So I'm not dead. Not even on the inside. Of course, there's probably a reason for that. I've been out of bed a grand total of maybe 15 minutes today, most of which was taking up with putting fries in the oven, then getting them out and putting them on a plate, then putting the plate in the sink. Not to many chances for a violent or accidental death in that.
I'm still Chris though. I'm glad about that. I may die, but at least I'm dieing complete. The only thing I really have to complain about is that our network connection has gone all funky suddenly and I can't get on ICQ. I figure there's no point in complaining about anything else, because I already know it sucks, and I refuse to put forth the slightest bit of effort to change it until I receive the recognition or position I want. Otherwise I'll be dead and it won't matter anyway.
So now I have to decide what subject I want to talk about more. Religion, Faith, Love, Romance?
Let's go with Reality.
First off, it should be obvious I'm not a particularly religious person. And it's perfectly easy to explain why. I do believe in God, mind, just not in the same way as most people. I am a polytheist, I believe in multiple gods, but I don't believe that any one god is all powerful.
Which is not to say I don't believe in an omnipotent presence, a creator, per se, but I'll get to that.
So I do believe in the Christian God (who, incidentally, is not the same god as that worshipped by the Muslims or the Jews, both of whom I believe in equally). But, as much belief as I have, as much faith as I have, I worship no one and nothing.
I mean, look at it from my point of view. Even if God were omnipotent, and omnipresent, and omniscient, and loving, and caring, and perfect, and wonderful, why should I give a fuck? I don't need someone to care for me. I mean, my mother and father have loved me and cared for me all my life, and this has never been an exceedingly important part of my life. Why should I require something from someone I don't even know just because he's all powerful when I can get it when and if I need it from the people who've cared for me all my life?
And power? What is power? So God has the power to smite me, or damn me. Well, so what? I respect his power, but that's no reason to worship him, or even pay attention to him. I mean, any living being has the power to kill me if they so choose, so does that mean I should worship everyone who walks around with a loaded weapon? I think not. And I feel the same way about God. If he wishes to smite me, he's welcome to try.
And perfection? I don't want to be perfect. I think perfection is a horrible thing. I mean, think of it. You could never, ever, under any circumstances, make a mistake. Would that not suck total ass? There are a lot of things I don't want, and being perfect is right there at the top of the list. I enjoy being fallible, I enjoy having the ability to surprise myself, I enjoy being wrong about some things, I enjoy fixing problems I've caused. I'm as near perfect right now as I could ever wish to be. Usually right, always in control, I don't need perfection, I like me.
So, while I accept the existence of quite a number of Gods, I treat them as I would any other living being, although, technically speaking, they are not living. But then, I suppose I would treat non-living beings the same way. I mean, hell, I treat Fiera about the same, and she's my stuffed cat.
Just an aside, having to do with respect, and humanity, and the sanctity of life.
I have respect for all things, living or inanimate or other (and yes, there is an other, although that's another explanation for later). Not equal respect by any means. For instance, I have far more respect for your average panther than I do for you average human. But, in the end, it tends to be humans who get the most respect from me, those special, unique individuals who don't, well suck complete and total ass on a fairly regular basis for the apparent purpose of irritating the hell out of me specifically. Yeah, you know who you are.
However, failing specifics, I don't see all that big a difference between one being and the next. I value humans just as much as I do flies. And it's not so much that I think humans aren't so very much more than flies, as it is, I think flies aren't so very much less than humans, if you can see my point.
You see, all living creatures can be defined by the concept of self. And the self can be split into five parts.
Now, before I go on, I should explain that I understand people. I've always understood people, since the day of my birth. I didn't understand the perfectly then, I've gotten much better now, but to give you a clue: I've taken a number of psychology classes since coming to college. In that entire time I've only learned on thing about people I didn't already know. That's right, Skinner, Freud, Jung, all the others, there's only one thing they managed to figure out in all their studies that I didn't know before I graduated High School.
That one thing had to do with dissociative disorders. Go figure.
Of course, I had a significant advantage over most of them. Almost all of them were dealing with people with abnormal personalities, and most of them had normal personalities. I myself have an abnormal personality, and have dealt almost equally with both normal and abnormal personalities in my studies. So it's not that I'm so much better at it than they were as I just had a broader scope of considerations, with better chance for comparison of personality.
Anyway, I'm not going to go into my entire theory of personality here, which takes up lots of space, just the simple parts here, the things that make a living being.
I suppose it's important to do these in the correct order, so the first is, of course, the Spirit. Always the first, because the Spirit is the most active, deterministic portion of the Self. The Spirit is the house of the Will. The potential for your personality exists from your birth in your Spirit, and who you can become is determined by this.
Next is the Mind, oddly enough. The mind is the determinator of behavior. This is not the same as personality (despite what Skinner may have said or proven). The Mind is also the center of cognition however, of awareness, thought and problem solving. Not imagination or creativity, however. The fact of the matter is, imagination wouldn't exist without both a mind and a spirit.
It's also important to remember that your personality is determined by all five of these, not any one of them.
The third is your Soul. Many people use the words Spirit and Soul interchangeably, but this is somewhat wrong. Wheareas the Spirit is active and deterministic, the Soul is passive but controlling, what Freud referred to as the SuperEgo, for the Soul is the center of the conscience. But that's not all, for it governs all similar dichotimies, (or trichotimies as it were), such as the difference between Chaos and Order (some of us are more chaotic than others I mean...well, you see), Ambition and Altruism, so on and so forth. The major difference between my theory and Freud's is that I believe the Soul exists from birth, while he believes the SuperEgo is formed over the course of your young life. And the SuperEgo is always geared toward the good, whereas a person is just as likely have a Chaotic Evil Altruistic soul as they are a Neutral Ordered Ambitious Soul. (Don't even ask about the Evil Altruistic and how it works, but if you must know, think the Borg, or rather something roughly similar.)
