The Divine Principle of Uncertainty: It’s now evident God has played a deceitful game upon His people. We call it revelation. But He baptized it differently - ‘revelation via deception’. The Lord was ever weary of interfering with Nature and when it came to speaking His mind, He preferred a workshop model to a lecture; left believers confounded with bits and pieces of truth that they might have tonnes of homework to do. The last thing the creator would be content with is the I-do-it-for-you mind-set. He could have refrained from this self-initiated mess up, even as He beautifully hid behind Nature. But the Author of Evolution had to put His signature somewhere and He started worrying if His sms would be too elementary to decipher. In fact while wanting to alert humans towards His identity, He found Himself in a serious dilemma. “The more I reveal, the less would they discover on their own. Should I keep mum, the tiny tots would find no evidence of my existence in all of universe. The only way out is to descend in history as a blazing fire – a fire that would delude them for millennia and yet would pull them out once they put in their share of rationality.” Having said this, the Lord systematically played havoc with all revealed religions. His designs may be understood through a dictum that echoes the Principle of Uncertainty, operative at the lower end of evolution. Dialectics of Divine Dilemma: Greater the demonstration of god’s power and revelation in a religious system, greater the symbolism, originally leading to misconception and distortion of truth. Stated from the other end of the spectrum: Greater the purity of human effort in a religious system, greater the possibility of truth that originally falls short of divine manifestation. 1.1 The Christian Faith: Of all religions surviving today, Christianity has the longest history of revelation expanding on a single, coherent theme from beginning to end. It has the top-most claim in terms of a singular incarnation and an ultimate victory over death. For this reason, believe it or not, Christianity is also the most delusive of Religions, merely pointing to the highest ideals of evolution. Let’s begin the analysis with the opening chapters of Genesis, even if some scholars would instantly point out ‘they are not the essence of Christian revelation as per our own calculation’. Whether the creation accounts are of human origin or of divine, the whole lot of later revelation including the central question of redemption offered by Jesus is conveniently built on such accounts and therefore we have no choice but to begin at the beginning itself. Read without the bias of later developments, the story of Adam and Eve appears as a simplistic, naive solution for the deepest questions of people for whom it was authored first. Some of these issues are pertinent even now and they can be listed one by one along with the ‘magical’ answers the story props up. Qn : How do human beings possess a high degree of knowledge to discriminate good and evil, as opposed to animals and birds? Ans: The primordial man and woman ate of the fruit of knowledge in the garden of Eden. Qn : Why humans are entitled to death along with other creatures, despite their remarkable sense of knowledge? Ans: Their forefather and mother were driven out of the Garden possessing the fruit of life as well. Qn : Why does woman undergo labor pains much more than other living creatures? Ans: The Mother of all disobeyed God and earned the divine curse. Qn : Why is woman subjected to the rule of man? Ans: Woman was the first to be deceived and she goaded man into disobedience. Qn : Why man had to sweat it out on the land? Ans: Land is in curse, since the fall of Adam. Qn : Why there’s enmity between snakes and human beings and the poor creatures have to crawl and bite the dust? Ans: Snakes are under the wrath of God for engineering the fall of woman. To present such simple answers in a convincing, coherent manner, the story even puts God in bad light. He forbad the fruit of knowledge for human beings under fears of death, a quality none would tick off as Godly. When disobedience for knowledge rightly occurred, Lord God came to be suspicious that humans would covet the fruit of life as well and begin to live for ever. Hurriedly He drove them out and posted divine security at the entrance. A simple portrayal of God, who is petty-minded; in fact, a villainous monster to deny the deep-most aspiration of human being. The aim of the author obviously is to present some sort of rationale for the predicament of man, woman and nature and not so much to portray godly attributes. In addition, it was meant to drive fear in human beings to obey the law of God – a blind and crude form of obedience. Biblical scholars would chip in that they learnt to take this story as a symbol many decades earlier, to be more precise since the ‘origin of species’. But the unresolved question is the hidden foundation it offers for all of Christian redemption. Jesus of Nazareth is the new Adam, and he descended right from Heaven to redeem human being, the sinful inheritor of Adam. The Galilean came to conquer death and share the spoils of victory with everyone – or at least grant life to those who believe in him. Out of the disobedience of one man, death and sin entered and out of the obedience of one man, death and sin were conquered. Theologians might again point out, ‘Adam merely stands for the sinful nature of human being. But the redemption of Jesus is genuine and real - historical in one word. He was obedient unto death and therefore the world sins are washed off with him’. Suppose we require them to prove their last statement, they would hide behind the necessity of faith, which in any case can move mountains on its own right. Why not forgiveness of sins in the name of any deity for that matter? But before getting into the issue of redemption, let’s ask ourselves if Jesus really conquered death. When