Musings on Interpretation, God, and Human Conduct
on Feb 15 in Philosophy by adminEverything we experience we must interpret in order to evaluate both its functional and moral nature. Not only this, it is our interpretation of anything or event which determines what it means for us. This is why any number of people greater than one can look at religious symbols, national flags, or situations and have different opinions and feelings about what they are looking at. It also helps us to understand why each of them could genuinely consider their opinion to be the objective facts about the situation.
Let us take the Swastika, the symbol of the Hitler’s Third Reich, as an example. To those who find Nazi ideology to be true this is a symbol of Arian power, and the noble standard that went before their historical namesakes in battle. To a Jew who endured Nazi atrocities, or one who is related to such a person, it is a symbol of baseless hate and massacre. Still yet a Jain it is a symbol peace and a revealer of certain types of truth about the universe. None of these three see or experience the same icon, nor do they have the same emotions about it, even though they are all receiving the same visual stimuli; the difference between the sensations produced in us due to external things interacting with our sensory tools – touch, taste, smell, etc – and how we perceive and understand those sensations with our mind is very important.
As it is with the Swastika, so it is with every idea we encounter, every item we experience, and every moment we participate in. This is why we all live on the same world, in the same reality, and can still disagree with each other about ‘the way things really are’ for thousands and thousands of years.
Some people say this reality is purely meaningless events, just chance and stuff interplaying without any higher reality or purpose existing anywhere to be found. For people in this group life is theirs to live as they see fit, and though they too strive to not harm others they have no fear of any consequences for their actions beyond those they experience in this life.
Other people say this reality is a manifestation of some higher reality – even though millions are in dispute over the nature of that higher reality. In this group some people say the higher force is an impersonal but orderly force such as Brahman from the Hindu tradition or the Tao from China, while others populate reality with invisible beings who have participated in the creation and flow of reality and so have claims on human life because of this. In this latter category we find beings such as the Greek Zeus, the Norse Odin, the Abrahamic God, and the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda to name a few.
Regardless of the metaphysical or purely physical conclusions one espouses they are all reached through individual interpretation of writings, situations, and a host of other sensible phenomena. The question of course is, “Are any of these ideologies a true and final representation of all the universe contains, how it came to be and is maintained, and how human things should relate to it?” I don’t know if we can know.
All of the above philosophies, be they god-filled or god-less, hinge upon beliefs, some of the most important of which often cannot be proven due to their the effects of their depth mixing with our intellectual and sensory limits. No one knows and can prove beyond any doubt God is real and there is life beyond death. The atheist looks at reality and sees all the mortality, pain, and clockwork like motions which as far as we can see are necessitated by the construction of atomic bodies – as well as how all meaning is projected onto all sensations and situations from the outside, and says, “Look at this, how can one say there is meaning to all of this; God is not real.”
Now, their position is simply a premise or a conclusion derived from certain premises in the same way everyone else’s position is. Yes, this world has death in it, yes the world has pain, and yes we project all meaning onto machine like energetic phenomena, but are any of these things by necessity incompatible with the existence of a higher reality – God, Tao, or otherwise? Here, I say no.
In the Hindu tradition death is not an alien invader into our universe – it is simply a part of being, the natural flow of things. Further, since in that tradition God is all that is and all that is not, death too is a part of God so that we can just relax and enjoy the wonder of being divine.
Then, in the Christian tradition death is not incompatible with God because it is a process introduced into reality by agents who went against the will of a divinity who felt like life without freedom would somehow be less than perfect – just as a universe without sin would be. Yes, this freedom cost a lot but the cost is not beyond said divinity’s ability to recompense. Further, even human things do good but create evil, atomic understanding can both power the world or vaporize it.
It is not incomprehensible to have a divine being whose doing of good gives rise to evil – a fact which is not negated merely because a being is all-powerful and all-knowing because maybe the path we are experiencing was the only one we could walk to get to the end which divinity knew to be best. Sure, the end is hard for us to see, and the here is horribly unpleasant, but if all of this is really the product of an infinite and perfect intelligence how could we dissent while possessed only by imperfect ideas given to us by finite mental and sensory tools?