Third is the Heart, the center of emotion. No, emotion isn't simply a result of chemical reactions. Of this I'm absolutely certain, although I accept that the visible affects of these chemicals may be identical to the visible affects of these emotions. This does not mean they are the same, although it does mean that one is just as good as the other. However, if you'd like to present me with a chemical which produces the exact same effect as a prolonged and lasting love, then I might be willing to reconsider. I'd also be willing to take a large quantity of that substance off your hands, cause I have some remarkably interesting things I could do with that. And if you think I have any intention of making people fall in love with me, you just don't have near enough imagination, and don't know me at all.
Finally is the Body, the physical housing for the other parts of the self, but it too has a lot to do with how our personality comes out. After all, we're as much chemicals and genes as we are thoughts and will.
Now, this is not meant to be a metaphysical discussion in any way. The words I used were just that, words. Each one chosen because of it's connotations, cause of it's history and correlation with certain beliefs and cultural ideas. I could have just as easily said Chi, Brain, Mana, Spleen and Substance. But I didn't, for a reason. It's quite possible that the other three are merely systems that exist as part of the Brain (the other 3 being those that aren't the Mind or Body), but all five are necessary, and all 5 exist in any living creature.
Which is why I don't look at flies as less than humans. They have emotions, too, though probably not nearly so advanced as our own, which is probably all for the best, as far as they're concerned.
I've killed numberless flies, spiders, ants, silver fish, roaches and other insects in my life. I'll leave it up to you why I haven't done something similar with humans.
So what I'm getting at, gods exist like any other existence. I mean, there are rocks, there are ants, and there are gods. How you treat each is totally dependent on your world view. Now, I cannot go so far as to say gods are alive, but then, I really don't know, I've never talked to a god, gotten to know one well enough to determine. I have with cats and dogs and snakes and owls though (well, not the talking), and I assume it goes on with Amphibians. I'm purely assuming about plants, other kingdoms, and the invertebrate animals, but I think it's a reasonable assumption. I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to rocks, though.
But I am a creationist. I do believe that the universe was created. I do not, however, believe that humanity was so much created as it evolved over time, purely randomly. I'm relatively certain that the gods came to exist over time as well.
No, when the universe was created, the only thing that was created was matter and energy and the rules which govern them, and by those rules eventually planets, stars, gods, life and so on and so forth formed over time.
And my personal theory even fits in with the big bang theory.
I believe the Creator is a conscious existence, fully aware, but in no way technically alive.
I also cannot accept that the creator is benevolent, nor is he particularly malevolent. I could understand why he might wish to guardian over his creation, but not why he would favor any particular segment (such as humanity) over another. After all, he created it all. From his point of view, it all belongs to him.
And yes, I did say him, but this is obviously inaccurate, as, technically speaking, the Creator would have no gender, and would need none. He's the only one of his kind. But I'm going to continue calling him him, because, goddamnit, I was born into a semi-partriarchal society which has completely affected my speech and writing patterns and it's too damn much effort to catch myself every single fucking time. I mean, seriously, there is not a single person who believes more in gender equality than I do, but frankly, I think the terms him, her, guy, dude and so on are pretty much non-gender specific. Yes, her is non-gender specific. I know a lot of people who, when they don't know what sex someone or something is just say her.
And no, I'm not going to refer to the Creator as it.
Which is not to say I don't believe he may take a special interest in a particular human, or a particular plant, or whatever, for it's own, personal unique qualities. I'm sure he even has a favorite rock. But an entire group of humans, just because they're on a particular planet? There's not a significant uniqueness to such a large group for that to make any sense.
So, we may be the beloved of God, but we're not the beloved of the Creator, not as a group anyway. I'm sure one of you out there has piqued his interest, and he watches you avidly.
Which is not to say that God didn't create us, mind. I mean, the universe has been around quite a while, and the Earth only a small time, relatively speaking. I'm sure there were Biped, intelligent creatures elsewhere in the universe before us, and God was like, "Well, I want me some of them," so he made humanity (which just gives me another reason NOT to worship God). So it would make sense that he cares for and loves each and every one of us. But I wish he wouldn't, cause frankly, that just annoys me more than anything else.
Don't even get me started on Jesus. That is a completely different discussion altogether.
So the universe began, and from a physical standpoint, it has to end at some point, although I suspect this is technically incorrect. The universe could continue indefinitely since neither matter nor energy can be consistently created or destroyed, just one transferred into the other.
So when the end comes. When it's all said and done, and everything is complete (or as complete as it's going to be), when time stops and there's nothing after, what do you think will be the most important thing? What do you think the point of it all will have been? What do you think will be the one thing, or one group of things, that was more important than any other?
You can send your answers to my e-mail, or just post them in my guestbook (the Book of Enlightenment link to the left). I really want to know what you all think. At any point. Even if this thing is here three years from now and someone decides to answer, please feel free to do so. This is a question I'm always interested in.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, as long as you bring the other guy down with you.
recent...
2000-11-03 - Apparently there's still some potential enlightment in this thing.
2000-11-03 - Random Acts of Violence
2000-10-30 - Meaningless
2000-10-28 - I most fervently bless you all!
2000-10-28 - Nothing at all like the KKK.
Step Back ---/// Take a Step ///--- End of the Path