Considering the Working of Spirits
on Jul 29 in Philosophy, Religion by adminCausation is a brief way of referring to the process of cause and effect, and is one of the most certain principles in all of reality. Granted, many people have an over simplified concept of the causes involved in the happenings of our world, but even these will admit the truth of Newton’s statement, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Pages could be wrote on the nature of cause and effect and the role they play in our reality, however I am wanting to focus on a specific question pertaining to this principle, “Do spiritual beings affect our reality?”
In almost any culture you care to look at you will find the belief that spirits, gods, or ghosts play a role in the events which take place in our world. As far back as recorded history goes there are stories of how gods, ghosts, and goddesses are constantly at work in reality. Sometimes these spirits do things like cause the rain to come, make the sun rise, or heal those afflicted by disease. Other times these spirits become displeased with the actions of humanity and create earth quakes, tornadoes, and drought.
Since the advent of science however human knowledge of the material order has soared, and this birthing of extensive knowledge has been accompanied by the death of many spiritual beings. I mean death not in the literal sense – as though human knowledge could kill a goddess, but the proving false of a certain way of viewing the workings of reality. No longer do those who understand the nature of the elements in our world think that some divinity has been angered when lighting slams from the sky, no more do they seek to enlist the gods and goddesses of harvest so they might affect the weather patterns, and no longer do we think that diseases are the wrath of a vengeful ghost manifested in the life of the offender or one they love.
This knowledge about how and why living and non-living system has brought with it some very difficult questions however, questions like, “What is it exactly divine beings do, and have they have ever done anything at all?”
When I was a fundamental Christian I genuinely thought that God was responsible for the workings of the material world; that God sort of made everything do the things it did. I thought God made the sun rise, the grass grow, and my heart beat, but now that I understand things like chemistry, genetics, and physics I find myself severely doubting that God is the immediate reason for anything that is happening around me.
There are those who are no doubt reeling in horror at this point. Every weekend they go to a church and sing songs like, “He’s got the whole world in His Hands” and other religious tunes. However, as uncomfortable it may be to think that God is not the immediate cause for the things that occur I am almost certain it is the case. However this is just a statement of belief; let’s look at some examples which I think proves my point.
The first idea we will consider is the idea that God somehow guides each and every living thing through its daily routine. This idea is popular in almost all of the Abrahamic faiths, and it is an idea that seems plausible as long as one is content to not look at reality. However, looking at reality one is met with countless instances that challenge this.
Exhibit A:
The other day I was driving my car down the road when a beautiful little bird decided to fly across the highway. I tried to miss it but I could not, I my ears were met moments later with the sound of its neck breaking as it slammed into the bottom of my car. Now I have to ask myself, “Was it God who caused this beautiful creature to ram itself into my vehicle?” Indeed, it would hardly seem the kind of action a loving and wise God would cause one of his creatures to take.
Exhibit B:
Okay, so the death of a bird doesn’t seem like much, but what about the death of people? There is a great documentary called, “Act of God” that follows the stories of several people from different cultures that were struck by lightning. In one case a person was struck while on a family outing, and thereafter died once they had vomited up their organs. In another case people were killed while they were on top of a mountain worshipping God. Am I to believe that a compassionate and loving God caused a man to regurgitate his innards and smote a group of His devote followers who were in the process of worshipping him?
I think also about all the mosquitos in Africa that are responsible for the spreading of malaria; a disease which kills thousands of men, women, and children every year. Am I to believe that these little pests are the very agents of divinity, sent down to smite children with horrible diseases so that those around them – or the universe at large – can learn some important metaphysical lesson? If it would not be okay for me to rape your daughter just so you could master restraint, then I find it hard to clear even a being of God’s stature if such tactics are used as a sort of lesson book.
Exhibit C:
We have looked at the destruction of life by small things now let us look at a few occasions when the very earth seems to rage. Think about the Tsunamis that wash away entire islands, or earthquakes that indiscriminately destroy thousands of lives with a single shudder. Surely I am not expected to believe that God is the agent behind this?
