no solid proof of the supernatural because when we use the phrase "solid proof" we are talking about "material proof", and we may legitimately ask how it is reasonable to ask an immaterial realm to provide material proof of its existence? It is like a deep sea fish asking us to provide it with proof of the existence of fire after we have told it stories about the miraculous world that exists far above the bottom of the ocean. The fish cannot go there, the difference in pressure would kill it. If we attempt to bring fire down to the bottom of the ocean, the water and lack of oxygen will extinguish it. So that fish can either choose to take our word for it, or not to believe us. Those who claim to have had spiritual or religious experiences, can provide us with nothing but stories, like a Twelfth Century European explorer returning from Africa with stories of giraffes, zebras, elephants and rhinoceros to an unbelieving crowd.
In the article On Happiness we encountered the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia, which tells of a legendary king who travels to the netherworld in search of immortality.
"Then Utnapishtim spoke unto Gilgamesh: 'Gilgamesh, thou didst come here weary; thou didst labour and row. What now shall I give thee, that thou mayest return to thy country? I will reveal unto thee, Gilgamesh, a mystery of the gods I will announce unto thee. There is a plant resembling buckthorn; its thorn stings like that of a bramble. When thy hands can reach that plant, then thy hands will hold that which gives life everlasting.'
"When Gilgamesh had heard this he opened the sluices that the sweet water might carry him into the deep; he bound heavy stones to his feet, which dragged him down to the sea floor, and thus he found the plant. Then he grasped the prickly plant. He removed from his feet the heavy stones, and the sea carried him and threw him down to on the shore.
"And Gilgamesh said unto Urshanabi, the ferryman: 'Urshanabi, this plant is a plant of great marvel; and by it a man may attain renewed vigour. I will take it to Uruk the strong-walled, I will give it to the old men to eat. Its name shall be ‘Even an old man will be rejuvenated!’ I will eat of this and return to the vigour of my youth.'"
Unfortunately it was not to be.
"At twenty double-leagues they then took a meal: and at thirty double-leagues they took a rest. And Gilgamesh saw a well wherein was cool water; he stepped into it and bathed in the water. A serpent smelled the sweetness of the plant and darted out; he took the plant away, and as he turned back to the well, he sloughed his skin. And after this Gilgamesh sat down and wept. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and he said unto Urshanabi, the ferryman:
“'Why, Urshanabi, did my hands tremble? Why did the blood of my heart stand still? Not on myself did I bestow any benefit. On the ‘ground-lion’ this benefit has been bestowed.'"
So began a long tradition of stories of people getting screwed by their supernatural experiences. A psychedelic researcher might similarly relate to the experience of coming back empty handed (or worse) from their profound journey.
Some ancient myths explain the absence of the gods as resulting from the fall of man. Ancient Greek mythology as given by Hesiod and Ovid describe "4 Ages of Man", four historical periods beginning with a Golden Age, reminiscent of the Hebrew Garden of Eden, but followed successively by the Silver Age, Bronze Age and finally the present Iron Age. Each successive age represents a decline in the state of man and an increase in violence and hardship. It is sometimes speculated that the myth of a past golden age is derived from some subconscious memory of life in the womb, or memories of childhood.
The story of Noah's cataclysmic flood predates the biblical telling and is described in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Utnapishtim, who Gilgamesh meets in the netherworld, was the Mesopotamian Noah, and he describes the experience of the flood to Gilgamesh.
"With the first glow of dawn, a black cloud rose up from the horizon. Inside it Adad [god of storm and rain] thunders, while Shallat [or Shullat] and Hanish [attendants of Adad] go in front, moving as heralds over hill and plain. Erragal [god of the underworld] tears out the posts; forth comes Ninurta [god of war] and causes the dikes to follow. The Anunnaki [a class of god] lift up the torches, setting the land ablaze with their glare. Consternation over Adad reaches to the heavens, turning to blackness all that had been light. The wide land was shattered like a pot! For one day the south-storm blew, gathering speed as it blew, submerging the mountains, overtaking the people like a battle. No one can see his fellow, nor can the people be recognized from heaven. The gods were frightened by the deluge, and, shrinking back, they ascended to the heaven of Anu [god of the sky and heaven, King of the gods]. The gods cowered like dogs crouched against the outer wall. Ishtar [goddess of love and beauty] cried out like a woman in travail, the sweet-voiced mistress of the gods moans aloud: 'The olden days are alas turned to clay, because I bespoke evil in the assembly of the gods, How could I bespeak evil in the assembly of the gods, ordering battle for the destruction of my people, when it is I myself who give birth to my people! Like the spawn of the fishes they fill the sea!' The Anunnaki gods weep with her, the gods, all humbled, sit and weep, their lips drawn tight. . . . one and all."