Merely because divine – or inter-dimensional – beings aren’t pouring every drop of water out of a holy boot doesn’t mean there is not anything divine. In Hinduism the very processes we see ARE the workings of God, while in many other schools reality and its parts are like divine machines that were set into motion and which are – or are not – now monitored by the creative force.
As for all meaning being projected, perhaps reality is a fluid gift that we form into something beautiful – this would certainly be a good way to ‘be like divinity’ or ‘participate with the motions of divinity’. Even in the book of Genesis God invited Adam to name everything. This would be a very odd thing for God to ask if he already had a static and eternal definition for all things, indeed it seems to me to be a personal invitation to reflect God by bringing order out of chaos through creativity and discovery.
Finally there is pain. It is true that pain is horrid while one is in it, but pain it turns out is far more a friend than a foe. Pain demonstrates that something is wrong – either physically or conceptually. When people cannot feel pain their very existence is endangered, a fact which is as true for the sociopath who feels no remorse as it is for the individual whose nerves cannot inform the brain their body is in distress. Thus, though many view pain as a foe it could in the end be a gift of the universe to finite things so their life doesn’t end prematurely or suffer even greater harm.
Though atheists make statements that require use to overstep the bounds of the physical data like, “God is not real”, believers of all kinds make just as many like, “All things happen according to God’s will” or “God was, is, and always will be”. Just as Atheists can never know there is nothing ‘divine’ or metaphysical due the limits of our awareness and the nature of knowledge, neither can believers. No one can be certain of what caused the big bang because it occurred outside of what we currently conceive of as ‘space’ and ‘time’, and we are made so that we can never get outside of our head, behind our reality, or become aware of all that is in reality.
These same limits prevent believers from obtaining certain knowledge. They cannot know divine agencies caused the acts recorded in ancient writings, even if there is proof events like those described happened in the places described. Maybe a great flood like Noah’s happened but no gods were involved, or maybe the Buddha was indeed a brilliant thinker but still never saw past his own ideas and cultural conditioning? Further, since God cannot talk with us anywhere other than in our head one can never be fully sure the voices they hear are really echoes of divine will – certainly all the conflicting ideas about ‘God’ is lend great power to this proposition. Maybe we have been trained to call that highest personal understanding which occurs in moments of belief filled contentment the voice of God or Buddha, or maybe we have assimilated the voice of our culture so the rules and norms of society become an inner voice which shames and affirms our thoughts and actions at every step.
Just as we cannot be certain of the words inside of our heads, neither can we be certain of the words outside of us. All the words people speak to us come from minds just like ours, minds prone to all our faults, limits, and lack of understanding. This is true also of written words, for all the words we have on paper were certainly placed there by human hands and have been expressed and handed down by human things. How can we know the authors of ancient books were really seeing God or Truth, and not just stating the ideas of their cultures or their personal reactions to them?
Not only things like this, but prayer too can never be finally established as the very thing responsible for some event or outcome -especially when people say God only works through physical means. Merely because a thing happens after another thing doesn’t mean the first thing caused it, thus answered prayers could merely be the moments when reality just happened to go the way we wanted it to and unanswered prayers are the times it didn’t. Indeed, anyone who prays knows that the most important prayers you could ever offer are often denied, and that the majority of prayers result in silence.
Of course people have created complex ways of circumventing failed prayer, ways which usually consist of assuming the existence of an equally improvable phenomenon. They make statements like, “God won’t answer me because God knows it isn’t best”, or “I am a sinful person.” How can you know what God knows or how God feels about any situation, especially recognizing that the books used as the voice of God are themselves filled with elements of uncertainty and massive contradiction? Further, how can you prove sin as a causal agent – or something that affects the world in a similar way that a drop of rain affects the pool of water into which it falls? These things are only knowable by reading human writings, can only be experienced inside our head, and cannot be separated from what seems to be the mere clockwork flow of the atomic world.
