Sacred Mysteries

When I started this project of analyzing Christianity, with my trinity essay and new blog of daily biblical analysis and interpretation, I seriously had the idea that Jesus Himself is just that, a metaphor. That someone, a genius obviously, decided to write a story of Jesus, perhaps the author is the true Jesus that wrote a story to deliver His messages. If that’s the case, then certainly the entirety of the Gospel shall be able to be deciphered into a universal truth. This includes Mary, which is an interesting figure here. However, as I read today’s passage, I realized that is simply untrue. While Jesus shows no favoritism to any ethnicity, and is even rejected by the Jews for not living up to their expectations, we have seen a conflicting and contradictory account from His closest ones, His own mother, the virgin Mary. This gives doubt to the Jesus story hypothesis, as why would the author include such trivial detail? As such it’s more likely that the Gospel actually happened, let’s disect it.

In today’s passage, Mary met Elizabeth and exchanged thoughts, Mary replied Elizabeth by praising God. If you pay attention to her final statements, you can see her Jewish beliefs being expressed very frontally. Mary, being a Jew, had thought that her son, Jesus, would be the messiah of the Jews, she was unfortunately wrong. We see others seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise that God gave to the Jews. Now why would an author write in some characters that simply makes the message unclear? It is thus easier to believe that the gospel actually happened, and what we are seeing is a conflict of interest between Jesus and His colleagues. His colleagues, which are Jews and ethnically inspired, saw Jesus in an ethnic central way. Jesus, however knew that the world is not for a single nation, the world is a whole in entirety, and He wishes to deliver some important messages.

The reason I was thinking of Jesus being a fictional character made by someone else wishing to deliver some message is because of one vital event, perhaps the center of Christian faith, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. If the gospel is simply a metaphorical story, then we can take away Jesus’ death as merely metaphorical as well, and I already had an idea for that. However, since it’s more likely for Jesus to be an actual figure that truly happened in history, that means He genuinely died on the cross, and then resurrected on the third day, and finally went to heaven. This, complicates matters, by a large margin. And even if this is just fiction, there is still one thing that is still unclear, the baptism. While I can just talk about His birth first, it seems that is a topic of another day. The baptism is in need of an examination for now.

When Jesus came to John, he was shocked that the Lord would ask to be baptized, and even claimed that he, John, should be the one baptized, and not Jesus. In my opinion, Jesus wishes to show that He is human, like everyone else watching, He is no less human than any of them. The baptism uses water, obviously, and the meaning of water is quite easy to decipher. Water is commonly used to clean stuff, including our body. As such, the baptism is more of a metaphor for the cleansing of our spirit, cleansing us from our previous sins. Water is pure, and by washing our body with it, we make our body pure as well, just as in the baptism, we purify our spirit. Then what about the Father saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased,” and the dove which is supposedly the holy spirit? That is not that hard to answer, let’s see what it means.

In my personal opinion, the Father and the holy spirit interacting with Jesus is a metaphor as well. It is a metaphor for the reconciliation of the spirit with their true nature, God, a rebirth into purity, purity that allows the spirit to finally, hear God again. This fits with our interpretation of the trinity, the Father is God as our guide and source, saying that He loves us, and He is pleased with us. Of course, God had always loved us before baptism, but only now our spirit is purified to see God’s love. God is pleased with us as we are now purified. The holy spirit, as we know is simply an extension of God the Father, and fits nicely. Now that we have deciphered the meaning of the baptism, mostly, it’s time for the most challenging part, the crufixion.

In the Christian faith, Jesus dies to atone for all of our sins. And of course, physical pain is not His only risks, it seems His spirit is at risk as well. Of course this is the only logical explanation. But how is His spirit is at risk? And furthermore, I seriously doubt this entire line of reasoning. How does Jesus sacrifice Himself? What would even happen if Jesus didn’t sacrifice Himself? Furthermore, the fact that Jesus would then obtain glory of a magnitude incomparable to any human in existence seems to make His sacrifice almost meaningless. And what is Jesus trying to save us from? If we try to fit this into our deduction that God encompasses the entire existence, we know that this seems weird. God sacrifices themself to save themself from, what? We won’t abandon this idea however, we’ll just store it until I can figure out what any of this means.

In my opinion, the death of Jesus represents a sacrifice towards true freedom. Freedom of the flesh, but not just being able to control our flesh without the flesh controlling us, this grander freedom is also the freedom of the material world. And thus gaining complete control it. By dying, Jesus is set free of His chains that is called the body, and now He can pretty much do as he pleases. This idea is supported by the fact that after Jesus is resurrected, He can appear whereever, using His physical body, since He can eat grilled fish and have His disciples touch Him. He’s not appearing as a ghost, He’s manipulating the law of physics in a way that He can simply manifest His body with the energy around whereever He appears. As such, His death represents true freedom from this world, and His ascension the final reconcialiation with God.