The ancient Greeks also had their counterpart to Noah, called "Deucalion" (who was the son of Prometheus), when Zeus sought to destroy mankind at the end of the "Bronze Age". Some of the gods stuck by mankind even after the flood, but as the Iron Age proceeded, one by one, even these left, faded away like recalled UN troops.
"Rapacity broke forth—the guest was not protected from his host, the father in law from his own son in law.... The husband threatened to destroy his wife, and she her husband.... Piety was slain... and last of all the virgin deity, Astraea (goddess of Justice) vanished from the blood-stained earth."
Hesiod inserts an extra race of men between the third ("Bronze Age") and his fifth (Iron Age). The bronze race: "were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and left no name", whereas this extra (fourth) race "was nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods". To these: "father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the ends of earth. And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed". But of the iron race he says the following.
"For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them.... Strength will be right and reverence will cease to be; and the wicked will hurt the worthy man, speaking false words against him, and will swear an oath upon them. Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men one and all. And then Aidos [goddess of shame, modesty and humility] and Nemesis [goddess of divine retribution], with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods: and bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil."
Some ancient stories have Astraea leaving already in the "Bronze Age".
"But another tale is current among men, how of old she dwelt on earth and met men face to face, nor ever disdained in olden time the tribes of men and women, but mingling with them took her seat, immortal though she was.... Not yet in that age had men knowledge of hateful strife, or carping contention, or din of battle, but a simple life they lived.... But with the Silver Race only a little and no longer with utter readiness did she mingle, for that she yearned for the ways of the men of old.... But when they, too, were dead, and when, more ruinous than they which went before, the Race of Bronze was born, who were the first to forge the sword of the highwayman, and the first to eat of the flesh of the ploughing-ox, then verily did Justice loathe that race of men and fly heavenward and took up that abode, where even now in the night time the Maiden [the constellation Virgo] is seen of men...."
One purpose of an externally absent deity might be to force an internal investigation for one. If one imagines a cosmic government setting up branch offices on the far-flung worlds of space, one can imagine long queues of human beings anxious to ask for free handouts for things they could provide for themselves and each other, much as prayer is often currently tasked with; and busily filing complaints about every bad thing that happens. One can imagine sprawling slums spreading out around these outposts. The universe would be a vast welfare state of infantilised beings moaning at their divine parents. Instead of this divine service industry we have a "do it yourself" universe.
"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'”
As material creatures, we are born into the material world. But with the emergence of self consciousness we then inhabit two worlds, an inner and an outer. If "spiritual existence" refers to something immaterial, then a redirection toward the spiritual is a direction away from the material. This notion has tended to lead to the extreme and ugly logic of: spirit = good & matter = bad, which is a topic for another day. For now let's just consider that the absence of external resources, forces us to seek internal resources, and the absence of an external provider, forces up to provide for ourselves, and to cooperate with others where we cannot provide for ourselves. It forces us to develop, evolve and grow.
For now, we exist in the material world and must make our way in it, together with the others we share it with. While we may "store up treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6:20), we do so by focusing on our responsibilities here and now, and even by participating in the joys available here and now. If there is an afterlife, we will be there soon enough. By hiding heaven, we avoid the distraction, and the building of shanty towns outside its gates, and plots to storm those gates to take for ourselves the riches of the decadent denizens beyond. There is also some truth to the notion that death makes us treat life as more precious, serves to deter procrastination and forces a severe prioritising of actions. But it is not necessary for us to actually die to achieve this benefit, only that we believe we might. As we mature, hopefully we should eventually no longer require such a brute incentive. If there is a heaven, this life is where we prepare ourselves for it, making ourselves fit citizens.
Consider the implications of the statement: "Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26). Consider a creature who is by temperament an almighty god, but who has been dropped into an environment without any of their divine powers, so that they must struggle to survive. They must share this environment with a multitude of other creatures, all of whom also are by temperament almighty gods, and with whom they must compete for survival. This creates a disconnect and conflict, a tension aimed at a resolution set far into the future. How does one turn an almighty god into a social being?
A world in which there is no divine assistance, is also a world in which there is no divine interference. In the original series Star Trek, the crew of the starship Enterprise freely made contact with any alien races they encountered. That was their mission. In the more responsible recent Star Trek series and movies the Federation has a "prime directive" to conceal its existence from primitive races for fear of influencing their development. The presence of an advanced civilisation can have a debilitating effect on a more primitive civilisation. It short circuits natural development in various ways. The primitive culture can lose its value for its citizens, while there is pressure to adopt the practices of the more advanced culture. Likely those from the primitive culture will not perform as well in the more advanced culture, so that they end up becoming a subclass of the more advanced culture. Left to their own devices to naturally evolve to a more advanced culture, the culture they arrive at might be a different kind of advanced culture, one unique to them and of their own making.