Thus, we see that questionable elements exist in the effects of prayer, the inspiration of holy books, and even the very existence of God. Further, we have seen that one’s senses cannot ever totally fathom reality, one’s conclusions are all based on interpretation, and godlessness is just as hard to prove as godfilledness.
Then, as though it wasn’t already hard enough, what we conclude about reality is very often corrupted by what we have already learned and experienced from reality, as well as our desire for what we hope is real.
Take some of the difficult passages present in the various ancient texts, like where God tells Saul to kill all the Amalekites for a few hundred year old crime in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 15:1-35), where Krishna watches his entire family kill each other in a drunken rage (Mahabharata: Mausala Parva; section 3), or where the Islamic prophet tutoring Moses kills an ‘ungodly’ child so the parents can have a ‘godly’ one (Koran 18:60-83). How is it just for God to punish a nation about four-hundred years after the fact, especially when all those who did the crime are already dead? Why would God incarnate watch while his whole clan slew each other when he certainly had the power to intervene? How is it even remotely okay to seemingly murder a child so his parents can have a godlier one who does not bring then disgrace?
How one interprets the events recorded in these texts will all depend upon their current schema- their current system of understanding all aspect of the world – and what they desire to be true. All of our prior training and hopes cause us to interpret these texts in a positive or negative way. If one believes in the religion taught in the above books, is nestled in a culture steeped in that religion, and must convey pure faith in that religion in order to avoid shame and loss, then they can find ways to explain all problematic texts so they don’t violate the other teachings of their faith. They can take positions like: God knows best, God is bringing about a greater good, something has been lost in translation, something was unknown to the author, or the whole of the text is metaphorical.
On the other hand if you doubt, are steeped in a culture where religious skepticism is common, and either have an income regardless of how you relate to religion or need to remain critical of religion in order to retain the role you currently fill in your sub-culture, then you can find ways to make them proofs that all ‘inspirations’ are but the brutal myths of primitive and self-deceived human things.
The irony of course is the texts just lay there, and those who have studied deeply can offer good reasons in a valid form which make their case sound persuasive regardless if it is pro or con.
“Of course God is good, and though there are gaps and reflections which seem to show otherwise this is merely because we do not have all the facts and lack certain faculties.”
Or
“Of course God and religion are illusions, there is no way one could ever justify the horrors and ignorance present in the ancient texts – especially since they are supposed to be emanations from an all wise, all powerful, and all good mind. Sure we cannot prove God is not there, but this is because God is like leprecons and mermaids – they were never there to begin with and so no one can find ‘proof’ of their absence.”
So whose school is the winner of the God debate, who is it that finally gets to decide life’s meaning? I say no one. We just don’t have the knowledge or faculties needed to address these things in great detail. There are too many possibilities and to little understanding. This is why the debate can rage on as it has for literally thousands of years; no one knows and can find no way to prove it. When I look at the complexity and order of the universe I am stunned that any of this should be at all. As far as I can see and reason we are dealing with a reality where in there is something which has never began.
Nothing comes from nothing, and so there must have always been something, something which is either uncaused or the cause of itself. Sure, one may say, “An endless chain of causes is an ‘infinite regression’, there has to have been a start for everything.” However, an ‘infinite regression’ is more mentally uncomfortable than it is logically impossible. All we see has a point where it takes a certain form we can sense, endures in our reality in a certain sensible form, and then exits both its current form and our perception. By making reality just like this we make reality fathomable, and thus feel like we can work within a realm we understand – one which moves from start to finish.
However, I do not think matter, energy, time, and space meet our tidy classifications. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, if it only changes forms, then how in the world did it get here? The ‘Big Bang’ is a wonderful theory built upon sound evidence and reasoning, however where did the matter come from and what force acted upon it to get it to: a) condense into a nano-ball of ultimate density and b) to then explode into that which we now are an see? Further, what caused the caused that caused the “Big Bang?” Surely there has to be one, and so it seems we are stuck in an ‘infinite regress’ not because we are illogical and stupid, but because we are being logical and wise.