Indeed, even the devout recognize how horrible these things are, and they deal with them in two separate ways. The first is to say that these things are judgments of God against a sinful people. Now, there are all kinds of problems that arise with this interpretation.
If God is so against evil people why does not Divinity kill those filthy swine that deserve it? Why do we not find the ashen remains of child molesters in their cells, or puddles of flesh and sinew that were once people who conducted indiscriminate shooting sprees? Not only this, but why are there countless children who die in the natural disasters? Am I to believe that God is drowning six and eight year old children in tidal waves because of the sins of their parents? Such an act would hardly ring of justice and mercy. Further, am I to believe that God punishes a whole city or island of people for the crimes of a few? If such is the case then God is no better than the Roman army who would randomly select ten out of hundred to die whenever one of the company failed at a task.
Many realize that such actions as those discussed about cannot be harmonized with the idea of a kind and loving God, thus they say, “It was the working of Satan!” Now, even though this is a little better than the idea that God is punishing people on a large scale one still has to wonder why exactly a fallen angel would be given free reign of an entire planet by God; certainly the crimes of two human things does not provide the justification. Even if one could somehow provide a just and sensible reason why a supernatural agent of pure evil would be given the whole of earth there is not a shred of empirical evidence to be found in the world at large that such a thing ever happened; indeed there is evidence to the contrary.
Scientists understand the workings of the atmosphere and know that Tornadoes form when the conditions are just right. This is why a large portion of North America is called “Tornado Alley”; in that place the environment is well suited for the creation of twisters. Then there are hurricanes. These whirling titans form in a very specific way, and occur in the same places repeatedly. Either the Devil is really ticked off at Kansas and the states around the Gulf of Mexico or there is another explanation, and since all the evidence points to the latter I will go with it.
Yet, it is not just the wind that gets angry; it is also the earth itself. Earthquakes kill thousands every year, but these exterminators do not pop up in random places. Just like destructive winds they occur in specific places, cracks in the earth’s surface called fault lines, due to the specific conditions present at that location in the earth at that time. If these were generate by meta-physical cause they would they not pop up in varying places without any physical reason? Therefore, it seems we must confess that earthquakes are the products of an every changing earth. It is true that Satan could be somewhere in the earth’s crust causing the lava to get hotter than it should, but that idea – and all ideas like it – seems to me to be a step of reason the evidence does not justify us to.
It is not just natural disasters and unfortunate occurrences that science has shown to be the work of indifferent elements, even the processes of life have been shown to have a physical cause. The cells themselves are programmed to do the things they do, and we know this to be the case because we can track down malformations in the human body and mind to abnormalities in specific chromosomes in our DNA; the code the cell uses to create itself and conduct its processes.
It is not only the process of living that have been shown to be linked to physical reason, indeed the diseases that used to be attributed to demons and gods are now known to be the effects of different viruses and bacteria; each attacking the cells that make up our bodies in their own unique way.
Since almost all – if not all – of the happenings that occur in our world have been proven to be linked to tangible unthinking agents instead of spiritual beings, what then is it that the spirits do? Many people talk about how God sets up kings and bring them down, but if this is the case then would not God have been the reason men like Hitler, Stalin, Kim-Jung-il, and other wicked tyrants came into power? Further, if God is the reason they rose to power then is not God also directly responsible for the deaths of millions and millions of men women and children? Even further, if God is the direct reason for such a high degree of human suffering – suffering that occurred without any just cause – then how could it even be remotely maintained that such a God was the epitome of love and justice?
Still others say that we have guardian angels that attend our every step, and in reply to them I can only ask what exactly is it that they are guarding us from? Children are molested by priests and no spirits intervene, crazed gunmen murder hundreds every year and no angels appear to stop them; rapes, murders, thefts, and atrocities of all kinds are foisted upon innocent people and never does an angel appear. It seems to me that either spiritual beings are protecting us from other spiritual beings, or they are doing nothing at all; either because they are bound in some way or because they simply do not exist.