We live in a world free of gods. Although the human religious instinct will invent them on its own, and then impose them, sometimes by force on others, this is in such a way that people are still free within their own mind not to believe in gods imposed on them by other people. To live in a world free of gods also affects human behaviour and development. For instance, how a person behaves while their boss or their parent is present, if sometimes different to how they behave when their boss or their parent is absent. So that it is only in the absence of these that we, in a sense, see the real person.
If God is a spirit, it may not be meaningful to seek external evidence for a spirit. We know other human beings first by their bodies. We see them, hear them and touch them. We assume that indwelling these bodies are spirits. The existence of the spirit within their bodies are implied by their actions and the fact that they appear similar to ourselves, and so we imagine they have consciousness and a spirit as we do. The body therefore serves as evidence for the spirit. What evidence then can we seek for the existence of god? One possibility might be for the sky to open at intervals and a bright golden light emerge with a sound of trumpets and a heavenly choir. Then an enormous bearded man appears in the opening to announce in a booming voice that He is God and that He exists. Alternatively, he might appear as a normal sized man roaming the world throughout all human history and performing regular miracles. With many planets and many nations it might require many of these divine incarnations. But any of these would be an appearance only.
If we assume that God is not really a man with a beard, how can we truly experience Him? A spirit is known by its character and personality, and these are known by their acts. Communion with a spirit is not a spectacle or a physical exchange. It is intimate and subtle. It is to be "touched" in a different way. Physical exchanges with other human beings can be intimate and spiritual, but the physical acts represent meanings, and it is these meanings that constitute the spiritual exchange. The spiritual significance of a kiss or a hug is in the meaning, not the physical act or sensation. If we are to commune with an immaterial spirit we must learn how to be sensitive to the presence and actions of a spirit, how to perceive a spirit. Ordinarily, our perception of other spirits is indirect. It must be deduced from the witnessed actions of other bodies. But religion suggests that there is a more direct and immediate means of communing with divinity, an inward route.
We learn about people from the books, movies and music they like, the way they dress, the way they set up their homes, who they choose to associate with and how they behave with others. If God created the universe, this universe is a source of clues as to the character and intentions of deity. If God created us, we are a source of clues as to the character and intentions of deity. The personality of God is therefore deduced from our inner and outer universes, similar to the way we deduce the personality of other people from their body's appearance and actions. The emphasis on the importance of "inward" being is common in religion. While the external, material world too is important; existence, consciousness is ultimately an inward state, so that reality is sought inwardly. The external physical world is a primitive and round-about way of experience. For now, we can only touch others by means of our physical bodies, but that may not always be the case, and for deity it may already not be the case. So that the kinds of events that we would count as "evidence" for the existence of God, may not be the kind of events that have God in them. Such evidence would be necessarily contrived and false, and perhaps not a little tacky. Some conceive communion with God as an ecstasy, but emotions too are responses to meanings. Religious and spiritual visions therefore tend to be symbols for meanings rather than literal visual representations of deity.
God and heaven might simply be incomprehensible to us in our present state. Perhaps we first need to be free of our material brains before we can comprehend either. Perhaps each is different for different people, so that each has their own version of God and heaven. While the true God and heaven are able to accommodate this diversity without contradiction, attempts to portray such diversity to us in our present material state might only exacerbate sectarianism and lead to conflict. It is also conceivable that the people of the material worlds may disapprove of heaven, as primitive cultures frequently do of more advanced ones.
The suggestion that it is to encourage and permit independence goes some way toward explaining why communication with God and heaven are limited, but does not really explain why their very existence is left in doubt. The spiritual nature of God and heaven raises difficulties in communication, but these hardly seem insurmountable. Surely divine visions or miracles could be presented routinely and in a such a way that they could not be denied. Perhaps it is true that if such miracles were available, human beings would simply be satisfied with these and not look elsewhere, content with appearances instead of the reality. Perhaps having visions and seeing miracles would freak out a lot of people. Perhaps people would waste time in a fruitless and impossible effort to figure out how miracles work, instead of developing the sciences of the non-miraculous material world. Worse perhaps, they succeed in understanding miracles and come into possession of technologies they are not mature enough to wield. For any problem raised, solutions might be posed. Perhaps the evidence is already there sufficient for anyone who wants to look for it, but only for those who want to look for it.
Perhaps the answer is hinted at in Jesus' unexplained comment: "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed".
