Is God Just a Joke?

Posted on August 27, 2024 by DrKeith

This piece is likely to be contentious, so I sent it out to a small circle of trusted friends for comment. True, they are my friends, so likely to be on my side. But I’m talking people of integrity and I am comfortable with their evaluation…

Beautiful. Wouldn’t change anything. JC

I found this fascinating and the underlying truth raised my mood substantially. Should be available in schools across the country! MB

I like it – you argue your points well. It’ll be interesting to see what response you get to its broad publication. PD

So, is God just a joke? Richard Dawkins thinks so. He wrote a book called The God Delusion, which is about the most arrogant, distasteful and mistaken attack on people’s beliefs and traditional values I have read to date.

He joins an army of pseudo-scientific reductionist nerds (read: idiots) who think they have proved that God does not exist. Science cannot prove anything does not exist. Period. The most it can do is fail to prove that something does exist. They have no God-detector apparatus, so how would they know?

Suppose you were on a hunt 200 years ago, to prove that radio waves are nonsense. You could “prove” that easily. Nothing happens, there is no known effect, you can’t see, touch or feel radio waves; ergo, there is no such thing.

People who believed in radio waves (at that time) you would call or consider stupid, primitive, superstitious or at best uneducated.

But as we all know, radio waves do exist and once we have a worthwhile means of tuning into them, we can enjoy the programs!

Now that’s just a logical line of argument—a thread of thought. I don’t want you to think that I buy into any of the current models of God (or gods). Dear me no.

I share with Dawkins a mockery of the supposed attributes of what ought to be the embodiment of Divine Love. Instead, what are we offered?

The God of the Bible (Old Testament) is a contradictory, jealous, vengeful, petty-minded, misogynistic bully, with anger management issues. He is supposed to have created us in his image. Well, that makes him a real bozo, doesn’t it? He has all the human follies and weaknesses he has given to us. But maybe we invented HIM in our own image? Same thing. The Biblical God is frankly obnoxious and dysfunctional. I couldn’t like him, never mind love him. My aspirations are to do better, not emulate behaviors and attitudes of his stripe.

But then, maybe the Biblical God doesn’t actually exist? Frankly, I hope not! We are supposed to be God-fearing (which is ridiculous) yet, admittedly, this model portrays something to be scared of! If such an unpredictable entity was human, we would easily diagnose borderline personality or maybe bipolar (swings hot and cold). He could even be a danger to the public.

The late George Carlin had a wonderfully funny take on this; you can find it on YouTube. [search: George Carlin God loves you]

“Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an Invisible Man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the Invisible Man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever, till the end of time…” and then Carlin adds with a wry smile, “But he loves you!”

Naturally, this sounds absurd, because it is! Yet billions of people are stuck with this model of the Divine! The so-called Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and, of course, Judaism) all share acceptance of the Old Testament stories and fables. I’m talking here tales of murder, incest, betrayal, adultery, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, rape, infanticide and the like.

Even cannibalism! In Leviticus 26:29; God describes how he will punish people by making them eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters.

Still don’t believe me? Consider this; God’s instructions for a battle in Numbers 31:17-18:

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Seriously? Now what would soldiers want with little virgins, huh? It makes you shudder.

Here’s a bit more inspiration from God:

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones (Psalm 137:9).

A psalm, for goodness sake! I mean this is one sick book.

As one online commentator (user name: Murdoch5) remarked on the use of the Bible to swear in Joe Biden at his inauguration, in Jan 2021:

“Out of all the books you choose, the Bible must be one of the worst examples of a text on which you swear an oath. Can anyone think of another collection of stories that demonstrates worse morals, ethics and which lacks any basis for system of right and wrong that could be used by a just society?”

There are scores of websites pointing out the deficiencies of The Bible as a spiritual resource, if you want to delve further!

The point is I’m talking here about the state we call God. It is proper rhetoric to discredit references to an evil and disruptive model of God that is not valid in this day and age. It’s not just me being cranky or confrontational. It’s being rational.

The God Paradox

Then there is the God paradox: God created the world; the world is full of bad stuff; ergo God creates bad stuff as well as good things.