But wait! There’s more to this, if His death is a metaphor for true freedom, then it’s more likely that Jesus is a fictional story, but we know the chances are low, so, what now? That means Jesus actually died on the cross, and was then resurrected after three days. However, if that is so, what for? Why would Jesus go all of that simply to deliver one message? Especially when not many people actually get His message, instead they distort it into what Christianity is now. My point is, what would happen if Jesus did not die on the cross and no sacrifice of the lamb of God was made? Would humankind be damned for all time? But we know humanity is God as well, so God would be damned? What kind of damnation, or perhaps oblivion that faces us in the event that the tree of the cross was never chopped down? These are all important questions, but they are for another day, and another time, have a nice day.

Redefining The Trinity

It is true that I am a de jure Catholic, but I am not completely Catholic de facto, as I also know my own deductions. As I continue to wonder at the nature of existence and the divine, I had an urge to leave religion, but I know, Christianity is somewhat special. Unlike its fellow abrahamic religions which is quite ethnic central and strict in rules, Christianity is different. While seemingly ethnic, it isn’t, the values espoused are seemingly very universal values. It is still somewhat hard on tradition, as for masses and scripted prayers and sacraments and so on. However, I’ve always thought that very little of Christianity should be taken literally. Especially things such as the doctrine of Eucharist as the Body of Christ, Mariology, Trinity, and the whole Jesus doctrine, which makes the religion so focused on the identity of Jesus, I believe are all metaphors that teaches us many other values. Even Jesus teaches in metaphors, heavily. So let’s begin, shall we?

For now, I’ll just discuss the Holy Trinity first, as that seems pretty important, and I was inspired to write about the Trinity first because when I usually pray, I still make the sign of the Cross, but being me, I am disturbed that I am doing something that I have no idea what it means, so I decided to open my analysis of Christianity with this, the Trinity. I’ll just dive straight in, as this isn’t a truely formalized essay, since I’m tired of making those well organized and structured essays as it doesn’t seem to be needed as of now, I’ll just make sure that it gets written first. Structure can come later. Anyway, in Catholicism, God is portrayed as a Trinity. That is God is one in nature but three in person, basically God has 3 personalities or identities. Basically, God is divided into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This doctrine at first glance sounds logical as God should be able to have multiple identities, since God is infinite and all encompassing. Now, it’s better if we disect each identities first.

The Father in this doctrine simply refers to God as a Creator and as the Father of all. That seems logical enough. The Son here traditionally refers to Jesus Christ, which is described as the Son of God. The actual role of the Son here is to be argued, but the Son comes from the Father. In the Gospel, the Son is sent by the Father to save all of mankind, and to sacrifice Himself for mankind. If we simply look at Jesus’ role in this, He acts more of a teacher and a preacher. As most of the things He did is teach, even miracles are to help deliver His messages. As we have seen that He doesn’t use miracles to simply help, there are meanings behind His actions. In fact, His entire life seems to be dedicated to delivering very specific messages. And then there’s the Holy Spirit, which is described by Jesus as a companion to be sent by Him after He left. The role of the Holy Spirit is quite self explanatory, and thus I won’t explain any further.

The problem of most Christians is they take that concept of the Trinity very literally, which is why Christians pray to literally 3 identities of the same being. This is in fact, quite odd, as what obliges God to follow this specific criteria? Especially with Jesus as the Son and making the Son as the center of the worship. Perhaps, there’s something else behind this concept, let’s try to expose the true meaning of this sacred mystery. You see, the Trinity simply refers to the 3 forms or natures of God, and not identity or Person. Father here refers to God’s role as a central controller of the universe and also the source of all, this is shown by the physical laws that dictate the mechanism of this universe. Simply put, God the Father is the controller of the universe and also the creator of all, this side of God is mechanical and directly interferes with the world, other manifestations of this is also the result of random events. The Holy Spirit merely refers to God as a companion, a friend that’s always there by our side. As someone that loves us unconditionally and wants the best for us. As a result, the Holy Spirit and the Father is usually combined into one. The Son however, is much harder to decipher, but let’s see what we can do.

I can’t provide much evidence, other than verses from the Gospel, furthermore this is just my interpretation. This part can be elaborated even further, but I’ll make it short for the sake of explaining the Trinity. In my humble opinion, when Christians label the Son as Jesus, Jesus never meant Himself as the Son, but someone else. And my hypothesis is that the person, or people Jesus is referring to is everyone else. Or specifically humanity, this makes sense, as we have ascertained that everyone is just different iterations of the same consciousness, each iteration is affected by the physical laws and comes as a result of those laws, meaning they come from the Father. Jesus presses on this as He always refers to Himself as the Son of Man, meaning that He too is human. What about when He said that we can only go through Him to reach the Father as in John 8:19 and John 14:6? What He means is that we must know about ourselves if we want to know of God. As we are God in itself. We can not learn about God without learning about ourselves as well, as we are the closest representation of God. And that is what Jesus meant.

This is just the first of my analysis of Christianity, and there’s much more to explain, especially about Jesus and who He is. That’s all for now.

Freedom

I recommend you read my previous essay on consciousness before you read this. As I would be incorporating parts of it into this essay, and I won’t repeat, so go ahead. In this essay, I will discuss about freedom, the concept of it, and of course my opinions on freedom. Why am I interested in this topic? You see, there is a trend of people claiming to stand for freedom, the freedom illustrated here is usually freedom from authority and so and so, or freedom to do whatever we want, and so and so. Extreme versions may include anarchism and atheism. Yes, some atheists are atheists for freedom, as they view God as an oppressor (even if they are God as well, read my essay). Well then, let’s dissect the concept piece by piece.