Much is made of "belief" in religion, and the urgent need to believe whatever is the doctrine of the particular religion. People attempt to argue and threaten others into belief. But in the end, in the absence of undeniable proof (and sometimes in its presence) people will believe what they want to believe, and their reasoning will be applied to the task of justifying it, whatever it is. The "faith" concept has become the idiotic virtue of belief in the absence of evidence for its own sake, a lucrative gullibility ready for institutionalised exploitation. The reality of loving god is love for the idea of god, the heartfelt wish that it be true even against the evidence to the contrary. Those are blessed "who have not seen and yet have believed", perhaps not because they are in the habit of indiscriminately believing in the absence of evidence, but because they are devoted to this particular concept, and open to its influence. In my view, "faith" is better characterised as a hope than a conviction. Religious conviction is a perversion of reason, and for the most part posturing.
Consider a soldier in a trench about to be overrun by the enemy. He faces certain mortality but for a single small hope. If he leaves the trench and makes a quick dash across no-mans-land, he "may" survive. He does not have proof that he will make it. In fact the odds are very much against him. But he clings to the hope nevertheless and leaves the trench for whatever fate awaits. The one who remains in the trench demanding evidence of certain survival before he will budge is not necessarily acting rationally, especially if it is only embarrassment over the possibility of being wrong and looking like a fool that is keeping him in the trench. Because some things are too important to ignore, too important to defer until reason can provide its support. We might define "faith" then as a hope that one acts in accordance with. That is, we have faith in religion if we live as if it is true, because we hope that it is. Those believe in God who love Him. If the desire is real, it will not be restrained by reasons opposed to it, at least not ultimately.
It is not unusual for people who do not believe in religion or immortality to nevertheless live as if they are immortal, and to freely adopt virtues without any justification, just because it is the right thing to do. Although their reason arrives at one conclusion, their instinct seems to be leading them otherwise. While they cannot conclude that there is a god, they are not opposed to the very idea of one. It is a nice idea that leads them in fact, although they reject it in theory. If they wake up on the other side, perhaps it will come as a pleasant surprise. Others, who often declare their belief, seem to act contrary to it. It should be remembered in this context that the statement: "The one who believes in me will live, even though they die" (John 11:25) does not imply the statement: "The one who does not believe in me will surely die". At the same time: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 7:21).
As to whether there is a god, perhaps here the spiritual person and the religious person can simply agree to disagree. The spiritual person can pin their hopes on a godless immortality. We can find out who was right later on perhaps, or if the materialist was right after all, we will never know, but will have passed our lives in a pleasing dream. If God will deny us a seat in heaven without a good reason, then fuck God and His heaven. There is something cruel and unusual in punishing someone for not knowing and not believing in something you yourself have hidden from them. It seems that what is more important than the presence or absence of a belief, is what motivates it. If someone does not want god to exist, why? If we could eliminate everything they don't like about the god concept and define a god that meets all their criteria, would they still not want such a being to exist? If so, why? Some appear to have a visceral hatred for the very notion, regardless of the form.
This series of articles continues in Cosmic Conspiracy - Part 2 - Strange Creatures.
Any comments welcome.
In the article On Happiness I attempted to define the necessary prerequisites of happiness, and suggested that they depended upon things for which we have no solid evidence. In this article, we take a closer look at this question of evidence. If we attempt to assert the reality of immortality, there are two basic approaches: "spiritual" or "religious". Here I use the term "spiritual" as some non-religious people use it, to refer to some extra-material reality, devoid of a personal god, but which may offer the hope of some manner of immortality. By "religious" I mean the belief in a god, theism, either as a solitary god, or as a chief god at the top of a pantheistic hierarchy of lesser gods and demigods. By a "personal god", I mean a personality, to distinguish it from conceptions of god such as might be described by words similar to: "something we might call god" but which is not a personality, such as an impersonal force or principle. A belief system with an impersonal god I will group under the heading of "spirituality", while that possessing a personal god I will call "religion".
Whether we are considering religion or spirituality, when we speak of the kind of evidence we require to demonstrate their truth, we are referring to supernatural events. Much has been written and said on the subject. Some have even claimed some manner of physical evidence, but at the end of the day no-one can provide definitive proof. The absence of proof has therefore been incorporated as a key element into the belief systems of spirituality and religion.
In the case of spirituality, we might claim that the absence of proof of immortality and an immaterial existence is merely an accident of nature. In nature, something just happens, there is no requirement for it to provide evidence of a certain kind to demonstrate the truth of its existence to those it hasn't happened to yet. It is up to us to be clever enough to discover it. Buddhism offers this kind of a solution, where the effort and discipline of meditation is the means of connecting with the truth. In this case, we can simply say that we have no solid proof of the supernatural because when we use the phrase "solid proof" we are talking about "material proof", and we may legitimately ask how it is reasonable to ask an immaterial realm to provide material proof of its existence? It is like a deep sea fish asking us to provide it with proof of the existence of fire after we have told it stories about the miraculous world that exists far above the bottom of the ocean. The fish cannot go there, the difference in pressure would kill it. If we attempt to bring fire down to the bottom of the ocean, the water and lack of oxygen will extinguish it. So that fish can either choose to take our word for it, or not to believe us. Those who claim to have had spiritual or religious experiences, can provide us with nothing but stories, like a Twelfth Century European explorer returning from Africa with stories of giraffes, zebras, elephants and rhinoceros to an unbelieving crowd.
