Asbestos is very concerned about religion so he tries attending the local God’s Anonymous meetings every week where every weak soul sits in rows, mouth closed, listening to some guy’s interpretation of twelve guy’s interpretations of some guy’s metaphorical teachings from two thousand years ago. He finds this as useful as a hole in the head only more damaging to his brain, so he starts studying theology, philosophy, and the history of metaphysics for himself and finds that it’s this manner of introspection, this questioning of the unanswerable that expands his spiritual awareness and fills him with what some call God’s love, some call peace of mind, and others call crawling from the allegorical cave and seeing the light.For him the light manifests as a series of realizations regarding the nature of knowledge. Mainly that he knows nothing, and neither does anyone else; including priests, mathematicians, scientists, and all other people using God, Numbers or Formulas to magically boost their ideas from subjective interpretations to Objective Truths.
Asbestos decides it’s his spiritual responsibility to study the thoughts and beliefs of everyone around him and throughout recorded history, because arbitrarily choosing a church or simply inheriting religion is lazy, limiting, and inconsiderate. It’s lazy because you leave spirituality up to genetics or geography. It’s limiting because you loose faith in anything outside your pre-packaged box of beliefs. And it’s inconsiderate because by choosing any exclusive religion you make the decision that all others are wrong.Even members of the few religions that encourage open practice of other religions are bound to their group identity like poster-children, constantly defending the individuality in their collective faith. But that’s like bragging how modest you are. If you wish a collective relationship with some group’s conception of God, go find the next Holy place, read it’s Holy text, perform some Holy rituals then go home alone feeling like Holy shit, spitting out someone else’s existential excrement. If you wish a personal relationship with God, there’s no religion to follow, no group to join, and no book to read. There’s nothing to do but wander the world ever wondering why, and never decide.
Ultimately, any system that gives answers to metaphysical questions is suspect because it grants Truth to things We can’t know through experience. A more educated approach to the unknown is utter agnostic apostasy: accept you don’t know and couldn’t even know you’re right if you knew it. Spiritual questioning is best left unanswered and simply explored throughout Our lives as We all exist in the mystery.
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8 comments:
Yip, you simply cannot KNOW it, because known and unknown always come in pairs and thats why its mystery ;)))
In your article, do you mean, "It grants truth to things we can't know EXCEPT through experience?" Cause that would make more sense... Anyway, love the article!
Hey Jase, even though they're the exact opposites, I can see where you're coming from with your addition of "except." I did mean it the way I wrote it though, "any system that gives answers to metaphysical questions is suspect because it grants truth to things we can't know through experience..." Physics we can learn and know through experience, but metaphysics by definition isn't of this world or accessible to direct experience. So any system/religion that unabashedly claims to know this or that metaphysical truth is suspicious in my mind... how did they come to that conclusion? Isn't life a bit too mysterious for dogma? Isn't the nature of change/time a bit too flimsy for firm answers? My mind is kept at ease by accepting that I don't know and couldn't know I was right even if I was, that way I can just exist in the mystery and wonder the world ever wondering why and never decide. Peace
While I can definitely appreciate your approach, I would argue that at the roots of religion - and I hate ALL organized religion because of dogma - is the mystical experience. I'm referring to phenomena experienced in trance states, meditation, dreams, astral projections, NDEs, etc. These would suggest that certain metaphysical truths CAN indeed be experienced and confirmed; however, the truth really only exists for the experiencer, as most attempts to substantiate that experience will be met with - and rightfully so - a 'prove it' attitude. When a yogi or mystic performs miracles and achieves enlightenment or whatever their deal is, people want to know how they can have this experience too. This eventually leads to disciples, a teaching, and ultimately a perversion of the original message and teaching. I guess my point is that experiencing the metaphysical is without a doubt quite possible. You may not be able to achieve it with your dense 5-sense reality controlling your 'meat computer' of a body, but this again is the essence of most religion before it gets perverted: There is more than meets the eye and it is possible - nay, manditory - through various methods, to experience. Can I prove it? Nope :)
Great points Jase, I agree completely having had many such mystical experiences myself. I think the slight discrepency is in my use of the term "metaphysics." Perhaps I should have worded that sentence more carefully. Anyway, thanks for the comments. Peace
The first few paragraphs made me laugh. Religion is not logical in any way. Awakening is a very slow and confusing process. Keep up the great work Eric.
Monty
Love it. Thanks Erik. Namaste // Hamdi
i wouldn't call people attending church "weak souls" although they are spiritually misguided or choice to believe differently then you, you will meet a lot of christians with a iron will because one lesson the bible teaches well is perseverance and FAITH.
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