The greatest concern that comes to mind in light of all these considerations has nothing to do with the realization that good and evil spirits are probably not fighting for my soul, it is trying to figure out how a just, loving, and rational God can be justify inactivity if such a being exists? It is a common idea in many religions that a person is not only accountable for the things they do – sins of commission, but that they are also accountable for the good things they left undone – sins of omission. If such a rule applies to all created things how it is that God can escape condemnation? If it is within God’s power to prevent a child from being raped, if it is within God’s power to prevent something as terrible as the Holocaust, then exactly how is it that God is not in some way accountable for those events; especially if God knew they would happen from time immemorial and thus had countless eternities to plan for ways to prevent them?
What’s more, it is very odd to me that a God who is supposed to be concerned with the eternal destiny of every living thing is so cryptic, hidden, and seemingly inactive. If such a being indeed wanted all humanity everywhere to know the truth and worship the divine virtue would it not make more sense to simply manifest and let people know? I am often told that such an action would corrupt free will, or draft us into a life of service against our will. However, such statements seem to completely ignore the stories present in many of the different religious traditions where people met God, or gained some type of direct revelation of the realities supreme nature, and then chose to reject the truth. No, it is certainly more than possible to have a God that appears to created things and the presence of freewill in the same reality at the same time.
By this point I am sure that it would seem that I am antagonistic to the concept of divinity or a metaphysical layer to this reality, but such just is not the case. Most people are either all for the idea of God or all against the idea, but I am merely trying to understand what is without letting any personal preference for what it might be get in the way.
While I am certain that God is not the immediate reason why many things happen, it is impossible for me to know that God – or any other spiritual being for that matter – is responsible for nothing at all.
Furthermore, though it may seem that any concept of God is impossible if you adapt the idea that the reality we know is not micromanaged by a higher power such is not the case. For example, I could harmonize all I said above with the Christian religion by saying that guardian angels do not alter the causal flow of our world; they only prevent evil angels from altering it so that we might live in a neutral world where we have the power to choose. Not only so, but perhaps the presence of evil in our reality is just an outworking of the principle of double effect, or the accidental creation of something that is bad due to the intentional creation of a good thing. Such certainly happens in the human world, take airplane crashes or shipwrecks for example.
When humans created planes and ships they did a good; these things make China just a bit further away than New York and allow us to take in the beauties of the ocean while seated in the comforts of home. However, as good as these things are when they break down – as all things which exists in space and time must do – they create massive tragedies; children robbed of their parents, lovers killed on their honeymoon, as well as great minds and kind hearts stolen away from a world that needed them badly. Just as these horrible things came about due to the creation of the ships and place but are not attributable to the faults of the creators – assuming that as many measures was taken to prevent them as was possible, so too could God have made a reality that breaks down due to its very nature in spite of God doing all God could have done. Not only so, but if there really is an afterlife then death simply becomes a swapping of places, and if God has infinite resources God could more than compensate anyone for any horrors they may have suffered here; joy for infinity more than compensates for any degree of finite woe.
Also, I see no reason why one must stick to one system of explanation when considering this topic. Perhaps it is as the Hindu’s say and all of this reality is a part of God in the same way all of the cells in my body are a part of me. From this perspective life and death no longer becomes an enemy, it is simply a process with things go through before they go through another process. Not only this, but if all of reality is a part of God then in no way can God be blamed for inactivity for all activity is the itself the very workings of the Divine, and all the little gods, ghosts, and goddesses we’ve created are just human misconceptions of the Ultimate One.