It leads to the nonsense of irrationality whereby people believe they were saved or rescued by God’s hand. But when bad things happen—like tsunamis, earthquakes and tornadoes—that’s not God’s fault! He didn’t do it. What? That is just logical rubbish.

Sorry but I am sticking with rationality for this piece. I’m not doing romance, tradition, sentiment or emotion. If God is the master hand, he has a wicked sense of humor when it comes to killing hundreds of thousands, even millions, of innocent people just going about their business. And for no apparent reason—just whim.

But of course I don’t believe that. We can postulate a better model for God, surely. I can do better than all the religions of earth, just by using common sense and a questioning mind set!

So What Is The Truth Here?

Shorn of all mysticism, prejudice and romance: God is a presence, not an entity, person or being, as such. It is something within us all, we are in it, we ARE it. It is us.

“In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God…” So begins the lovely gospel according to John (my favorite).

Let’s shift this starter proposition to: suppose consciousness came first. Then it gets very interesting very quickly! In the beginning there was no matter, energy, space or time, just consciousness. Therefore consciousness is timeless and without limit. Woa!! That’s getting too exciting too fast, I think. But you can handle it!

Just be logical… please. If there is no time, then consciousness is unlimited. It is immortal. It cannot UN-be. Therefore it cannot die.

No time. Now that could be scary. Orthodox thinkers suppose, based on silly science (the Big Bang), that the universe is just 13 billion years old, so that is a meaningless estimate. But time (as we know it) had a beginning somewhere. But where? The real history of your place in the world could go back billions, trillions, squillions, gazillions of years! What does it matter, really. It’s just numbers. And time they say is just an illusion.

This early consciousness, or proto-consciousness to sound scholarly, I call Primal Consciousness. It’s up to you whether you call this God, O My God, Wow! Yikes! Or whatever. Just remember, if it’s there, or ever was, it’s still there. It’s timeless remember, by definition (just keeping you up to speed here).

Being logical, other things follow. If consciousness was there first, then it is the source of the material universe. We put it there. That’s exactly what quantum physics has been saying and why some find it hard to swallow. The British Empiricist philosophers of the 18^th century expressed the same conclusion: things exist only because they are perceived to exist.

The old trope about the tree falling in the forest and is there a sound if no-one is there to hear it? becomes: what tree?

It also follows that our conscious Being enfolds everything. I love that word enfold. To me, in my writings, that means we ARE love; not that we give or get love, or that we even DO love. It means we ARE love. Love is our Being!

From that we can extrapolate to a living, loving universe. The material world is within us, not the other way round. Stars, planets and creatures are all inside your mind. Consciousness is everywhere and soaked into the physical. There is no universe without love and light. It is woven into the fabric of things.

Of course the reductionist scientists would argue consciousness couldn’t have been there first, because it requires physical structures, such as a brain, a computer or even a robot form to be conscious. But that’s psychopathological science. There is no evidence whatever to accept that such a supposition is true. What’s more, logically speaking, such evidence could never be adduced!

If we accept that Primal Consciousness (which you could call God, if that works for you) was there first and we are of the same nature (non-material Being but with thoughts, perceptions and purposes) then we created, or co-created, the world.

This logical “God” is not as nasty or daft as the Bible one and I doubt it took a convenient seven days, or that fatigue was a factor on the seventh day! These are just silly human values added to what could be a great Creation story.

Real Primal Consciousness would, by these precepts, be infinitely powerful, all-knowing, loving, eternal and omni-present (immanent). It would be a huge and unstoppable creative force… except that it wouldn’t be a force, it would be a presence.

Hey, have you noticed: we are coming full circle and starting to sound a bit “biblical”, if you’ll excuse the expression!

But there is one important question hanging from all this: when, where and why did we individuate or separate from Primal Consciousness? Well, that’s another story and I’ll tackle it some day soon!

Listen To Your Lover Partner Parents Kids

Posted on March 25, 2019 by DrKeith

Consider a relationship or marriage, in which communications usually proceed along these lines:

Him: I don’t like living here.

Her: Well I do.

Him: We’ve lived in better places.

Her: Nothing as nice as this.

Months later, the “conversation” could have moved on to.