In the article On Happiness we encountered the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia, which tells of a legendary king who travels to the netherworld in search of immortality.
"Then Utnapishtim spoke unto Gilgamesh: 'Gilgamesh, thou didst come here weary; thou didst labour and row. What now shall I give thee, that thou mayest return to thy country? I will reveal unto thee, Gilgamesh, a mystery of the gods I will announce unto thee. There is a plant resembling buckthorn; its thorn stings like that of a bramble. When thy hands can reach that plant, then thy hands will hold that which gives life everlasting.'
"When Gilgamesh had heard this he opened the sluices that the sweet water might carry him into the deep; he bound heavy stones to his feet, which dragged him down to the sea floor, and thus he found the plant. Then he grasped the prickly plant. He removed from his feet the heavy stones, and the sea carried him and threw him down to on the shore.
"And Gilgamesh said unto Urshanabi, the ferryman: 'Urshanabi, this plant is a plant of great marvel; and by it a man may attain renewed vigour. I will take it to Uruk the strong-walled, I will give it to the old men to eat. Its name shall be ‘Even an old man will be rejuvenated!’ I will eat of this and return to the vigour of my youth.'"
Unfortunately it was not to be.
"At twenty double-leagues they then took a meal: and at thirty double-leagues they took a rest. And Gilgamesh saw a well wherein was cool water; he stepped into it and bathed in the water. A serpent smelled the sweetness of the plant and darted out; he took the plant away, and as he turned back to the well, he sloughed his skin. And after this Gilgamesh sat down and wept. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and he said unto Urshanabi, the ferryman:
“'Why, Urshanabi, did my hands tremble? Why did the blood of my heart stand still? Not on myself did I bestow any benefit. On the ‘ground-lion’ this benefit has been bestowed.'"
("The Epic of Gilgamesh", Tablet 11, William Muss-Arnolt, 1901 translation.)
So began a long tradition of stories of people getting screwed by their supernatural experiences. A psychedelic researcher might similarly relate to the experience of coming back empty handed (or worse) from their profound journey.
Fleeing Gods
In the case of religion however, as opposed to spirituality, the absence of evidence must be explained in some other way. If God is all-powerful, then presumably He could demonstrate his existence should he choose to do so, or He could simply make it impossible for His creatures to believe otherwise. This raises the question, if He exists, then why has He chosen not to do so. Jesus made the comment: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) But he did not elaborate on why those are blessed who believe without seeing. The theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) refers to "deus absconditus" or the "hidden god". As a result of the unseen nature of god and the afterlife, "faith" in the unseen and undemonstrated is a central tenet of religion.Some ancient myths explain the absence of the gods as resulting from the fall of man. Ancient Greek mythology as given by Hesiod and Ovid describe "4 Ages of Man", four historical periods beginning with a Golden Age, reminiscent of the Hebrew Garden of Eden, but followed successively by the Silver Age, Bronze Age and finally the present Iron Age. Each successive age represents a decline in the state of man and an increase in violence and hardship. It is sometimes speculated that the myth of a past golden age is derived from some subconscious memory of life in the womb, or memories of childhood.
The story of Noah's cataclysmic flood predates the biblical telling and is described in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Utnapishtim, who Gilgamesh meets in the netherworld, was the Mesopotamian Noah, and he describes the experience of the flood to Gilgamesh.
"With the first glow of dawn, a black cloud rose up from the horizon. Inside it Adad [god of storm and rain] thunders, while Shallat [or Shullat] and Hanish [attendants of Adad] go in front, moving as heralds over hill and plain. Erragal [god of the underworld] tears out the posts; forth comes Ninurta [god of war] and causes the dikes to follow. The Anunnaki [a class of god] lift up the torches, setting the land ablaze with their glare. Consternation over Adad reaches to the heavens, turning to blackness all that had been light. The wide land was shattered like a pot! For one day the south-storm blew, gathering speed as it blew, submerging the mountains, overtaking the people like a battle. No one can see his fellow, nor can the people be recognized from heaven. The gods were frightened by the deluge, and, shrinking back, they ascended to the heaven of Anu [god of the sky and heaven, King of the gods]. The gods cowered like dogs crouched against the outer wall. Ishtar [goddess of love and beauty] cried out like a woman in travail, the sweet-voiced mistress of the gods moans aloud: 'The olden days are alas turned to clay, because I bespoke evil in the assembly of the gods, How could I bespeak evil in the assembly of the gods, ordering battle for the destruction of my people, when it is I myself who give birth to my people! Like the spawn of the fishes they fill the sea!' The Anunnaki gods weep with her, the gods, all humbled, sit and weep, their lips drawn tight. . . . one and all."
