G.O.D.

[Aileron]

I have conflicting opinions about this, but still, obscured by my own obsessive desire to relegate some indecorous ideal into an expansion of our human depths, I pursue the most complicated and perhaps unrealistic projects in hopes of surfacing some tiny secret of the soul. In reality however I cannot call this a project, more of a pursuit in hypothetical situations or experimental ideas.

I find that the future, for lack of any term, is rather difficult to grasp for control. Our species seems to clutch at hope and faith and at times find circumstances fitting the bars height, leading and leaving us to stew in the possibility of truth in our beliefs and ideas, even if the chance of random events occuring within that security of faith is minimal to great. We are the sparks searching for the right butterfly. That one single point of light that could lead us in the right direction.

What if there was a way to control our direction without the necessity of actually knowing where we head. What if we were to instead of blindly following ancestral folley and figmented stories, myth and legend, we, rather, created our path? My own opinions transform daily of religion and spirituality as I think it should, and one view I have had, is that as we follow our faiths, we seem to be walking backwards down the path, seeing where we were coming from without knowing where it might head or seeing the path we walk now.
Is there a way to turn around and walk forwards? Is there a way to secure inevitability the way we should forsee it? I think so.
We have thrived off of prophetic hope and stories passed from generation to generation, only seeing the journies direction from whence it came, but there must be some point when we decide for ourselves, that the only way our species and our existence should move is by collectively placing the chess pieces where we find suitable. Not by blindly pushing the pawn without seeing a larger picture of what could happen.

I respectfully submit my own incursion of thought into the continuing spirituality and strength of the soul of mankind. It must change in shape, not in course.

If there was perhaps a way to collectively engage the godhood of the future, we could hypothetically see how our world may change by deriving the belief platform.
In other words, if a group of people were to shape a religion, a belief out of one person, one selected being, or to build a god or messiah from a hero in order to cast a specific ideology upon society for a segemented amount of time, they might be able to form certain structures within that society that could frame an entire network of new cultures, new worlds, new mindsets that could lead into so many directions depending on the course we see fit.

Im not saying that by throwing a new religion into the works that it will change everything or should be used as a control mechanism, but that by coursing a new religion through mainstream on a regular time frame, just as new blood pumps through our veins, we integrate new creative outlets for different systematic structures.

Do not imagine this as even close to a perfect idea, nor is it a realistic one, but an imaginative potential.
Yes, something like this could be missused or done for the wrong reasons, evil reasons, but the benefits may also be exponential if followed correctly.


Global Omniesence Development (G.O.D.)


Imagine without harboring any guilt or anger towards the idea, what this could do to a world.
Imagining is always the first step towards incredible changes in the world.


Honestly Im not expecting good responses or even added ideas let alone any comments to this, but I felt that this might be a good place to suggest the idea.

[jilola]

Well, the thing many people count on is a benevolent happenstance that just gets presented to them without any effort on their own.

We can't control the future in the sense we can control our immediate perceived physical reality. Bu twe can pay attention and choose according to which our Self  resonates and what is at the moment inline with our Will.

I'm sure others will be around soon to point out that the above doesn't really give a universal and definite answer but then we aren't universal and definite since we still are focused on the immediate reality.
Find your own meaning is what I'm trying to say.

One cannot  control. That's not what we are here for. Think in terms of finding out and then expressing what you've learned as constructively as you can.

Don't look for a God that will tell you wat to do and how to be you. BE the God and find out. There is no God apart from you and me and everyone else. My mileage varies.

2cents & L&L
jouni

[narfellus]

Im not saying that by throwing a new religion into the works that it will change everything or should be used as a control mechanism, but that by coursing a new religion through mainstream on a regular time frame, just as new blood pumps through our veins, we integrate new creative outlets for different systematic structures.

Do not imagine this as even close to a perfect idea, nor is it a realistic one, but an imaginative potential. Yes, something like this could be missused or done for the wrong reasons, evil reasons, but the benefits may also be exponential if followed correctly.

Aileron, Christianity at one time, 2000 years ago, WAS a new religion. Over the centuries it has influenced profound spiritual truths in people, as well as killing millions and millions of innocents in the name of Christ. It was not (and is not) a perfect religion (none are) but it had (and does have) great imaginative potential. It changes lives. It is a jumping off point for spiritual growth. And it has often been missued for evil, selfish reasons, and for wonderful reasons.  The Word of the Holy Bible has been interpreted many ways, as has Jesus's edited teachings by the early Church.  

Honestly Im not expecting good responses or even added ideas let alone any comments to this, but I felt that this might be a good place to suggest the idea.