Him: I’ve seen a great property, at a great price.

Her: I don’t want to move.

Him: It’s all about you, isn’t it?

Her: What do you mean? You’re the one who wants to move, not me.

You can imagine this sort of exchange going on for months or even years. Eventually, it might reach the stage where the discussion is like this:

Him: Either we move, or I’m leaving you and going to live some place else.

Her: What, are you crazy?

Him: No I’m not crazy. You just don’t listen, so I’m making a stand.

Her: What’s got into you?

The important issue is not whether the house is nice or not; it’s about the fact that she (in this case) isn’t listening to her partner. She’s deaf! He keeps trying to tell her something important but she doesn’t want to hear.

Eventually he leaves home and she tells her friends:

Her: I kept telling him I didn’t want to move. He just wouldn’t listen.

Friend: I know what you mean. Men are just horrible at paying attention to what we have to say.

Her: He bottled things up. It ruined our relationship.

Friend: Never mind. You’re better off without him.

But she wasn’t happy without him. Her relationship was gone and she never found another one that had much meaning for her. Her friend got divorced and whines about men. She sure got the reality she was asking for…

This deplorable example is just meant to illustrate what often passes for communication or “discussion”. It’s not a gender thing. It’s a skills problem. People don’t know how to deal with others who don’t share their views in full.

So what should have happened?

She might have asked why he wasn’t happy in the present home. Let him get it off his chest, so she can understand his concerns. Of course, it’s only his opinion about the house. She thinks differently. But he’s just as entitled to his opinion as she is. That’s fundamental.

Also, there is no room for what we call “rightness”, meaning I’m right and therefore (by inference) you are WRONG!

What we have in this example is a conflict or problem. The anatomy of a problem is a need, plan or purpose, with a counter thrust that’s making it difficult or impossible to resolve in one direction or another.

I just picked a disagreement over where to live because it illustrates the point. You must listen when your partner has something to say, even if it makes you uncomfortable. The actual issue might be one partner trying to say: “You never listen to me” or “I don’t like sex anymore” or “I need a holiday…” whatever.

It’s just a kind of denial, if you are not willing to listen to what your partner is struggling to tell you. He or she isn’t going to think differently because you ignore their overtures. People are only going to work through problems, change their minds, or see things differently, if you talk openly and apply a little of the magic we call accord (see The Constellation of Accord)!

Useful hacks might be: “What would have to happen for you to consider moving house?”Asked over and over, with fresh answers each time, it’s capable of a great deal of shift in viewpoint.

Or: “What would your dream house or home be like?” The woman in this situation might realize she was being plain stubborn and there were many attractive options for where to live. Or he might hear something that would make him want to stay put!

Just two-way talk with respectful listening is the simplest and best tool for resolving conflicts and misunderstandings. Try it!

Test Yourself At The Bathroom Mirror

Posted on February 2, 2019 by DrKeith

In a gloomy turn to his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech “How To Live Before You Die”, Jobs confessed to standing in front of the mirror and asking himself: If this was to be the last day of my life, would I still want to do what I’m about to do? If the answer is NO too many days in a row, then something has to change.

That could be expanded into asking yourself: am I happy to go on living the life I’ve got, without improvement, until the end of my days? Trouble is, quite a few people will settle, right there: it’s good enough to get by. Why should I care?

So are you a person who likes challenges and, given the tools, will go out and carve something marvelous to live by? If so, keep reading.

In Supernoetics® we have the ideas and techniques. But we can’t make you over from an “it’s good enough” person into an “I want more, MUCH MORE!” person. Only you are in charge of that!

Do Not Settle I Beg You

Posted on February 2, 2019 by DrKeith

Is life passing you by? Do you feel, deep down inside, that there has to be something more, something better, to live for?

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT IF YOU HAD MORE CONTROL OVER YOUR LIFE, IT WOULD BE FAR MORE EXCITING TO LIVE IT? Being able to extract what you want from ANY situation, no matter how tough, is the real measure of success. How to meet life on its own terms, not just dreamland.

Do you believe that the most important thing in life is not about fame, sex, good looks or wealth; it’s about living the best life you are capable of? If so, I have a message you may be interested in.