Or maybe this is a sort of Deist reality where God took a part of divinity and made from it all that is – as a craftsman does a hammer – and then watches to see how things play out; not intervening in anyway in the workings of the glorious metaphysical machine because it is a self-correcting system which allows for eternal growth and change without loss. From this perspective evil is just a glitch, a product of misunderstanding that arises because a comparatively small number of conscious cogs have chosen to go against the flow of the system thereby causing all the other parts grief.
These are just a few options, the possibilities are indeed endless – including the possibility that all of our metaphysical speculations are just a sort of mental trick we have done to ourselves so that we can remove the horrors of death, soften the indifference of nature, and find the strength to trudge forward through meaningless suffering.
The point is that many of our traditional ways of understanding reality do not fit with the things we have come to know about it. These differences between what we know and what we used to believe in no way necessitate an atheistic worldview, although they do not demonstrate totally that such a view is false. It seems that God and godlessness are both compatible with what we see around us, and thus we need to keep digging deeper – keep trying to know more about the workings of our world. Clinging to ancient superstitions is not the path that will lead us to truth, just as turning atheism into a new dogma will not take us where we want to go. We need to come together and think, laying aside all that we hope, wish, and prefer to be true so that we can all move closer to that which is.
Why does everybody give such a shit? The Earth is dying daily because of our actions; and we’re so caught up in what doesn’t matter that we continue on completely apathetic to what we cause and our own potential.
Why? How? What does one get from the answers to such questions? More questions of why and how to answer. We’ve traced the universe to the beginning; and yet, why and how it formed is still unknown. Imagine if we put our energies to figuring out ways of evolving past our current unethical means of survival; rather than a rhetorical game of he said she said, let’s out prove one another; or let’s waste time attempting to understand what, by its very nature thus far, is beyond our capacity to understand.
No animal is rightfully above another. All these dogma fanatics (religious or not) care about is their selves, or other members of their species, race, caste, etc. The horrors we cause, or at least are apathetic too, is more than enough justification to wipe us out. We have the ability to fix this, we just don’t use it. With our scientific prowess properly utilized, we could get back the original peace and harmony this planet was born with that our ignorant, childish ways have mucked up so badly. Making mistakes is how we learn, not-learning from mistakes is how we die.
You’re a genius; why squander it away on a philosophical debate that won’t help the world even if it is solved? Fun to think about yes, but what honest benefit will come from figuring it out? People are people, they believe what they want to regardless. Put that energy into starting a school of thought, rather than a debate over imaginations. Then you’ll do some really good good, haha.
I very much appreciate your response, as it contains many valid insights and questions.
I do not know why others give a damn, but I can tell you why I do. It is because I really want to know if death is the end of it all.
If any form of metaphysical reality exists then it would behoove us to comply,and if none exists then we need to throw off the old comforts that have now become shackles.
However, before I will make any pronouncement on such a weighty topic I must know – for faith and doubt alone could be erroneous and such an error would cost myself
and all who take me seriously dearly; if God is there and I say God is not or if God is not and I say God is then I have caused people to suffer eternal loss.
No one doubts the earth is dying daily, and only the foolish refuse to admit that humans play no role in that. However, when you say that metaphysics doesn’t matter I think you are mistaken. People’s actions all arise from their ideas about things, thus if you wish to alter actions you must reach the inner ideas of others – assuming you don’t want the government to blow up a few years down the road due to mass violations of the citizenry’s rights.
Some justify the mindless abuse of earth with their religious ideologies, and others justify it with their secular ideologies. I think that at the end of the day all of this is just a rationalization, and that deep down people know they need to – indeed must – change but they are lying to themselves. No matter what your philosophy one should always be striving to practically better the civic and environmental quality of life on earth. However, that is not what was being considered here so I didn’t dwell on it much though I have else where.