I think you're underestimating these boards. Your questions are very good ones, and i think there are people with valid ideas who would like to take a stab at them (with good nature hopefully). My own opinion is that our spiritual growth is ALWAYS an unknown. It is always a path toward Oneness with the Universe, and we can only know partially while in this life what that fully entails. Even when we die (pass to another existense) we don't learn everything immediately. Our spiritual aspects are growing even as our physical aspects are. You've touched upon a very complex subject that is at the basis of every humans innate question, Why Are We Here?

[Aileron]

I personally believe that anything is possible, and it is our constraints and hesitant views that stem from our society and cultures that impede certain progressional ideals.

I dont think I am underestimating anyone on these forums, never have. There are plenty of brilliant and creative people here, I was merely bracing myself for contradictive comments by acknowledging them beforehand if they were to occur. Kind of like making fun of yourself before others do in order to get the upperhand even if it is just for your own benefit.

I think its obvious I was not implying this should be considered, rather pondered upon.
I forsaw, in a very disturbing but provocative way, a conglomorate or corporation instilling the ideas and cultural changes they desired by placing a new God on the pedestal.
I imagined a meeting taking place with brilliant minds ranging from the excessively logical to the mind bendingly creative individuals attempting to through certain cogs in the mechanism of society by deciding upon a situation, finding a few individuals that retain that situations status, and building a Godhead from those individuals.
I imagined this happening every century or even earlier conerning dissent or jihads, or holy coup de ta's.

I personally wasnt looking for a God, but rather a Godhead to direct the hand of man.
Imagine if you will, Pacal Votan, a prophet and God in his own right. It was not just the things he did that brought about his present status but the myths born of his activities and declarations.
Jesus as well is both Messiah and/or God depending on which religion you follow, but the activities he took place in and the direction his life was led is rather unknown truly to anyone but himself, though it was his intentions, and the way people percieved him that brought about his stories and myths and legends.

It is the generations that build these concepts, not just those people alone who have spilled their blood in sacrifice, that create the faiths surrounding them.

I do not believe in controlling the future, at least not in any complete manner, but I do think we can spill our walking toward the horizon we head towards rather than stare at the sun as it sets from where we came.

As I said too this was something to ponder, not to take too seriously, though I am always available to consider the matter further.
I believe all contention to create something that has the potential of both great manevolence and benevolance within our species and the universe perhaps.

[narfellus]

Well, i do agree with you on most fronts. And i too agree that anything is possible. If the human mind can imagine it, it has happened in some capacity, somewhere. And if the human mind CAN'T imagine it, it probably still happened, we're just not aware of it! (A tree falling in the woods and all that jazz...)

[Stillwater]

The classic arguments resurface, much in the same way that the oldest and most inveterate works of the human mind will not easily be removed from the mainstream of contemporary discussion. How many years shall it be before we forget Paradise Lost, or Heart of Darkness?

I do not say that your presented idea is without merit, but, quite contrariwise, I say that you simply display the fact that you have at lest half the mind of the proverbial philosopher, and are able to catch the ideas that fall through the hands of others as though they never existed to begin with.

But beyond the frame of your concept, I am not fully sure of what you are trying to convey- do you suggest that the power of the consciousness infused within all should be sufficient to generate a functioning deity to lead the aimless, or do you imply that as all religions are flawed, and must have some basis in society, that we may create a conceivably superior one to provide answers of some kind? Perhaps the answer is neither, and I have grasped at something which was unpresent, which is always a danger when gathering the intangible...  

Should this founding point be better elucidated, then we can continue this stream of ideas, should that be your wish.

Thank you,
Stillwater

[Aileron]

This is why I love these forums. Such brilliant, insightful and open minds.

In truth the only thing I am trying to convey, is not so much the relevance of religion nor the importance of it within the any meme or macro/micro culture.
Rather Im attempting to present a situation in which consideration is taken as to which one must contemplate whether or not it would be not only conceivable to produce such a conglomorate which introduces a new faith and idle on a continual basis, but also if it should be introduced into a society such as the whole of our planet or into a smaller group of population where effect is on a smaller scale and can be better predicted.

Hmmm, let me ask this.

If anyone of you had the chance to be on a seat of representatives who took charge in deciding said faith for a small culture or an entire planet, would you take that opportunity?
I believe we all know the potentials, the pitfalls and the benefits something like this might produce, but we also know the amount of unknown variables this presents.

[narfellus]

If anyone of you had the chance to be on a seat of representatives who took charge in deciding said faith for a small culture or an entire planet, would you take that opportunity?

