Reference: The Nature of Thought
Reference: Religion
The desire to know the unknowable produces visualization or thought. That thought manifests itself, and can be known. Thus, one seems to overcome one’s uneasiness about the unknowable to some degree; even though the unknowable still remains unknowable.
Thus, one uses the term God for unknowable, and says,
The unknowable can be known as God.
This is fine; but then someone comes along and asserts, “God is a Being, and we are created in his image.” He then projects human attributes into God to a superlative degree. This action makes one feel more comfortable about unknowable; even though the unknowable still remains unknowable.
“God is a personal being” is a speculative thought. The unknowable still remains unknowable.
There is an intense desire to know how this universe came about. The universe is manifested alright, but how it got manifested is an unknowable that makes one uncomfortable. So another thought is produced, “God created the universe.”
“God created the universe” is a speculative thought also. The unknowable still remains unknowable.
These two thoughts form the basis of Semitic religions, such as, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions derived from them.
A religion is essentially a system of thought created to help a society organize itself for extended survival. A belief in the two thoughts about God as above has produced a culture in the west that is quite different historically from the culture in the east.
The Vedic religions of the east, such as, Hinduism and Buddhism do not entertain beliefs based on the two thoughts about God described above. The terms like Brahman and Nirvana are used for the unknowable, they are not associated with the idea of a personal being.
This essay simply points out that terms like YHVH, GOD, ALLAH, BRAMHAN, NIRVANA, etc., are labels for the unknowable. Some of these labels have further significances attached to them. These labels and significances are thoughts, which, by their very nature, are speculations about the unknowable. These thoughts become reality to those who believe in them.
Attaching such significances to the unknowable and acting on them, unfortunately, has contributed to deadly conflicts in the past and also in the present. There is nothing wrong with the belief in YHVH, GOD, or ALLAH as long as we understand that the true significance underlying such belief is unknowable by its very nature.
May the understanding of “God as unknowable” help bring about cessation of conflicts around the world!
That is my hope.
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Comments
Very well stated. Short and adequate. This is for me defining in words more clearly what I already thought. Thank you.
Thank you, Chris. Words have a limit for sure. Let’s see if we can push them a bit to be more useful.
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How do you know what is ‘unknowable’ and what is ‘knowable’?
These are just your opinions. Your essay doesn’t make sense to me. It has a lot of assumptions in it, and generalizations about what motivates ‘people’ as a generality to invent various ideas and speculations. They are not true and applicable for everyone, as I see it.
Of course, this essay contains my opinions, which may or may not agree with your opinions. These opinions are based on working out the consistency among observations that I have made over the years. Your observations may be different.
To me, the common denominator of everything that can be thought, sensed and perceived, can be expressed succintly by the idea of CONSIDERATION.
Futhermore, to me, the common denominator of all considerations is the consideration of UNKNOWABLE, because it is the consideration of UNKNOWABLE that gives rise to all other considerations.