First, let’s talk about our traditional concept of freedom. Freedom from authority, either an artificial or natural authority. This includes rules, Gods, the natural laws, and so on. We are naturally wired to love this type of freedom. Which is why there is a natural dislike towards authority, such as the government, parents, or teachers. At an extreme version, God. It is ironic how we used to want authority, because we need a guide, we need someone to help us, someone that is experienced, to serve as our guide. Authority gives us a strict guidelines and we just follow it, it’s easier than having to think for ourselves, right? However so, it seems the times have changed.

Nowadays, people want to break free from that authority, they want freedom as they believe they are capable enough. It is a desire of pure autonomy and independence of the self. Of course, freedom is a double edged sword, you can be independent or you can fall astray and become a degraded being. Let me explain, I’ll take this from my personal observations, it may not be true for others, but hear me out. As I live out my life in school, I see that many of my colleagues are disrespectful towards the rules, and they express a common desire to break out of their misery. A good example is viewing the study and the programs as a sort of torture and pain, basically something negative. Or perhaps, general disrespect towards God in the form of being noisy in the chapel and church. Another thing, general disrespect of the nation by protesting about morning assembly and so on. Let’s take a closer look.

If one is protesting against an authority that genuinely causes more harm than good, I would support them. However, you can see that the things my colleagues are protesting against aren’t necessarily harmful. The study and tasks in my school are hard, but they are meant to train students for a harsh world. Respecting God and the nation is something that you do a priori, unless your nation is founded upon excruciatingly barbaric ideals, that’s another story. Especially in Indonesia, where independence is gained by blood and not money, I personally believe that you have to respect those who made your life possible. God, well that’s quite obvious, again read my previous essays. So what are my colleagues trying to escape to?

What I see is a devolution into immorality and degeneration. Their freedom is more of freedom to do whatever they want. But is there not a certain purpose that directs them? Yes there is, and it’s called, “happiness”. Many times I notice, they dislike the authority, as it hinders them from comfort, and things that usually make them happy. Such as friends, gaming, and other stuff that usually makes them happy. They felt that their freedom to reach such happiness has been hindered by the authority. As such they behave the way they behave. Ironically, in their quest for freedom, they become slaves. In my observations, my colleagues devolve into an anarchic chaotic mess, without any order any direction, each doing what maximizes their personal happiness. In the absence of authority, they become uncivilized folks, and contradictively they are most unfree in such state. Of course, not all of them act uncivilized, I know some folks that would maintain their ideals and civilized order in absence of authority. As such, I will explain why the anarchic mess is not freedom.

Notice how they all chase “happiness”, but this blind desire of ecstasy and euphoria is the proof of their chains. As I have proven, consciousness is not intrinsic to the organic vessel it inhabits, this body is merely a means of interacting with the rest of the world. Termination of such body only means we lack means of interaction, or at least it is reduced to a great extent. As such, we should be able to control our body. Of course, the flesh has its own tendencies, most notably the dopamine mechanism, responsible for happiness. When we go for a blind no authority freedom, we have fallen victim to our own flesh. We fail to recognize the true nature of our self, and we accept our organic vessel as our de facto self. Which is why we become binded by the desires of the flesh. We become slaves of the flesh and thus, we surrender our freedom for an illusory freedom. And now, I’ll tell you my opinion of freedom.

True freedom is achieved when we acknowledge that we are more than flesh. That we have power to choose contrary to our flesh. That is in a sense, true freedom is freedom from the flesh. In that case, we behave not by our flesh, but by our true logical mind, we do what is right and not what feels good. To illustrate further, I’ll serve some analogies. If one blindly follows the rules, without understanding the meaning of those rules then they are not free either. As they did so because of the decision of others, and not theirselves. On the contrary, if one follows the rules because they found that it is right, and they understood the meaning of it, and it is by their own decision, they are free. Similarly, if one uses their freedom to act disrespectful towards God, are they free? No, as they act based on the desires of their flesh, and not their own. But what if one uses their freedom to help others regularly, or perhaps criticize an unfair system? In such case, if their intentions are pure, and they act because they had decided that it is right to do so, then they are free.

Freedom is not the freedom to do anything you want, freedom is independence and autonomy from the flesh. That means to make rational decisions based on what is right and not what feels good. To make a responsible decision. Freedom is when you act based on your own mind, and not others or even your flesh. However so, tying back to the topic of consciousness. Since everyone is in the end, the same being, it does not mean to reject authority or reject others, or to become completely independent, being free simply means that when you do something, you do it because you know it’s good and it’s right. Not because someone else told you, even if they did, the final decision is in your hands. Do you still need others? Yes you do, figures of authority? Of course, but they are all there to help you, not force you. The ultimate decision lies on your mind, not your flesh or the government, that is all I have to say.