Thus, having to admit an eternal something I am mentally humbled so that I cannot help but admit I just do not understand.
Is the order now demonstrated chaos becoming order, or is the chaos we see order becoming chaos? If one was catapulted into the heavens and another was dropped from them, there would be a point where they would each have the exact same view of reality. Thus, are we falling or rising? Are we moving from chaos to order or from order to chaos?
Also, going back just briefly to idea of order and the fact that we are all here in a working, living, system, some will say that given enough time randomness can create anything. Thus, the order and existences we see in reality could be the product of raw chance. While I do think this is potential true, it is also potentially false. Consider for a moment an analogy I have heard atheists use. If you took a deck of cards, and then shuffled, dealt, reshuffled, and dealt for all infinity, eventually you could get to a point where four people could each be dealt a full suit so that one had the full range of hearts, another spads, etc. Thus, all it could be a pure product of chance that eventually conditions in the universe were right for life and then we manifested.
Now, that is persuasive, however let us view this same story in a different way. Suppose two others, yourself, and I were playing cards – spades to be precise. You and I have had a really bad night, and have lost all of our money cause we are gambling on who’ll win. Then, on the last game we all decide to go all in. We play the full game and then come down to the final hand, and it just so happens it is my deal. I shuffle all the cards carefully, and then deal. Slowly, as the hands are given to their respective owners, it becomes clear I have dealt every spade in the deck to myself and you. Now then, which do you think is more likely: that you and I have been graced by the gods of chance or that I have cheated? Most anyone would say our full set of spades occurred because I had stacked the deck – that intelligence had acted on all the parts in a certain way so that a specific outcome would occur. Why? Because the chances are just so slim that the deck would ever fall like that without the aid of intelligence.
Returning then to our discussion on the complexity of life, it becomes clear that neither those who affirm chance nor those who affirm intelligence can use the intricacy of the universe as the final proof for or against the existence of something divine. No matter if one concludes chance or the metaphysical their conclusion is only a possible inference and not a necessary one, because there is more than one answer which could fit the evidence.
Uncertainty is very uncomfortable; however it seems that due to the nature of our senses and the construction of the world we are forced into admitting that we can be certain about a relatively small amount of things.
If God is there and aware, like the Abrahamic God, why are rapists allowed to ruin the lives of children, and human beings permitted to stagger around in darkness killing each other over the color of the divine shadows they see? If God wanted us to know and be one with him would it not be easier to just tell us, and replace the shades with substance?
If God is there and unaware, like many Hindu conceptions of divinity, then how can we know that what we see is really divine? How can we prove there will be after life consequences for the actions we now take? Here the problem is not that reality is incompatible with God’s nature, it is that our nature has prevented us from seeing what God really is and therefore caused ourselves oceans of pain. Yet, showing this view to be true is just as important because few will relinquish their culture’s ideas of God simply because another is certain of theirs. Then, just like in all versions of God, there is the question about how we know if ‘divinity’ is real or simply a psychological projection?
Finally, if God is not there at all can we ever really prove it? A Godless universe certainly seems to be the case when one begins to move beyond the operation of the earth and into all the operations which are allowed. There is death, disease, and decay on tremendous scales without so much as one visible twinkle from any divinities eye. Islands of people washed away by tsunamis, whole nations ripped apart by wars and poverty that has in some cases been foisted on them due to their lack of power in the global political arena; it is hard to be responsible for what you cannot control. No dear friends, atheism is not some farfetched denial of the facts about the world, rather it is a very logical and persuasive concept derived from them.
So where do we stand and what shall we be? I have only mentioned three major traditions of thought above and even then only very generally. Saying, “Christians” is about as specific as saying “insects”. Such generalities show us almost nothing about those within them. Thus, we are faced with a staggering variety of traditions and individuals. Not only this, but we have an almost endless amount of religious material, as well as a body of scientific information the same size produced by a community which itself has hundreds of schools and branches.