("The Epic of Gilgamesh" translated by E. A. Speiser in "Ancient Near Eastern Texts")
The ancient Greeks also had their counterpart to Noah, called "Deucalion" (who was the son of Prometheus), when Zeus sought to destroy mankind at the end of the "Bronze Age". Some of the gods stuck by mankind even after the flood, but as the Iron Age proceeded, one by one, even these left, faded away like recalled UN troops.
"Rapacity broke forth—the guest was not protected from his host, the father in law from his own son in law.... The husband threatened to destroy his wife, and she her husband.... Piety was slain... and last of all the virgin deity, Astraea (goddess of Justice) vanished from the blood-stained earth."
("Metamorphoses" by Ovid (43 BC – 18 AD), translated by Brookes More)
Hesiod inserts an extra race of men between the third ("Bronze Age") and his fifth (Iron Age). The bronze race: "were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and left no name", whereas this extra (fourth) race "was nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods". To these: "father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the ends of earth. And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed". But of the iron race he says the following.
"For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them.... Strength will be right and reverence will cease to be; and the wicked will hurt the worthy man, speaking false words against him, and will swear an oath upon them. Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men one and all. And then Aidos [goddess of shame, modesty and humility] and Nemesis [goddess of divine retribution], with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods: and bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil."
("Works And Days" by Hesiod (c.700 BC) translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914))
Some ancient stories have Astraea leaving already in the "Bronze Age".
"But another tale is current among men, how of old she dwelt on earth and met men face to face, nor ever disdained in olden time the tribes of men and women, but mingling with them took her seat, immortal though she was.... Not yet in that age had men knowledge of hateful strife, or carping contention, or din of battle, but a simple life they lived.... But with the Silver Race only a little and no longer with utter readiness did she mingle, for that she yearned for the ways of the men of old.... But when they, too, were dead, and when, more ruinous than they which went before, the Race of Bronze was born, who were the first to forge the sword of the highwayman, and the first to eat of the flesh of the ploughing-ox, then verily did Justice loathe that race of men and fly heavenward and took up that abode, where even now in the night time the Maiden [the constellation Virgo] is seen of men...."
("Phaenomena" by Aratus of Soli, 3rd century BC, translated by G. R. Mair)
After Darwin
The Theory of Evolution and accompanying fossil record tell a different story to the Garden of Eden or ancient Golden Age. In this story, humankind emerged out of the brutality of the animal kingdom, into a fitful climb toward civilization. This requires a new explanation for the absence of the gods, and also a new justification for present hardships, if these cannot be blamed on a preceding "fall of man". We can only speculate on what this explanation might be. Putting aside for the moment, questions like "why is there so much suffering?" or "why do we live in a world of scarcity?" or "why did god not simply make us perfect in the first place?", let's consider some possible benefits of deus absconditus. I warn you in advance that none of them are completely satisfying, and for the most part, are hackneyed clichés, but I would ask you to attempt to immerse yourself in the spirit of the notions, and not merely judge them superficially.One purpose of an externally absent deity might be to force an internal investigation for one. If one imagines a cosmic government setting up branch offices on the far-flung worlds of space, one can imagine long queues of human beings anxious to ask for free handouts for things they could provide for themselves and each other, much as prayer is often currently tasked with; and busily filing complaints about every bad thing that happens. One can imagine sprawling slums spreading out around these outposts. The universe would be a vast welfare state of infantilised beings moaning at their divine parents. Instead of this divine service industry we have a "do it yourself" universe.
"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'”
(Genesis 1:28)
As material creatures, we are born into the material world. But with the emergence of self consciousness we then inhabit two worlds, an inner and an outer. If "spiritual existence" refers to something immaterial, then a redirection toward the spiritual is a direction away from the material. This notion has tended to lead to the extreme and ugly logic of: spirit = good & matter = bad, which is a topic for another day. For now let's just consider that the absence of external resources, forces us to seek internal resources, and the absence of an external provider, forces up to provide for ourselves, and to cooperate with others where we cannot provide for ourselves. It forces us to develop, evolve and grow.
For now, we exist in the material world and must make our way in it, together with the others we share it with. While we may "store up treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6:20), we do so by focusing on our responsibilities here and now, and even by participating in the joys available here and now. If there is an afterlife, we will be there soon enough. By hiding heaven, we avoid the distraction, and the building of shanty towns outside its gates, and plots to storm those gates to take for ourselves the riches of the decadent denizens beyond. There is also some truth to the notion that death makes us treat life as more precious, serves to deter procrastination and forces a severe prioritising of actions. But it is not necessary for us to actually die to achieve this benefit, only that we believe we might. As we mature, hopefully we should eventually no longer require such a brute incentive. If there is a heaven, this life is where we prepare ourselves for it, making ourselves fit citizens.
