Re: I am affronted by the presence of god
I've never said that Jesus didn't exist in some form. But just as Trump supporters claim he won the 2020 election and claim his two impeachments don't matter, so I would argue that followers of Christianity have, over time and with great personal motivation, adopted beliefs that suit them.
Put another way: you can't accept that the answer is "we don't know", and some sort of god fits. That's great for you. You are not one of the pushy ones. But the Christian god is as much a fiction as the Muslim Allah, and as much a fiction as any of the Hindu pantheon. These are constructs based on imperfect human understanding. They were written about by humans, for the purpose of getting other humans to follow teachings and behave like good little sheep. It's very easy to control people when you scare and shame them first, and unfortunately, if you read any holy book thoroughly enough, you will see plenty of fear and shame and gaslighting and guilt in amongst the love. You admitted yourself that a lot of things that Jesus supposedly did were "apparently". You made a really excellent case for how those things were essentially small acts turned into legends by people who were not well educated and not well acquainted with close examination of their own system of beliefs. I'm sorry, but you can't then prop up a religion based on all of this.
The only reason I am conflicted is because I'm not willing to say that there is no power greater than us. I am firmly convinced that none of our understanding of religion even comes close to the surface of what might actually exist out there. Practically speaking, I might as well be an atheist, but technically I am an agnostic because I can acknowledge that there might be things beyond our understanding out there to find. In fact, I'm sure of it; but as to what those things are, and how they operate, or how they'll interact with us (if they ever do), I, like everyone else, has no idea.
Now, to your other point, about love mattering because it comes from outside. My answer to this is far more prosaic. We are intelligent, and we are observant. We are also social, and being social, this means that at base, we don't want to be alone. Not being alone means we want at least some people to like us. When those who like us stay around, we eventually begin to observe how life treats them, or mistreats them. Because we have emotions, and because we have enough intelligence to recognize those emotions, we can feel pain, outrage and other things on their behalf. We can want to do things for them to make them feel appreciated. We can want to get closer to them due to shared experiences, good and bad. We can, because we do have a rather large biological component, even find those people attractive in some way. Thus, in one guise or another, love is born.
You say there has to be some sort of greater source of love. I disagree. This isn't emulation of a purer source. It's learned behaviour on account of our intelligence, our social nature and our empathy. Some of us are better at giving and receiving love than others, for a whole plethora of reasons. This speaks not to our relationship with something divine, but to our ability to process our emotions, our willingness to be social and to share our world with others, and to our observation of the world in which we live, as well as the processing of the data we receive. Machines can process all that data, but the chemicals which constitute a machine are not the exact same as those which constitute a human being. The same goes for a sea sponge; it may have a survival instinct, but it's unlikely to be thinking complex, emotional thoughts beyond its own survival. This is how evolution works. It's not about god, or greater love. It's evolution, baby.
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