Steeped in culture, blinded by the limits of sense and mind, stuck forever within ourselves, where can we go to be sure we know? We cannot prove God is not there, and yet we can hardly believe any of the ancient texts and traditions came from an all-knowing mind due to all the scientific errors and cultural horrors contained in them; a fact that is not helped by merely saying they were meant to be metaphorical because then how does one know what parts were ‘human metaphor’ and what parts were ‘divine inspiration’?
Ten years ago I wanted to go around the world and learn everything there is to know so I could show others just how true my religion and ideas were. However, after open minded and honest study I have learned my ideas are just as questionable as anyone else’s, and that other people have reasons and proofs just as good as mine – and often times even better – for the things they hold to be most true.
Not only this, but I have discovered that everyone is at different levels of truth, so that even when truth is being spoken it is not always heard as such. People who lack understanding will hear truth and call it lies, and hear lies and call it truth – a process which is made so much easier when one is surrounded by thousands of other people who feel just like they do. We cannot convey a life time of study to another person, rid them of all their biases, or instill in them the mental tools needed to find knowledge and know it to be such in a five minute conversation.
Thus, there is only one course left open to me, and with boldness I declare that it is the only course left open to all human things: respect, permit, understand, and learn. We may not agree on what is not seen, but since we cannot finally prove our ideas true or false we need to turn our focus to the here and now. There is real and knowable pain, disease, death, and sorrow here. This world is in bad shape, and the reasons for its current condition are discoverable – if not already known in many cases.
So then, let us focus on making life beautiful for all and working together to understand the truth of all things. We must not allow our hopes and fears to prevent us from being open minded, nor can we afford to allow our preferences and revulsions to cause us to make other living things of no worth. We do not have to agree upon what is beyond sight, or even on what is within sight, as long as we agree to respect others as we would like to be respected, to permit them to live life as they see fit, understand the knowable causes and constructions of things – other people included, and strive to always learn more because the only cure I have found which fixes every aliment is truth.
The full spectrum of human diversity and thought can live in harmony with all of its parts as long as people get rid of the idea that they are so right everyone else must be forced into behaving, appearing, and thinking like them. We cannot help but to evaluate others and live our lives according to what we think is highest truth. Yet, we must also realize in other circumstances we would’ve been very much like the person we are judging and that no matter how far we have swam an infinite ocean of truth about ourselves and the world remains to be explored.
If there is an all-knowing & all-virtuous metaphysical being, then I am sure only such a being could justly and with right perspective pass judgment on any mortal thing we have met or can meet. If we spent as much time fixing ourselves as we did trying to fix others, then there would be much smaller numbers in need of fixing and our efforts to do so would be more productive. We can only be responsible for ourselves, and we must learn to control our thoughts and feelings no matter what is occurring in the external world. If we will admit these things and apply ourselves to them, then others can do or be whatever they want to do or be without affecting our inner peace or causing any of our conduct to veer from the ideals of whatever practice we are implementing. Not only this, but we will not destroy their peace by forcing our norms and values upon them.
I am convinced there is a universe outside of us which is filled with things which are what they are independent of what we hope or imagine them to be. These things are put together in a certain way, operate in a certain way, and affect other things in a certain way. Thus, each of the things in the universe has an infinite number of true statements which could be said about it, and it is up to us as viewers to discern those so that we can realize and avoid falsehood.
I have talked a great deal about the limits of human perception, understanding, and knowledge, as well as how all our conclusions are merely positions derived from premises which were themselves interpretations of the things we do and do not sense. However, please do not take this to mean I believe we can know nothing and all interpretations are false.
Modern science shows that we can gain knowledge about the world around us, and that we can use this knowledge to manipulate reality so that it becomes more suitable to our needs and tastes. Meanwhile, all the social communities on earth show that human things can not only correct interpret stimuli in their environment, but they show that we do it every day. Every time cars do not crash at stop lights, every time one makes a verbal or graphic expression and another ‘gets’ it, people are receiving stimuli and interpreting them properly – and these are just two examples.
