I want to start keeping the Sabbath/Shabbat– on Saturday or Sunday, to dedicate my time to thinking and writing on the gods, eating vegan, avoiding the bustle of modern life, etc. Here’s a product of my first attempt: a statement of my religious beliefs. I’m probably missing huge swaths of religious-belief-areas, so tell me your reactions!
The gods:
There are uncountably many gods. These include the gods of every religion, gods of love-lost, apathy, physical strength, and evolution, the god of the last light over Rio, of Google, and of professors who sleep with their students.
The gods have enormous power: they mediate all interactions between us and other people and the world; the determine how situations progress (they produce effects given causes); and they compose the consciousness we experience. They do all this in tandem, by their cooperation and their conflicts.
We have the capacity to evoke new gods into any situation. When we pray or leave sacrifices, take pills or smoke pot, listen to an advertisement or consider a philosophical idea, we attract the attention of certain gods. These gods– and our history with them, for some gods keep grudges– effect both our and other’s perceptions and actions.
No god is evil, but some are inappropriate to some situations. For example, the god of romantic love is one of the most misunderstood of gods. Because of this, he is summoned to many situations he does not belong in, and causes more suffering than he would wish.
The purpose of life:
The gods want everyone to be happy and fulfilled. The good life is the ethical life: if you are happy, you will give best and most to the world. A wide knowledge of the gods, good relations with several, and an aptitude evoking them are all important tools for living a good life.
The way to be happy is to pursue your deepest desires in all things. Desire is a many-faceted and changeable thing, because both humans and the gods can be fickle, and both are more complicated than can be comprehended. Expect the apparent object of your desires to reveal itself to be an less-than-fulfilling bridge to a truer desire only after you have attained it.
Never restrict another s beliefs and treat every creature with dignity. There are many ways to understand what is, what is right, and what is good. They are all wrong, incomplete, or both. But each provides information about and the words for evoking new gods, and in that way each is very powerful.
The ethics of an action are in its means. We cannot know its results, but we can choose which gods we evoke, and they determine its ethical content. However, it is important always to try to understand the full effects of our actions, because this is the key to understand the behavior of the gods.
The right purpose of technology and government lies between facilitating self-governance and liberal egalitarianism.
The universe:
Everything we experience is created by the gods we evoke. The limitations we experience in ourselves and things are similarly described by gods. The true capacity of everything is beyond its known capacity, because a different set of gods will describe different limits. Everything is over-determined, by many gods, and by nurture, nature, and choice. Through the gods you evoke, you create all of the facts of your existence.
Every process has self-awareness. The sum of all awarenesses is the awareness of the gods.
Your awareness, your sense of self, and your self itself, are a piece of the gods. In the same as a wave is part of the ocean, you are part of the gods, by being composed of them.
When you die, your awareness ceases to be distinguishable from the joint awareness of the gods. You become one with the universe.
The only moment is now. The past and the future are equally dreams. This moment is holy, magical, and full of gods– as is all our experienced world. Many of the gods present now are hidden to us, even when it is our beliefs that evoke them; hard personal work can reveal them.
Do not fear death. What you consider to be “you” has already died uncountably many times. This “you” is only a moment old.