Success isn’t about getting rich, climbing to the top of the corporate tree, getting famous, making yourself over to look like a movie star or finding the right relationship. Those are just tricks used to sell you products on TV and on the Internet. IT’S ABOUT LIVING THE BEST LIFE POSSIBLE.

It’s about transforming yourself to be the best a human being you can be! Ask yourself: what will be left in the world when you’re gone that you will be proud to have created?

You will have heard this (over and over): the formula for success (usually “instant” success) is work hard, pull a few stunts, shuck some suckers and get really rich. Thing is: IT ISN’T WORKING! Millions are striving at it. Yet the number of people who have succeeded using this formula you can count on your fingers: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Bill Gates… That’s not enough to sustain a village, never mind a planet!

Instead, think of your life in another way: How do you want to be remembered? Just as a nice person who others were glad to know and felt lucky to have had you in their life? I mean, what’s so wrong with that as a lifetime outcome? It’s inspiring!

You have to be aware that people who are pushing riches and wealth as the ultimate life model are those who WANT YOUR MONEY for their plan, which is to get rich! They can teach you NOTHING about living your best life possible, because they are not on that path. Hey, most of these dudes (and some are women too) don’t care about living a good life or being nice to others, never mind that they have something to teach.

Thing is, we all know: life is sometimes going to hit you over the head with a brickbat. It’ll hurt. But you mustn’t let setbacks color your view of life. It isn’t all about setbacks. Good things will arrive too. You must be ready.

In the words of Steve Jobs, no less, you’ve got to find what you love. That’s how your life will sing! It’s as true for work as it is for lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be really satisfied is to do what you believe is great work and the only way to do great work is to LOVE what you do. [Stanford University Commencement Speech, 2005]

Importantly, Jobs added that if you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. DON’T SETTLE. Settling is a tragedy that most people fall into. Keep looking and, as with all matters of the heart, you’ll know it when you find it.

How To Live Before You Die

Posted on January 14, 2019 by DrKeith

In a gloomy turn to his 2005 commencement speech “How To Live Before You Die”, Jobs confessed to standing in front of the mirror and asking himself: If this was to be the last day of my life, would I still want to do what I’m about to do? If the answer is NO too many days in a row, then something has to change.

So are you a person who likes challenges and, given the tools, will go out and carve something marvelous to live by? If so, keep reading.

In Supernoetics® we have the ideas and techniques. But we can’t make you over from an “it’s good enough” person into an “I want more, MUCH MORE!” person. Only you are in charge of that!

Give Yourself Permission To Say NO

Posted on April 20, 2018 by DrKeith

“We must say “no” to what, in our heart, we don’t want. We must say “no” to doing things out of obligation, thereby cheating those important to us of the purest expression of our love. We must say “no” to treating ourselves, our health, our needs as not as important as someone else’s…”

― Suzette R. Hinton, author of The Sound Of My Life.

As a practising physician, I see a lot of misery and struggle, conflict and self-doubt. It can be quite dangerous, as I have written elsewhere. The person who tends to get cancer—the so-called “cancer personality”—is someone who gives little priority to self, is a people pleaser, self-effacing and overburdened with care for others.

Basically such a person has no life of their own; she (usually female) is so busy running around after other people, she has no time for her own needs and desires. Yet such a person will rarely complain. They bottle up their frustration and that’s what is dangerous. Stress has to come out some way or other. If it doesn’t come out with yelling and demanding attention, it just manifests in a different direction: typically a disease, such as blood pressure, heart attack, or the dreaded cancer.

Beware!

A little known study carried out some years ago looked at this issue and found certain women had a great deal of trouble saying “No”. Even if what was demanded was something she didn’t like, even hated, she would go ahead and comply anyway. But this is an act of injury against the self. It may be justified as duty or “helping others” but it is still an injurious willingness to ignore the self and its needs.

Saying NO reduces stress considerably!

The researchers took the typical cancer personality case and had the woman practice saying “No!” to things she didn’t like, and sticking to it. The results of this intervention were startling. The women who said NO (and meant it) lived many years longer, on average, than those who could not bring themselves to do it. Continue reading →