Consider the implications of the statement: "Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26). Consider a creature who is by temperament an almighty god, but who has been dropped into an environment without any of their divine powers, so that they must struggle to survive. They must share this environment with a multitude of other creatures, all of whom also are by temperament almighty gods, and with whom they must compete for survival. This creates a disconnect and conflict, a tension aimed at a resolution set far into the future. How does one turn an almighty god into a social being?
A world in which there is no divine assistance, is also a world in which there is no divine interference. In the original series Star Trek, the crew of the starship Enterprise freely made contact with any alien races they encountered. That was their mission. In the more responsible recent Star Trek series and movies the Federation has a "prime directive" to conceal its existence from primitive races for fear of influencing their development. The presence of an advanced civilisation can have a debilitating effect on a more primitive civilisation. It short circuits natural development in various ways. The primitive culture can lose its value for its citizens, while there is pressure to adopt the practices of the more advanced culture. Likely those from the primitive culture will not perform as well in the more advanced culture, so that they end up becoming a subclass of the more advanced culture. Left to their own devices to naturally evolve to a more advanced culture, the culture they arrive at might be a different kind of advanced culture, one unique to them and of their own making.
We live in a world free of gods. Although the human religious instinct will invent them on its own, and then impose them, sometimes by force on others, this is in such a way that people are still free within their own mind not to believe in gods imposed on them by other people. To live in a world free of gods also affects human behaviour and development. For instance, how a person behaves while their boss or their parent is present, if sometimes different to how they behave when their boss or their parent is absent. So that it is only in the absence of these that we, in a sense, see the real person.
If God is a spirit, it may not be meaningful to seek external evidence for a spirit. We know other human beings first by their bodies. We see them, hear them and touch them. We assume that indwelling these bodies are spirits. The existence of the spirit within their bodies are implied by their actions and the fact that they appear similar to ourselves, and so we imagine they have consciousness and a spirit as we do. The body therefore serves as evidence for the spirit. What evidence then can we seek for the existence of god? One possibility might be for the sky to open at intervals and a bright golden light emerge with a sound of trumpets and a heavenly choir. Then an enormous bearded man appears in the opening to announce in a booming voice that He is God and that He exists. Alternatively, he might appear as a normal sized man roaming the world throughout all human history and performing regular miracles. With many planets and many nations it might require many of these divine incarnations. But any of these would be an appearance only.
If we assume that God is not really a man with a beard, how can we truly experience Him? A spirit is known by its character and personality, and these are known by their acts. Communion with a spirit is not a spectacle or a physical exchange. It is intimate and subtle. It is to be "touched" in a different way. Physical exchanges with other human beings can be intimate and spiritual, but the physical acts represent meanings, and it is these meanings that constitute the spiritual exchange. The spiritual significance of a kiss or a hug is in the meaning, not the physical act or sensation. If we are to commune with an immaterial spirit we must learn how to be sensitive to the presence and actions of a spirit, how to perceive a spirit. Ordinarily, our perception of other spirits is indirect. It must be deduced from the witnessed actions of other bodies. But religion suggests that there is a more direct and immediate means of communing with divinity, an inward route.
We learn about people from the books, movies and music they like, the way they dress, the way they set up their homes, who they choose to associate with and how they behave with others. If God created the universe, this universe is a source of clues as to the character and intentions of deity. If God created us, we are a source of clues as to the character and intentions of deity. The personality of God is therefore deduced from our inner and outer universes, similar to the way we deduce the personality of other people from their body's appearance and actions. The emphasis on the importance of "inward" being is common in religion. While the external, material world too is important; existence, consciousness is ultimately an inward state, so that reality is sought inwardly. The external physical world is a primitive and round-about way of experience. For now, we can only touch others by means of our physical bodies, but that may not always be the case, and for deity it may already not be the case. So that the kinds of events that we would count as "evidence" for the existence of God, may not be the kind of events that have God in them. Such evidence would be necessarily contrived and false, and perhaps not a little tacky. Some conceive communion with God as an ecstasy, but emotions too are responses to meanings. Religious and spiritual visions therefore tend to be symbols for meanings rather than literal visual representations of deity.
God and heaven might simply be incomprehensible to us in our present state. Perhaps we first need to be free of our material brains before we can comprehend either. Perhaps each is different for different people, so that each has their own version of God and heaven. While the true God and heaven are able to accommodate this diversity without contradiction, attempts to portray such diversity to us in our present material state might only exacerbate sectarianism and lead to conflict. It is also conceivable that the people of the material worlds may disapprove of heaven, as primitive cultures frequently do of more advanced ones.
