Imagine, for a moment, that you are God.
In the beginning, there was only you (although it is not even right to speak of a “beginning” since you have always been, but for the sake of easy discussion, let’s just call that certain point in time the “beginning”).
Imagine the vastness of the universe, the multitudes of stars and galaxies that we have discovered in our lifetime — all of those are but a tip of your fingernail, or a single hairstrand of your being. But at this point of our imagination, none of those exist yet. Only you exist. There is no here or there, no light nor dark, no good nor evil, nor heaven nor hell.
There is only you. You are everything and everything is you — the ultimate state of perfection.
But perfection is quite static, and boring. Think about it. What do you do when you have everything you need or want, when you are already everything you desire to be? There is nothing more to strive for, nothing new to experience, nothing exciting to look forward to.
In fact, you do not even experience yourself as God, the creator, the most powerful, intelligent, benevolent and-whatever-superlative-you-can-think-of being in the universe, because there is no universe.
There is just you. Only you.
And so you, as God, find yourself in this state of mind. You know you are God and you can happily live out the rest of eternity as this static thing, forever existing as yourself, but you lack that experience of being God.
One cannot fully appreciate the light unless one has experienced darkness, one cannot appreciate good unless one has experienced evil. There is no experience of being “here” unless there is also a place called “not-here” or “there” or somewhere else. In the same way, you know that you are God and that you are more powerful than…well, what else is there? So in order for you to experience being God, there must be in existence things which are Not-God. But how can that be since you are everything and everything is you?
Bang! The big idea hits you and you set your grand plan into motion. You break off a tiny piece of you, that tip of your fingernail, and make it forget that it is a part of you. You make it forget that it is in fact, you. So the universe is born and there is now a “there” to your “here.”
But you do not forget. In fact, you get to experience everything that is going on in that part of you that is Not-You — and there certainly is a lot to experience — wealth, poverty, greed, love, hate, anger, happiness, hunger, compassion, avarice, kindness, cruelty, awe, wonder, and so on. Everything that Not-You experiences is your experience regardless if Not-You decides to worship you, to deny your existence or to ignore you altogether. It doesn’t matter because in the end, Not-You returns to you and remembers and you can start the cycle again.
Big Bang. Big Crunch. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale.
No heaven. No hell. There is only the eternal breath of God.
Originally published in Sunstar Davao.
Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.
That is weird and impossible. A being as big the as the whole universe without exact identify is impossible to imagine. The sun is an example of a being, an identifiable entity, of which human could observed as powerful as the God it conceived. The phenomena we call electricity and plasma is as universal as the idea we call God.
Why would it be impossible to imagine? I can easily imagine a being not only as big as the whole universe, but to whom the entire universe is just a speck.
Imagine yourself as an atom in the world of “normal-sized” things. 🙂
Why is perfection static, and boring? I know you try to address it, but I don’t follow. And, how does being perfect mean that you have no wants? Since you have really only been discussing your understanding of the Protestant and Catholic ideas of God, does God not want a relationship with you? If nothing else was a criteria, do you thing God wanting that makes him imperfect? Does your desire for a relationship with your wife, your children make you imperfect? How does any one of us know what it is like to be perfect? Have you ever achieved, or, are you now, perfect? And how does perfection mean “nothing new to experience, nothing exciting to look forward to?”
If God is perfect, and your description of perfection as “static, and boring…” is accurate, how can you lack that experience of being God? Remember, you said “nothing new to experience…”
Your other three parts in this series were a lot more thoughtful and less convoluted than this entry. “intelligent… and-whatever-superlative-you-can-think-of” includes all knowing, right? And an all-knowing God who is perfect, especially your description of perfect, would include being able to “fully appreciate the light” without experiencing darkness, and appreciate good without experiencing evil. You have just changed from a grandiose vision of God to limits of the human mind. There is an experience of being “here”, even if there is no “not-here” or “there”. Our limited minds may not understand or appreciate it as much, but it still exists. Just because there are “not-Andy” does not mean that you would be limited otherwise.
Umm… Bang? Break off a tiny piece of you? Make it forget that it is a part of you? Where is this coming from? Certainly not your recollection of the Bible or something that you were taught by someone who believes the Bible? Is this for dramatic effect or is it an intentional distortion to try to make a point? If the latter, what is that point, because I could not find it.
Wow. This last part is a whole lot of mish-mash rolled up into one. If your wife experiences a traumatic event at work or at the store and she tells you about it, or if you see footage of it, it does not mean that you experienced it. And how do you throw “Everything that Not-You experiences is your experience regardless if Not-You decides to worship you, to deny your existence or to ignore you altogether. It doesn’t matter because in the end, Not-You returns to you and remembers and you can start the cycle again.” in there? None of that comes from anything that you said before.
“No heaven. No hell.” What about the people who don’t want to go to heaven? Does this perfect God force them to come back(?) to Him? Wouldn’t that be that not-God’s idea of hell?