Certainty

This is somewhat related to my arguments about consciousness, but here, I want to talk of certainty. I find it weird how atheists and materialists speak of science and reality as if it is something certain. However, that is simply untrue. As you see, what we traditionally define as certainty or a probability of 1 is never actually 1. Unless we are counting the probability of something within a system that we have complete control and knowledge of. Such as having a box full of red balls. The probability of picking up a red ball would be a guaranteed one, because we have absolute control of the balls. But what if we have no idea? What if we have no knowledge of what’s in the box. Say for years, we pick one ball from the box, and always get a red ball. Oh, and that ball is discarded away from the box. Will that experience mean that all of the balls in the box are red? No, absolutely not.

However, the probability may be near to 1, something like 0.99 something. But not 1, it’s almost certain, but why not a 1? As we don’t have complete knowledge of that box. What if there’s a ball of another color somewhere there? We don’t know, we can predict, we can believe but we can never know. Our beliefs that all of the balls is red may be backed up, but it is never a certain knowledge. The same goes for the entire world. Perhaps now we have discovered many laws that set this universe on motion. But can we say it is certain? No. Because we don’t know all of the universe, there is always a factor that is unknown, that will make it impossible for us to be absolutely certain. In fact, it is possible for the universe to be simply random and uncontrolled, and thus that would mean certainty is impossible. Of course, I’m disregarding closed artificial systems. So that’s it, there’s no such thing as certainty, right? Whoops, wrong again.

If we fail to be certain in anything else, for we do not possess all information that is to possess, we can be certain of one thing. Ourselves. If a being is conscious, that being should be able to genuinely feel and be aware of itself. We’re counted of course. And surely, the fact that we can feel and be aware of it means we exist. And thus our existence is a guaranteed certainty, a probability of 1. You would always be conscious and be awake, and thus you always exist, if you don’t exist, you wouldn’t be there to feel it. If you feel it, you exist, and you must always exist, that is something that can’t be refuted. Not even by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens alike. I repeat, even if an infinite stretch of time lies between two periods of being conscious. That time is meaningless as you wouldn’t even be there to experience such time. And that is my final words.

Free Will Proven

More or less a year ago, and then once again back in December last year, I wrote an essay, two of them that describes why in my opinion, free will doesn’t exist. I used that argument to justify myself, and mostly to protect myself from criticism and judgement, even when there is none. I used a materialist framework to justify that argument, and I still agree that within a purely materialist framework, free will is impossible to exist. As that means consciousness simply doesn’t exist, and again, everything a human does has been determined by the physical laws. We simply don’t have the means to predict it. However, since I have found that we all have one consciousness simply in different instances of space and that consciousness is also God, this renders my arguments null and effectively useless. So, here I am to redeem myself of my old mistakes.

In my old essays, which you can find easily, you’d see that I had described how free will doesn’t exist by comparing the human brain to a computer. In which both works by a defined set of rules, even if it seems to act by its own, that is enabled by such rules. Without those important rules, they wouldn’t act at all. My problem is I forgot one thing, that we are conscious. Consciousness is the controller of all existence, including its physical laws. As a result, since we are consciousness that is inhabiting an organic vessel, we should be controlling the organic vessels we call the human body. This includes the human brain. So, we always had free will, as we are the supreme controller of our body and thus our brain. We have every power we can to override any naturally defined laws within our brain. Say we’re addicted to something, must we stay addicted? No. Just because our brains have been rewired, doesn’t mean we can’t fight back such rewiring. We have every power to do so, since we are the consciousness.

Yes our brain is like a computer, and our bodies has its own set of rules and yes everything affects the development of our mind and so on and so on. But look, we our conscious, we are not robots. We can decide what we want to do. We can choose the instance of space that we wish to experience. So, there really is no excuse to say that we’re not guilty because we have no free will and try to fabricate an essay to prove it. Because even if you have an excellent brain and try it, your mind will eventually backfire upon yourself. So, yes, you have free will and thus you are responsible for every choice. Wait, so does that mean we can start punishing others now? Not exactly, but that’s a topic for another day, not anytime soon though, because I am simply uninterested in it.

God, Atheism, and Religion

This won’t be an actual essay rather than my pure opinion and thoughts. Recently I had started watching David Wood again on his videos about Islam, good stuff. However so, on one of his videos, a guy commented, this guy is a verified channel, and from the replies I can deduce he’s an atheist. So I checked it out, and apparently I had saw his channel before. I was searching for a specific video he had that was mentioned in Wood’s comment section. That video was titled “...but intelligent people believe in God”, basically an asnwer to why intelligent people still believe in God. This writing won’t be a direct response towards that video, but the overall topic of God, theism/atheism, religion, and so on. So, here we go.

The video describes the claim of God as a ridiculous claim, that is believed by intelligent people because of parental education, which embeds such idea into these intelligent folk’s minds. In my opinion however, it’s weird how theists would use the idea that intelligent people believe in God supports the existence of God. I mean, we should be looking at the validity of their reasons for believing in God, rather than their reputation of intelligency. If their reasons are invalid, there is no reason to believe them. Of course, I am a theist myself, but I have had my beliefs shaken multiple times, and I too favor reason and truth above mere theism. And so, it becomes my concern if people use the wrong arguments to prove the truth. Both the premise and the conclusion must be true, or it’s simply unacceptable. Now, atheism.