Thus, when I am critical of interpretation I am only critical of it because without great care and incessant effort and study there is so many ways for it to go wrong. Of these ways is to interpret one set of symbols according to a rule which doesn’t apply to them. For example, what if I were to try to understand a calculus equation with a Hebrew dictionary? It just wouldn’t make sense, and it would not make sense only because I was using the wrong rule cause my mind and sensory tools would be working just fine.
In the same way I cannot help but ask, “By what rule shall we measure this reality?” Shall we make what we sense and what we think to be true the rule? What a broken little ruler this is! We know much, and yet for everything we know there is something we don’t know well, don’t know rightly, or don’t know at all, and our the limits of our senses is revealed by all the tools we have had to create to help us see cells, slow time, and glimpse the stars. Shall I then judge all this infinity by my finiteness? It seems like I cannot help but to do so, but I am forced to always admit my best concepts may be lies and my truest image a mere appearance.
I do not know where God is, and if I go only by senses, proof, and logic, I am inclined to conclude – albeit with a heavy heart – that God is just a dream we made to help us get through the dark. However, at all times I am aware that what I sense is limited, my proofs follow a line of reasoning which could be flawed, and my logic is only as good as the data I put in. Thus, like a child who doesn’t understand its parents actions, there could come a time when Divinity shines wisdom and true insight upon me and all that was once puzzling is not only shown to be reasonable to have been the best possible thing an all-powerful and all-knowing being could produce.
I am well aware that, “God’s understanding is infinite – we cannot judge it” may just be a load of bull created by human things whose ideas about the world are so broken and devoid of truth that only such a statement could defend them. However, if God really is there and really is infinite in power and knowledge then how can I judge anything? How foolish for a kindergarten to scoff at the math of Einstein when they still cannot add two and two. Granted it would seem that if God is there God would just appear and rid me, and this world, of all these questions; however this thought arises from a certain conception of God and a certain conception of what God can and cannot do.
The costs of a failed understanding of reality are eternal and infinite one way or the other. If God is not there and I give my whole life to the concept, then I have allowed lies to take to me, illusions to suck my means, and pointless denials to rob me of countless beautiful experiences. On the other hand if God is there and I think not, then I will have possibly missed out on unspeakable eternities filled with wonder. Either way, the cost is the same – all I am wasted on lies.
Thus dear friends, seek the truth and let others do so as well. Move beyond fear, and test all the claims your culture merely assumed, planted in you, and forbade you to measure or change. Just as it is horribly unwise to let the confidence and opinions of others to dictate our actions, it is also awfully unwise to use our experiences as the final rule of what has been, is, or will be. All interpretations are types of personal judgment, all judgments are made according to some rule, and if our rules are crooked all our judgments will be erroneous.
Also, we must be careful when we say things like ‘this is good’, ‘that is bad’, ‘that is better’ and ‘this is worse’. All things are ‘good’ for some things and ‘bad’ for others, just as all things are ‘better’ for certain outcomes and ‘worse’ for others. Value judgments are extremely relative, and often are skewed by our fears, hopes, and cultural programming. Thus, when one says ‘this is good’ ask, “Good for what? Good by what standard, and what gives said standard universal authority?” The same should apply to statements of ‘better’ and ‘worse’.
Divorce your feelings, dreams, and hopes from your considerations of truth. Look dispassionately upon what is, upon what other believe to be, and upon what you believe to be. Learn logic, study the sciences, practice wisdom, and deem no idea as foolish because you cannot know if it is foolish until you have studied the length, breadth, and implications of the subject. If you want to know what those of some school or individual – atheistic, theistic, or otherwise – thinks about reality, then go directly to them and take the words from their mouth for others will skew rival interpretations of reality to make their own appear strong and more compelling. Let others live their life for they too have only one, and never forget that all of us in the final account will get what we do and be what we are.
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