all of evolution is striving to put forth the best surviving creature, why didn’t he take the claim of holding on to his physical form, long years after crucifixion? Had the Nazarene presented himself in body and soul beyond a conventional forty days, lot of things would have been different. Primarily, Christianity would not struggle posing him as the savior of the world and the conqueror of death. But he disappeared a second time, even as every human being disappears through death. The net result of these two events are the same, as far as scientific perception is concerned. His resurrection, therefore, would merely amount to a symbol, a symbol towards the deepest aspiration of man to hang on to life forever. It’s a metaphor for an ultimate stage of evolution and nothing more. We know that scientists desire to defeat death, by arresting the process of ageing etc. No researcher would experiment raising a dead man, before exhausting all possibilities of prolonging the existing life. The part played by a living person would be all-too-important in this endeavor. Death simply means denial of human role and a resurrection that follows warrants a total intervention of God. These are purely contradictory to the basic spirit of science and psychology and the ideology of cent percent Divine intervention has taken severe beating through all major discoveries of the past. Even in the case of miracles, the scriptures themselves talk of the complementary part of a believing mind. Some kind of continuity of life based on a powerfully developed rational faith, may find some compatibility with evolution, but certainly not resurrection or the scene of Final Judgment Preservation of life is ingrained in our cells and revelation seems to have played upon this deep-most desire of ours. Raising of all the dead on the final day, in order to give them a fresh verdict indicates an incapacity of God to include the fruit of every action within the action itself, or the fruit of a righteous life within the course of life. In our world, every effect is a natural development of a cause and therefore the final goal of mankind needs to be an accomplishment of the living and not of the dead. Jesus himself was too anachronistic to demonstrate this truth literally. His death, resurrection and disappearance are caricatures at best. It was a dramatic display of God’s power that tricked us dramatically too - a trick inevitable to reveal the goal of evolution and yet reveal it not. An additional task of critical thinking and striving towards the highest ideal, taking the events of gospel as a pictorial model is reserved for us. We know how significant goal-setting is for any psychological achievement. Without the vision of goal, we would never be there. Inching towards it is an impossibility. God needed to set the summit of evolution through paintings and parables and it’s up to mankind to take the challenge or not. Lord God didn’t bother to reveal too many truths to people. He was content to point towards the tip. Even here He tricked us in order to respect the basic tenets of evolution. Not an unusual game for God. He presented the Law through Moses in the midst of another set of ‘historic’ miracles. A millennium and a half later, He sent Jesus Christ, whose mission seemed primarily to expose the literal understanding of the very same Law. Jesus was killed for this and now his own story needs to be liberated from a simplistic concept of death and resurrection. The preacher of parables has turned out to be a parable for mankind. Neither Adam disobeyed God in eating the fruit of knowledge, nor Christ ensured fruit of life through his obedience on cross. Both the events are metaphoric, even if one was mythological and the other historical. The gratuitous acts of miracles displayed in the Nazarene are some of the highest moments of Divine Revelation, but the price we are to pay is an in-built deception, difficult to extricate ourselves from. 1.2 Islamic Revelation: Whatever Koran speaks of Jesus is often literally true. The holy text is a legitimate correction to the gospel of Jesus. But designing a strict code of life on the deserts of Arabia, in lines similar to the Law of Moses renews the glorious trap of blind obedience to revelation all over again. Jesus was precisely fighting against a straightjacket concept of law and hence, one could say, Gospel and Koran mutually inherit the much-needed correction to each other. In chapter after chapter Holy Koran talks of the Judgment Day and we have already shown this could never be compatible with the evolving world. Symbolic meaning of a New Era in evolution is certainly possible and hence the word of God will take its validity undoubtedly. But the deceptive tone of dictation to cultivate blind obedience to a strict code of life presents a formidable difficulty in Islam – a price one necessarily pays for an exalted degree of revelation. That the word of God takes a new level of meaning in critical junctures of history has been repeatedly indicated within scriptures themselves. ‘None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?’ (Holy Quron 2:106 ) ‘Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father.’ (John 16: 25) One can read clearly in the above verses, the compulsions of God to reveal His fore-knowledge and Lordship and yet reveal nothing until evolution itself matures. 