The problem of many atheists today is they are all fooled by the institutions known as religion on the very meaning of God. People, atheists and theists alike are too focused on the personalized meaning of God. That God is a person, has a fixed nature and so and so. Notice how most atheists, when referring to God will talk about religion. You see, their problem is not with the idea of God itself, but the abuse and misuse of such idea by institutions and doctrines that is propagated by said institutions. They also misunderstood that if you believe in God, you have to be affiliated with religion. That idea is just plain out wrong. The belief in some sort of higher force has existed before formal institutionalized teachings are created. In fact, while believing in a religion means you believe in some sort of God, believing in God does not equate belief in religion. Such as I do, and my definition of God does not have to be strictly attached to the common religion such as the Abrahamic religions.

Some people may argue that if we change the definition of God, then it will be arbitrary and we can simply change the meaning of the word until it suits existence and so on. Such as unicorns, we can change it from the actual meaning of a horse with horns specifically, to perhaps just an animal that looks like it or whatever. The problem with such comparison is that unlike the word “unicorn”, which is agreed upon, the word “God” actually has different meanings depending on the ideology, and also religion. Monotheism dictates a singular personal God, while pantheism states that God encompasses all, and the universe itself is God in a way. However, most of the ideologies concerned with God will have common characteristics, that God is a force higher than all of us. God is a controller, one that manipulates the universe in a way or another. And is the supreme force over the world. You can add other features such as in Christianity, that God is a trinity, sent His son to the world and so and so. But none of these doctrines are intrinsic features of God, they’re just human interpretations, and thus is born religion.

The problem with religion is they are often ethnically centralized. They also have very fixed definitions and stories of God that makes the meaning of God distorted. They are based upon claims, hearsay, and other things that are hard to prove. Let’s dissect Christianity for a bit, why is according to the religion, there is no salvation outside of Christ? Perhaps saying there is no salvation outside of God would be more sensible, but it has to be Christ, as if you can’t find any other good morals outside of the teachings of Jesus Christ. What about the concept of trinity? That concept doesn’t make much sense either. As you see, the Gospel itself contains many elements that is hard to relate to and seems to be exclusive. Eventually, we can see that many elements of Christianity and religion in general seems to be merely ritualistic and traditional in nature, and not actually addressing the idea of God. My personal opinion is all of the cultural and traditional elements of Christianity can be broken down into universal values and ideas that is unattached to culture or tradition. A true teaching of God. So, why am I so troubled with the cultural and traditional aspects of religion? Here we go.

Before I can address that issue, I have to prove that God exists, and what God actually is. Let’s address morality first. As you see, morality is merely an arbitrary concept created by humans, do you see animals behaving morally? What about asteroids avoiding earth because it would be immoral to massacre us? No, you don’t. My point is, I will be addressing God in a purely materialistic manner, seems contradictory as many people view God as supernatural, well I’ll show you why it’s wrong. Now the problem with non-materialistic arguments of God is they are unproven and would require God to exist first. Morality is included, so we want to prove God with facts and ideas that are known to be true. Or ideally speaking, with a probability of almost 100%, our traditional view of certainty. So we will be discussing God from a purely materialistic perspective, here we go.

Does God exist? Well what is God? Most people agree that God is a higher force. Whether Jesus is God or Muhammad is a messenger of God is up for debate, but again those elements are strictly cultural. So we won’t be discussing religion at all. So God is a higher force, but what kind of higher force? Is God conscious or dead? That’s a popular question. If God is dead, and inanimate, we can surmise that the physical laws are the very manifestation of God. Perhaps the entire universe is God itself, or God is the vibrations of the quantum spectrum. Or God is a hidden mechanism within the universe that dictates the workings of the universe. Atheists may like this answer, and if we are fleshy robotic philosophical zombies that can only deduce and think and act as our brains and genetic coding instruct us, yes this answer that God is merely the basic physical laws that dictates the more complicated mechanisms of the universe should be sufficient. So, we’re done right? Wrong, we are far from done.

Unfortunately, we are not fleshy robotic philosophical zombies that can only deduce and think and act as our brains and genetic coding instruct us. We are more than that, we are conscious beings that can go beyond our supposed genetic coding. We have free will, we have feelings, we have personal problems. We are more than robots. And so, we enter the problem of consciousness. Refer to my previous essay about consciousness. The problem here is that we human beings have consciousness. So, to say that a conscious being is dictated by an unconscious being is ludicrous. It’s like saying we are going to be overruled by computers, the difference between us and those metallic boards is that we have free will and we don’t merely act by our organic programming, while those computers, act based on the programming we created. And we see that consciousness is superior to unconsciousness. So, what does that mean for us?

It is impossible for us to prove that there is more than one conscious being, as there would be problems as my essay had mentioned, just read it if you’re confused. Our conclusion there is there is only one consciousness in the entire existence. And to surmise this, what is God? Exactly, God is that consciousness. Now let’s talk about religion again. Consciousness is something universal, that spans the entire world regardless of culture or geography. As such, God too is something universal, you can not describe God with just one particular culture such as the Jews, the Christians, or the Arabs. Which is why to only find salvation in the identity of Jesus Christ is a ridiculous idea. As the identity of Jesus Christ is merely one part of God, and not the whole. Now let’s move on to the further explanations of God.