I would say that for every ounce of thought put into origins their is an equal amount put into how to sustain existence. There are people from multitudes of various philosophies who give a damn about the problems of our planet and are trying to change it, however the fact of existence is always wedded to how and why. To avoid such questions and just put one’s head down and do what must be down is to become just another worker ant in the hive mind. Besides, the questions of how and why play a huge role on the solutions one implements in making the world better. For example, let’s assume that all humanity everywhere would stop considering such questions – what would be the philosophy by which they lived and who would decided it? Such a state would be impossible due to the deeply rooted ideas about reality found in every culture.
Therefore, in order to make social peace and harmony we need to find system that allows people to differ on what is improvable while complying with what is known. For example, there is no doubt that a lack of forgiveness causes people to eternally suffer for wrong long done. Look at the horrible state of affairs in the middle east. Jews and Palestinians kill each other every day for murder committed yesterday. No one forgives, no one gives an inch, and thus the problem is perpetuated due to the deeply rooted differences in the ideas of those peoples as well as their inability to break the cycle of harm.
Further, while it may seem that all dogma fanatics are self serving I do not think such is the case. All those on all sides of the question about the nature and purpose – if there is one – of existence are doing something they perceive as a good. Atheists think they are doing good by ridding people of a lie, while theists think they are fighting to provide entrance for themselves and those around them into a kingdom of light and bliss. I do not doubt that some are just selfish freaks, but many more are genuine in all they do.
As for the horrors humans commit, I wonder if it is just to kill a whole race of things merely because a portion of said race are stupid and harmful. Too make it more concrete I ask, “Should we kill all Germans for the crimes committed by Germanic peoples who were made into – or chose to be – Nazis?”
I agree that we have the power we have to change things, and I really like “Making mistakes is how we learn, not-learning from mistakes is how we die.”
However, why is it that the rich are allowed to rule by the poor? How is it that so few manage to keep the world subjected to their greed? I would say it is through the power of ideology primarily.By causing a people to identify themselves as ’superior’ through nationalistic, religious, or any other form of ideology people can get them to do about anything. This is why it is so important to challenge peoples ideas about God and reality because it is from these that the superiority illusion gets its power.
Besides this, it is as Gandhi said, “If you do not think religion plays a role in politics then you do not understand politics.”
Knowing other religions, knowing how and why each and every person on the face of the earth thinks and acts the way they do is the only way you can lead
them to harmony. If one does not understand the ideas of Buddhism and Islam how can they ever broker a peace between these two groups? What is true of these two groups is true of all groups, we must understand before we can unify.
Thus it is why I think about these things. In order to get deeply religious people to see past their tenets one must show them their limits, and to do that one must understand them. Further, in order to help people past the “I already know it all” attitude one must show them how little it is they know, and again to do that one must understand.
I think about reality all the time, not just its origins but all facets of it. I wonder how to bring unity between the peoples of earth, as well as how to get people to see that we need to change our relationship to it. Cleaner energy, less waste, and a more ‘ethical’ mode of conduct are givens, but such will never happen as long as people continue to kill for ideas.
As for starting a school, I don’t really want to make a bounded ideology. The only type of school I can see myself making would be something comparable to Jeet-Kun-Do where no way is the way, and where things are just for their qualities and effects rather than by some official position.
Right now I am attending college so I can get the papers I need to teach, and once I attain to the level of professor I will use my money to spread wisdom and well being to all sentient and none sentient things. However, that is a long term goal and in my personal moments I – and every one else – ask the question, “But what do I mean?”. This is such an embedded aspect of human nature that one simply must either answer the question or show that the question itself has no meaning what so ever.
I thank you for your compliment, but I doubt that I have attained to genius hood – even though some little ego imp is going, “Oh, you have….you have.”…lol. Being smart alone is useless, just as knowing things is pointless, if it is never turned into action. I totally intend to act, but if all I do is act without looking at things on a cosmic scale I am sure I’ll act incorrectly. Therefore, I divide my life into equal parts of thinking and acting, and it was during one of my thinking portions that this writing was produced
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Thank you again for your thoughts, and I hope you have a grand day.