Given that mankind has often been in the position to dictate the society of small groups, i would greatly rejoice the chance to have input on a larger global scale. Of course, such a position is open to abuse, as is the smaller scale, only now it is open to world domination, if that were the ulterior motive of individuals.
   Personally, i would only endeavor to accomplish such a goal if my fellow committee members all shared my same ideals: namely,

a) deep, intimate respect for the planet, and abolishment of the industrial poisons that hurt Her and Us

b) Spiritual teaching from a young age that transcends religion and its false trappings (while keeping the strong aspects of religion.)

c) Vitality and health on all fronts, physical, spiritual and mental

I suppose this sounds like little more than utopia, that grand design that humans regard as heaven, yet unreachable for the mundane world. I do think it is reachable, and WILL be reached, but probably not in my current lifetime.

[Stillwater]

Alright, I believe that I have a better handle on what was presented now, but I am still left in dichotomy. Would this commitee continuously create new and unprecedented faiths that had no basis in the previous religion which the said society had assimilated, or would the progression be one of evolution and development toward increasingly superior ideals? The former would apear to be little more than an experiment in the capriciousness of man, displaying with what ease one may abandon past beliefs, and take up entirely different, unproven ones, and would only be a social study; the latter idea would seem to possess greater merit, and it is this which I hope you were putting forth, as it would hint at a candid attempt of humanity to grow.

The idea of a commitee dictating to a small society is somewhat distrurbing though, I must add, as the eyes of the ruling party most often do not hold the wisest position of any in a particular culture, and may cause great harm in issuing and enforcing a flawed ideology upon the "lower" classes. Such an experiment did indeed occur in the polygamist utopian societies of America during the 1800's, and with disastorous results- of the ones that did not suffer great calamity or persecution, only a few survived to any ripe age, and these were felt by outsiders to hold some of the most radical and destructively fervorous views of any known religious institution.

Such an experiment seems like a scientificly and socio-psychologically interesting enterprise, but too  audacious and arrogant an abuse of others for my tastes. But perhaps I am yet in err- if that is the case, than I would appreciate furhter explanation.

Thank you,
Stillwater

[Aileron]

narfellus, I agree, it would be a position open, very open to abuse and missuse. This is why it is good to have it questioned, thought upon in a rather hypothetical way.
In my own case, the ideals you shared seem like a good general premise for an overall consummation, and I would not have them any other way.

Stillwater. It would be in my own opinion, both sides of the coin. It would most definately be an experiment of social and spiritual human development as well as an attempt to better humanity(Of course bearing in mind we would use the committee for positive purposes).
It would have to depend on where, why, what and when that the religious shells be placed over the soft tissue of human fragility. Meaning a certain culture may devote and cultivate a better and quicker understanding of certain growth patterns through a faith that has no attachments to their prior, if any, religious/spiritual threads.
On the other hand another society may indeed need only the slight evolutions and growth of their current faiths, adjustments and tweaks slowling changing the shape of their beliefs into a new form of fervor.

Such a thing as this committee would indeed be very arrogant and obviously flawed because of the "human" element. Our own need to change the inner workings of our creations unconciously at times, change the direction and meaning of something created in reference to good intentions.

I think this is a mere curiousity now, but I hope to do some more in depth research covering human develpment and the religious factor revolving around this subject.
I would also be curious to see if there was perhaps a way to excercise these ideas into an experiment. Perhaps something on the computer over the net that involves virtual societies reacting to certain changes and influences within their structures.
Come to think of it, a small portion of this idea was built into the computer game black or white, but it is not as selective as the topic we are discussing. Rather it stems from our God like presence influencing societies with our animal avatars and have the choice of blessing or damning the cultures, becoming a benevolent or malevolent god.

[narfellus]

I would also be curious to see if there was perhaps a way to excercise these ideas into an experiment. Perhaps something on the computer over the net that involves virtual societies reacting to certain changes and influences within their structures.
Come to think of it, a small portion of this idea was built into the computer game black or white, but it is not as selective as the topic we are discussing. Rather it stems from our God like presence influencing societies with our animal avatars and have the choice of blessing or damning the cultures, becoming a benevolent or malevolent god.

That's an intriguing idea, Aileron, and i am familiar with B&W (but i never played). Of course the core of the game was entertainment, but it still had interesting virtues. The Sim City Games are growing increasingly complex, it would be a matter of changing the attributes from Road Construction and Burger Joints, to say, Piety and Polarity (easier said than done, i'm no programmer).