Since there is only one conscious being and that conscious being is God, who is God? Does that mean everyone here is God? Does it mean “I” (not the author, but general “I”, look back to previous essay) am God? And which of the humans here possess true consciousness? We need to answer first, whether there is only one conscious being and all others are philosophical zombies, or there is only one conscious being but it encompasses everything and everyone, that everyone is part of this same consciousness. To answer this, we must understand the true nature of time. Many people view time as something that is fixed, constant, and linear. However, that is simply untrue, as many scientific experiments has found, and I’ll give my personal opinion on time.

Time for me is the arrangement and flow of the instances of space. Let me elaborate. Time as we know is divided into several units. In a shorter amount of time, less events can happen. In a longer amount of time, more events can happen. Such as how in one second, the equivalent vibrations of the Caesium atom has happened, but in one minute, sixty times of such vibrations has happened. Now, let’s say there is the infinitesimally smallest unit of time, which scientifically is called the Planck time, but let’s call it the moment. Tell me this, is there two moments, where nothing has changed? It may be hard with the observable universe, but what if the universe is just one small room with only atom. And the smallest distance possible in that room is a centimeter. So is it possible, for there be two moments in that room where the atom remains in the exact same place. Say in moment 1 it is in cm 1, and in moment 2, it is still in cm 1, is that possible? I believe not. This means, that each moment or Planck time is actually a separate instance of space where between each instances, there is a change in something, even if it is infinitesimally small.

Imagine the flow time as a flipbook. When you open a certain page, all of the other pages still exist right? This means that everything is happening at the same “time”, because there is no “time”, merely our consciousness moving through the different instances of space. The same can be said for other people, they are actually our consciousness as well, but from a different instance of space, if you can say so. And what rule dictates that once we die, we must reincarnate to another timeframe? Perhaps we can reincarnate into the same time as our previous body, but into another body. Look at this analogy, imagine right now you’re in the book of yourself, and you have a friend, you can interact with the book of your friend. But then you finish the book, and proceed to read the book of your friend, interacting with the book that was yourself. And where is God in all of this? Well God is that consciousness, but since God is omnipresent through time and space, God can be a person that declares God as non-existent and as a weird creature and as the central intelligence controlling everything at the same time. Then why have evil and so and so? In my opinion, that is simply the nature of existence.

Then why is not all iterations of the consciousness “Godlike”? My opinion is that God is actually the ultimate incarnation of the consciousness, one that has overcome all materialistic obstacles. So while we pray to God, we will become God, at a certain instance of space that we desire. As such, each iteration is a stage towards becoming God. Some iterations are more similar to God than the others. And what about morality and so on? That’s irrelevant here, I’m only trying to discuss about the existence of God, not the details of it. As a consequence, God exists as the consciousness that encompasses and envelops everything, including, paradoxically, those who deny such consciousness to exist. As such, atheism is false, just not in the way most religious people expect it to be. And also religion does not accurately describe God as it is too attached to tradition and culture which are not universal at all. The end.

Consciousness

Science has brought us many new discoveries, theories, laws, equations, and so much more. With science, we have gained a further understanding of our world and beyond. We know the behavior of large celestial objects, and we can predict the motion of small subatomic particles. Yet, one part of our daily lives, one that is so profound on our lives, and perhaps the most important part of our existence is yet to be studied and examined carefully. The only reason why we can know what we are, and we can see colors, or feel anything, consciousness.

The problem of consciousness is an interesting one, it is the most fundamental part of human life, yet the most undiscovered, and perhaps the most ignored. Consciousness, by definition is the state of awareness of the existence of the self. Consciousness is what enables us to feel, to know our existence and also others. It is when we can feel our own existence. Consciusness is not just a “state” though, as if it is, then any object that displays common characteristics of being “conscious” can be considered to have consciousness. Instead, it is the very essence of the “self” and what makes the “self” what it is. It is the source of individuality and identity, for without consciousness, all there is are philosophical zombies. Defining it specifically with random and abstract concepts is useless though, we must revert to the real life, and draw a line.

Humans are the first creatures that come into mind when the problem of consciousness is posited. Let us compare humans and other lifeforms, are animals conscious? If so, how do we determine it? This is the primary reason to the lack of study on consciousness. What is the criteria for consciousness? To be fair, let’s limit it to being aware of oneself, awareness of existence. How do you know if one is aware of their existence? For animals that communicate in a language that we humans are unable to understand, that is virtually impossible to know. We can only observe their behaviors and their brain. Sometimes, emotions are also indication of consciousness, and some animals do express emotions, or seem to. While animals have been considered unconscious for most of history, how do we know that they aren’t? This problem is also applicable to other humans.

Most would agree that humans are conscious beings and they have consciousness. If we follow the previous criteria, it seems apparent that humans are conscious. They can communicate that they exist, and they can claim their awareness, so for most part, they’re conscious. Furthermore, they can feel emotions, and express it. So, perhaps that’s the final answer, that consciousness is merely defined by awareness of the self, and emotions to an extent. Yet, we’re not done yet. If this idea of consciousness is true, then atheism should be perfectly fine and perhaps more widespread, but it isn’t. So what’s wrong here? Enter the world of computers and artificial intelligence.