The suggestion that it is to encourage and permit independence goes some way toward explaining why communication with God and heaven are limited, but does not really explain why their very existence is left in doubt. The spiritual nature of God and heaven raises difficulties in communication, but these hardly seem insurmountable. Surely divine visions or miracles could be presented routinely and in a such a way that they could not be denied. Perhaps it is true that if such miracles were available, human beings would simply be satisfied with these and not look elsewhere, content with appearances instead of the reality. Perhaps having visions and seeing miracles would freak out a lot of people. Perhaps people would waste time in a fruitless and impossible effort to figure out how miracles work, instead of developing the sciences of the non-miraculous material world. Worse perhaps, they succeed in understanding miracles and come into possession of technologies they are not mature enough to wield. For any problem raised, solutions might be posed. Perhaps the evidence is already there sufficient for anyone who wants to look for it, but only for those who want to look for it.
Perhaps the answer is hinted at in Jesus' unexplained comment: "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed".
Freedom of Choice
There is another conceivable explanation for deus absconditus. Not everyone likes the idea of a universal deity. Some would rather live in a universe devoid of one. Deus absconditus permits us, if we choose, to live in such a universe, at least for a time. In this sense it represents a god who does not come uninvited. He dwells within those who invite Him to do so, and is politely absent for the rest. While religion as practiced by human beings is often imposed by force, indoctrination or threat on others, for deity it is an "opt-in" scenario. The materialist who praises the virtues of mortality can have what he loves, sinking peacefully into oblivion at the end, never the wiser as regards deity, if that is what he really wants. I will refer to this as "agnostic freedom". The material life is our opportunity to live in a universe without God and see how we like it.Much is made of "belief" in religion, and the urgent need to believe whatever is the doctrine of the particular religion. People attempt to argue and threaten others into belief. But in the end, in the absence of undeniable proof (and sometimes in its presence) people will believe what they want to believe, and their reasoning will be applied to the task of justifying it, whatever it is. The "faith" concept has become the idiotic virtue of belief in the absence of evidence for its own sake, a lucrative gullibility ready for institutionalised exploitation. The reality of loving god is love for the idea of god, the heartfelt wish that it be true even against the evidence to the contrary. Those are blessed "who have not seen and yet have believed", perhaps not because they are in the habit of indiscriminately believing in the absence of evidence, but because they are devoted to this particular concept, and open to its influence. In my view, "faith" is better characterised as a hope than a conviction. Religious conviction is a perversion of reason, and for the most part posturing.
Consider a soldier in a trench about to be overrun by the enemy. He faces certain mortality but for a single small hope. If he leaves the trench and makes a quick dash across no-mans-land, he "may" survive. He does not have proof that he will make it. In fact the odds are very much against him. But he clings to the hope nevertheless and leaves the trench for whatever fate awaits. The one who remains in the trench demanding evidence of certain survival before he will budge is not necessarily acting rationally, especially if it is only embarrassment over the possibility of being wrong and looking like a fool that is keeping him in the trench. Because some things are too important to ignore, too important to defer until reason can provide its support. We might define "faith" then as a hope that one acts in accordance with. That is, we have faith in religion if we live as if it is true, because we hope that it is. Those believe in God who love Him. If the desire is real, it will not be restrained by reasons opposed to it, at least not ultimately.
It is not unusual for people who do not believe in religion or immortality to nevertheless live as if they are immortal, and to freely adopt virtues without any justification, just because it is the right thing to do. Although their reason arrives at one conclusion, their instinct seems to be leading them otherwise. While they cannot conclude that there is a god, they are not opposed to the very idea of one. It is a nice idea that leads them in fact, although they reject it in theory. If they wake up on the other side, perhaps it will come as a pleasant surprise. Others, who often declare their belief, seem to act contrary to it. It should be remembered in this context that the statement: "The one who believes in me will live, even though they die" (John 11:25) does not imply the statement: "The one who does not believe in me will surely die". At the same time: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 7:21).
As to whether there is a god, perhaps here the spiritual person and the religious person can simply agree to disagree. The spiritual person can pin their hopes on a godless immortality. We can find out who was right later on perhaps, or if the materialist was right after all, we will never know, but will have passed our lives in a pleasing dream. If God will deny us a seat in heaven without a good reason, then fuck God and His heaven. There is something cruel and unusual in punishing someone for not knowing and not believing in something you yourself have hidden from them. It seems that what is more important than the presence or absence of a belief, is what motivates it. If someone does not want god to exist, why? If we could eliminate everything they don't like about the god concept and define a god that meets all their criteria, would they still not want such a being to exist? If so, why? Some appear to have a visceral hatred for the very notion, regardless of the form.
This series of articles continues in Cosmic Conspiracy - Part 2 - Strange Creatures.
Any comments welcome.
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