1.3 Hindu Revelation: Hinduism presents lots of avatars of Vishnu, lots of interventions of Shiva in the life of His devotees and lots of other gods as well. The avatars basically arose to fulfill specific missions and they emerged victorious against personified forms of evil. All these directly relate to God’s initiative and concern through epic encounters. But there’s no universal claim of redemption or requirement of obedience to one specific way of life. The dispersion and plurality might imply a weak form of revelation, but it also shielded Hinduism from a blind obedience to God’s word or a literal understanding of it. The mythology in itself included elements of competition and animosity between gods, hiking the need for interpretation. Every god or goddess claimed superiority over the other and they also ended up in polygamy, begetting of children, each family member becoming an additional god in his/her own right. Despite excellent moments of god intervening in the world and redeeming human beings from specific contexts of helplessness, Hindu revelation basically included the unacceptable positions of infighting and anthropomorphism, inducing human beings not to be stuck at these levels of stories or past interventions but to look for their hidden significance. Until this day, Hinduism is known for its ability to accept plurality and it includes a spectacular range of societal as well as individualistic forms of worship. It hardly ever metamorphosed into a proselytizing culture The multiple avatars of Hinduism signify the presence of the Ultimate in all of evolution, Its capacity and concern to intervene in specific moments and relate to human beings wherever needed. They also necessitate the obvious conclusion that the formless uniqueness of God alone would be bereft of all anthropomorphic limitations and scandals. Mahabharata went a step further and offered a holistic scripture called Bhagavad Gita, under a spell-binding form of revelation. The text uniquely combined various stages of spirituality such as the performance of duty in detachment, the Upanishadic knowledge of expanding the identity of self and the Bhakti of surrendering to God as a devotee. A vivid representation of a highly evolved, multi-faceted consciousness, no doubt. Unlike other Hindu mythology, Gita embarked on universal statements such as the eternal program of Krishna to take avataar whenever injustice abounds on earth and the assurance that the homage paid to other gods ultimately reaches Him alone. A higher grade of revelation, so to speak. But the context of Gita is in itself a context of awkwardness. Arjuna is hesitant to go ahead with the war that would result in the killing of relatives and clans and Lord Krishna not only unfolds a lengthy spiritual text on the battlegrounds, He hides behind a convenient theory of the imperishability of souls to goad the warrior into performing the duty of killing. This apparently triggers the entire revelation. The teaching of Gita that souls neither originate nor die will definitely be at loggerheads with the evolutionary law of consciousness. Conquering death as a final goal of evolution or the human mind linking up with the permanent mind of God may be symbolically represented by such concepts. But literally speaking, revelation here lent itself to a questionable theory of steadfast killing on the façade of the imperishability of souls. The awkwardness of the message in itself suggested the need for creative interpretations. We know that Mahabharata has evoked individual and generic interpretations at many levels and it remains a veritable treasure of human heritage for all ages. 1.4 Buddhism & Upanishads: Buddha’s analysis of human nature doesn’t rely on premises handed down from heaven. It was fully a rational attempt and the teacher was wary of accepting anything just because a tradition did or a holy man opined. If any doctrine would withstand the acid test of scientific principles, it’s nothing but the Buddhistic claim against the possibility of ‘soul’. Human mind, howsoever complex its present form might be, is simply a building up of minute impressions and not a mysterious implantation of God. One could perhaps criticize Buddha that he evaded the issue of God’s existence; but none can ever fault him on his analysis of human predicament and his advice to take life in its own stride, without worrying excessively on sins, attachments and future achievements. Upanishads too engaged on an analysis of consciousness and arrived at a superb conclusion that every human being ought to think of the ultimate source of life as the true self. Those who want to check the scientific validity of this conclusion are encouraged to refer the ‘TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS’ posted under http://mindcan.blogspot.com. The article spells out the inner dynamism of the evolving mind and makes it plain how Buddhism and Upanishads represent the analytic and synthetic aspects of human consciousness. The whole idea of the Divine Principle of Uncertainty is shown to match with the inner drives of Evolution through this essay. Six potentials of consciousness, expounded in mathematical terms are essential to understand how Buddhism and Upanishads are a continuation of the laws of mind and how they are free of error as opposed to the faith of other religions. Once this continuity is understood, we can happily declare: The human efforts of Religion have their reward of Truth and the divine initiatives of Religion stand for the Stupefying Wisdom of God.
Yes IN RELIGION. God decieves. But occam does not believe in religion. God , to him is the incedible complexity of our world. The total ballance of objective law. All, a product of laws. Who is the lawgiver.? They dont just happen. They evolve, or are formed by reason. Evolution 1st in a billion universes, one worked. Reason 2nd, producing direction. Our universe 3rd, as a product of that reason/direction. Occam
In anything 'god' deceives. You say that to you god is all, but really all is all (which is not to say all does not become all) and god is nothing at all. lol
I did explain! People say god is all kinds of things, but those things are really what they are, if anything, and not god.
Oh ok I kinda understand now lol. Your saying that when people think of God as something it's really they who are the something they are thinking about? no, yes, lol
I'm saying that when people think of god as something, they are really thinking of that something, and not god.