If this essay was written back in the ancient Greek, it would’ve been done on the previous paragraph. Because we couldn’t have imagined that we can create intricate artificial systems, that can mimic our behaviors so precisely, that we can not differentiate them from our own kind. Yet we’ve done it, the era of artificial intelligence has dawned upon us, and some forms of artificial intelligence are actually already somewhat indistinguishable from human intelligence. This is when the distinction between intelligence and consciousness arises. Perhaps a computer will be able to think and communicate like a human being and outperform it, but surely it will never be able to be aware of its existence or feel anything. Actually, it will, if we do not refine the definitions of “awareness” and “feeling”.

So far, we have only thought that humans are aware and can feel because they claim so. However, is it not possible for us to create an artificial intelligence that can deduce its own existence? And so, it gains the knowledge of existence, but is that awareness? What is awareness in essence? Is it the knowledge of something? Or the acknowledgement of such knowledge? If that is, then computers certainly can be aware of it, or is theoretically possible. We have created computers that can learn and evolve, certainly we can create computers that can deduce its own existence. Feeling, let’s say a human cries, we say that human feels emotions, but how do we know?

The distinction between expression and consciousness is now important. As a computer can be programmed in such a way, that if certain stimuli that perhaps cause sadness is given, it will react and express sadness. However, we as the creators of the computer know that the emotion is fake and is merely a product of long logical instructions known as computer programming code. How are we to say that humans are different? For all we know, every single human can be a biological computer, that says they possess consciousness because they are programmed by neurons in their brains, and smiles at cute dogs because they are designed to react that way by their genetic coding. Is that the true answer? That no being is conscious, but there must be one being, right?

We have hit a dead end, at this point, the existence and consciousness of all beings are at stake. Few people actually thinks about this kind of existential matter, as if you trace it far enough, you’ll find a dark end, commonly known as solipsism. Solipsism is the idea that only I exist, and everything else is just a product of my mind. That makes sense, as I can feel and I am certain of it, but I don’t know about others, how do I know if they exist? Do note that “I” here does not refer to the author personally, but to Solipsists generally, as the author does not believe in solipsism. Essentially, only one consciousness exists, and all others are just imaginations of that same consciousness. This idea, while seemingly unassailable from an ideal standpoint, and only assailable from a pragmatic standpoint, is actually flawed.

While it is true that “I” exist, as “I” can feel and be aware and be absolutely certain of it, and it’s the only consciousness that can be proven to exist, the likelihood of other things to exist is actually very high. Let me illustrate, according to solipsism, everything is just an imagination of the exact same consciousness. So, why are we still bounded by very hard physical laws? Why can’t we just fly around and cause mayhem? Why can’t we overrule everything and be the Gods of existence? In fact, according to solipsism, we are God, so what is the limit? That’s the point, the fact that we are still limited by other creatures and by the universe itself is sure sign that solipsism is false.

So, what now? We have not even approached the true answer of consciousness, we have merely ran around in circles, discovering more things, but not the true answer. Let’s return back to the problem of consciousness and science. The fact that very many people disregard consciousness itself, this has gave rise to some interesting ideologies. It is important to understand that humans, so far are the only forms of intelligence to ever make the deduction that a non physical world exists and there is a being that is unbounded by any laws and is the supreme ruler of all. Some of them, are beginning to refute such natural ideas and develop what seems to be the intellectual position. That is atheism, the belief in no God, and materialism, the belief that only the material world and the physical laws exist. One question, how do you explain consciousness?

Many atheists and materialists simply explain it as the result of the chemical reactions of the brain. Let me remind you again, that is intelligence, not consciousness. Let’s be generous here, if their saying is actually true, then wouldn’t it be safe to consider that consciousness was evolved? The problem is, how was it evolved? And what genes are responsible for such trait? What was the first animal to be conscious? Additionally, consciousness can not be happening over generations, it’s not a trait that has multiple values, it’s a trait with one value: conscious or not. So, the mutation responsible for consciousness must have happened at a single generation. What species is that? What animal was it? If you try to argue about language and emotion, that is again, intelligence and not consciousness. Life may be able to be described in pure physical equations, but the same can not be said for consciousness.

That argument, is the true mortal defeat of atheism, or at least materialism. If consciousness can not be described by physical equations, then it is certainly independent of the physical world. And thus, consciousness is the evidence that there is something beyond physical laws and the material world. What does it mean then? We still haven’t went anywhere. It’s time to return to the idea of solipsism. The idea seems sensible, but we know it can’t be. It can’t be sensible at all. However, part of it does make sense, the idea that there is only one consciousness in existence. That idea is good, but it needs to be refined.

