Under my religious views on my many dating profiles and facebook page, I have entered "Atheistic Pantheism". Ash, MGM, Joris and myself were sitting on the Roof waiting for something to happen and having a conversation about spirituality. (It was a warm tropical night so I was topless as usual, for the purpose of being able to receive more sensory stimulation, which J was more than willing to administer) MGM was giving me a bit of a hard time as usual about my views on such matters as he has something against my appreciation for Richard Dawkins (whose books I find entertaining and fairly educational and enlightened me from the bonds of Born Again Christianity, which is not a bad thing really).
He also has something against Atheism in general, because, truth is (and what is that, really!) we can't really know for sure what we do know. Look at Principa Mathematica. Not that I have ever even touched it with a 10 foot pole, but I am currently engaged in a very accessible graphic novel, Logicomix, about Bertrand Russel's life.
At the end, we are all of us standing on a tower of turtles upon which the foundations of reality rest upon. By the way, what is this reality we speak off? As long as we do not see any black pixels, then the illusion is maintained... be grateful.
Or maybe not. One has to ask... some arrive at their last turtle by years of determination and genius, other lesser beings (i.e. me) through other means that suit a personality used to immediate gratification... Actually in this case you don't care if there is any foundation, only that you know all is illusion.
Ash asked me what exactly this "Atheistic Pantheism" was. I said I didn't really consider myself an Atheist, more Pantheist, perhaps. But not many get the subtleties of the multitude of beliefs that do not include an anthropomorphic God, so Atheist was just more convenient.
TBH, I actually chose the word because it made it seem like I was really serious about my beliefs, which I am, but while laughing about it. For now, I know what I like to believe, and it's good enough, until my next round of 'spiritual-discovery', perhaps after some exciting things have happened at the LHC. (At this point, I ask the question, Has the large Hadrom collider destroyed the world yet?)
Seriously though, the only reason why I have such a lame ass self-important tag for my spiritual views is because Phillip has already taken The Mild Manner Anti-Christ. Damn it! Gaiman's Lucifer comes to mind at this point...
We cannot know for sure when we ask questions like what is consciousness, or where did we come from, or where we (not the human race, but rather everything that at some point had the property of existence) are going. It's turtles all the way down young man! Said the old lady to Stephen Hawking after his first speech at the Royal Society. Supposedly the theory of evolution rests on a taller tower of turtles that have properties more consistent with empirical reality and are a different breed than the one that form the foundation of the religion of Green Ham and Eggs. But still who is to say what we experience is not some kind of conjuring trick by a higher being in the Nth dimension?
But I don't much like the analogy with the turtles to be honest. It's very cute, which for many things in life is a property that is good enough to instill a general sense of likability to its subject, but not here. I prefer to think of beliefs resting on a net of things we assume to be true. Some nets are bigger than others, which means you can walk around on them for a much longer time before you reach the edge. Who knows the fuck how the net is being held up, probably by hungry spiders resting on more hungry spiders, what the fuck. But personally, the more room for questions, and the deeper the rabbit hole, the more I like it.
We all know that it's Fairy Dust that answers everything though...
4 comments:
Logicomix is brilliant indeed, however i did not finish it - yet
Always thought the turtle idea came from Hinduism. According to one Hindu myth, the earth rests on a giant turtle (or tortoise).
i wish i were liberated from born-again-ism sooner. at any rate, i've always had an inkling that reality may have a lot to do with fractals. the signs are everywhere. its said that reality is coherent with itself. if so much of nature is fractals, then perhaps on a much larger scale, all the rotating balls of mass may be arranged in some kind of repeating pattern as well.
yeah i did see that simpsons couch gag where they explored the idea. quantum effects have sorta thrown a spanner into the gears of this idea, though. perhaps our nets need not just to be wider, but also unimaginably intricately woven
have you ever attempted to conjure up a fractal image with a camera and a mirror? the effect is sooo magnificent, spooky and magical all at once its almost religious. you have to try it. its got all the elements of mysterious ritual. darkened room, smoke and mirrors and a candle to light your way into a different reality.
TORTOISE (Hinduism) and DRAGON (Taoism) are symbols for ENERGY or WAVE, both are analog with MAGEN DAVID (Judaism). "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is the metaphore, also seven times circling around the Ka'ba and oscilating in the Sa'i during the Hajj.
"A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME - From the Big Bang to Black Hole" by Stephen W. Hawking is the best scientific interpretation of AL QUR'AN by a non believer. Surprise, this paradox is a miracle and blessing in disguise as well. So, it should be very wise and challenging for Moslem scholars to verify my discovery.
NeoSUFI visionary strategic thinking.
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