It is true that there is only one consciousness certain to exist, you can not prove more than one to exist, as that would cause the problem of artificial intelligence. However so, that does not mean that only the consciousness exists, and the world is merely a product of imagination, as we have no grounds to say that. This means that while there is still only one consciousness, the entire world still exists, does that mean all other humans are philosophical zombies? Of course not, that assumes that we only have one life, and this is the only life we have. That idea is inherently fallacious though, to be conscious means to experience and to feel. If say, we die and our consciousness is obliterated, it’s impossible. As there would be noone to experience oblivion or nothingness if there is nothing. If we can experience nothingness, then our consciousness is preserved. So even if an infinite stretch of time exists after we die, it makes no sense to us, as we’re not there to experience it. The most likely hypothesis is for us to be reincarnating into someone else, over and over again for an infinitely many number of times. And what law says that we have to travel in time linearly in reincarnation, it doesn’t have to be, we can simply reincarnate into another person in our previous lifetime. Which concludes that we are all just different iterations of the same consciousness. And that’s the closest answer we can get towards consciousness, as more than that and we’ll be discussing God, which is not the topic here. That is the topic of another essay, but this is it, consciousness is what it is.  

Absurdity of Evolution

Foreword

While the basic history of life, that is as the self replicating molecule known as RNA is relatively known, the process in which it develops into the current lifeform we all know today is incredibly absurd. In response to my previous essay about life, I implied that I was supportive of a Lamarckist theory of evolution. However, after I had researched more about evolution, it becomes apparent that Lamarck’s theory, while on the right track is not accurate. As modern science discovers, it is proven that changes in an organism’s characteristics that are heritable, that is able to be passed down into offspring, can only be caused by change in actual genetic information. So, this means if a giraffe has longer neck, and is passed down its offspring, it is because the very genetic material that controls that trait is changed, not because of the animal stretching its neck. Although this theory is sufficiently proven, it is still incredibly absurd, and this essay will prove just that, the absurdity of evolution.

Absurdity

Heritable changes to an organism can only be caused by a sudden change in the genetic code of such organism, even then it can only happen with sex cells, as they are the ones that becomes the offspring in the future. Such changes are known as mutations, mutations happen because of an error in the replication of the genetic material during cell division. Mutations that contribute to the process of evolution are those that happen during meiosis, division of cells into sex cells, or gametes. Mutations that happen to normal body cells, or somatic cells, will not contribute to the process of evolution.

The process of evolution itself as describe by Darwin happens by a process known as natural selection. In an environment, there are organisms that have different variations, let’s take the giraffe as an example. Long ago, there are long necked giraffes and there are short necked giraffes. Naturally, long necked giraffes have more opportunities to survive, as they can reach for higher trees and thus has more food. On the other hand, short necked giraffes have less opportunities, and if the short trees die out, they will have no food and starve to death. This means that overall, long necked giraffes are more capable to survive, reproduce and pass on their genes. While short necked giraffes are less capable, and less of their genes are passed on. As time progresses, short necked giraffes will die out completely, leaving the long necked girrafes we now know today.

The variations of short necked and long necked giraffes are all caused by genetic mutation. In this example, genetic mutation of the genes responsible for length of neck in a giraffe is perfectly acceptable. It only changes the trait from one value to another value, mere rearrangement of the genetic material should be sufficient. These kinds of genetic mutations, which if happens by random chance is perfectly sensible, however, are not the main driving force of evolution. As it is akin to a genetic mutation that changes color, or height, or any existing trait that can be changed without making any drastic additions. The evolution of the blowhole on the ancestors of whales, while seemingly absurd, is still sensible, though the randomness is much more severe than that of the necks of a giraffe. True absurdity of mutation can be found in the very beginnings of life, the first cells.

In the previous essay, it is described that floating RNA entered fatty lipid vesicles and thus the first cell was born. However so, a cell membrane is only heritable if the changes also happen to the genetic code, that is the RNA itself. For the first few divisions, perhaps it is possible for cells to propagate in such Lamarckist manner, but a fatty lipid vesicle can only divide for so long before its material will grow too thin and thus simply disperse upon division. As a result, a very important question arises, how does the RNA mutate to maintain a cell membrane? Pure random chance would be absurd. Is it possible? Perhaps, but is it absurd? Certainly. As in fact, how would the RNA mutate to include information that dictates the maintaining of a cell membrane, and the creation of one independent of surrounding vesicles? Previously mentioned mutations are merely rearrangement of information that it states another value, this kind of mutation however, requires the addition of information. In conclusion, this simple problem proves just how absurd evolution and mutation is in the early stages of life. For this to happen because of pure randomness would require a scientific miracle. Unfortunately, this is not the only absurd part of mutation, as there is something more absurd than cell membranes, humans.

Consciousness, something that is so intrinsic to the human being, and common to us, that it becomes an unchecked subject of science. Widely ignored in most studies, consciousness is the awareness of the self. It is important to distinguish awareness of the self and mere information that the self exists. An advanced computer or program may deduce that it exists, and contain that information, but it is not aware such as the human being. The mutation of genetical information as such that it enables consciousness is the most absurd feature of evolution. Why would a mutation of small genetic material would induce consciousness in an organism? Furthermore, how can consciousness happen gradually? We all know consciousness as something is whole, raw perception, awareness. Consciousness is not enabled by language, it simply is, but how does it emerge from mere genetic mutation? Even if it does, why? Why are animals that have awareness of their self be more successful? Perhaps it enables them high intelligence, and thus be more effective in reproduction. However so, is it untrue that the emergence of human beings is a backfire towards natural selection? For with such lifeform, a potential to wipe out life itself, and cancel millions of years of evolution has been created. Even then, perhaps all of this is random chance, or perhaps, it isn’t.