I have 3 literary works that I am currently devoting energy to. First, obviously, is TCS. Second is my WIP, Children of Dusk. The third is a longer philosophical piece I finished and then shelved about 3 years ago called A Theory of Oneness. For years I'd wanted to put down on paper a sort of step-by-step explanation of my basic philosophy and how I defend it to myself, and I finally did so during the Spring and Summer of 2012. I had originally planned for it to be a multipart work, covering theory, implementation, and result of my ideas, but it stalled after the first part. My new plan was to dust it off, revise it, talk it up, and put it up on Amazon. So a couple of days ago I dug out that old green notebook (my first drafts are always longhand) and started reading.
Hoo boy.
I knew it was rough, but I didn't expect this; 50-odd pages of meanderings, tangents, and horribly overwrought (overwritten?) sentence structure. If it were all crap, that would be fine, I'd just junk it, sigh, and move on, but there are some gems in there, and the process of writing it was very important to me. Putting one's life ideas down on paper is very cathartic, because it forces you to stare unblinking at your own inconsistencies and contradictions. Writing Theory of Oneness really made me formalize, codify, and justify my ideas.
But holy hell, this is going to be a lot of work.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Friday, January 9, 2015
Genesis of a Snowflake Part 2
So there TCS sat for about 4 years, simmering away in my subconscious, not completely forgotten but not even vaguely on my radar until a birthday present brought it back with a vengeance.
For 2 1/2 years I had an 80+ mile daily commute, a long, lonely, and incredibly boring drone up and back Interstate 80 five times a week (and don't get me started on the gas costs). My lovely wife knew this, so for my 35th birthday she bought me a nice stereo for my car and paid to have it professionally installed. One of the neat features of this stereo was its ability to play burnt MP3 CD-ROMs. Not a fabulous feature in this day of iPods and smart phones, but one that appealed to me because of a quirk of an old job of mine. I once worked in the Interlibrary Loan department of one of the biggest libraries in the Chicago area, and nearly every new CD that the library added to their collection went through my hands (this was around 2003, back when CDs were still a thing). So I would snag any CD that held any appeal for me, bring it home, rip it onto my computer, and then bring it back and send it on its merry way. Over time I accumulated a massive library of music, far more than any early-2000s computer could hold, so I started archiving them onto disc. Now you understand the appeal of a car stereo that could read MP3 discs.
During my digital excavations, I came across some audiobooks I had copied during my library tenure, so I started working through those as a change of pace. Lo and behold, I find audio versions of Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God books. I'd read the books themselves once, and found them interesting but, at the time, a bit esoteric for my tastes. I decided to give them another shot and fell in love. Part of this was because in the intervening 7 years or so my personal philosophy had matured considerably, part was because the production was excellent. Walsch himself reads his own parts with Ed Asner and Ellen Burstyn alternately taking the voice of God, Asner's gravel contrasting wonderfully with Burstyn's mellow contralto. I can't recommend them enough.
In any case, I dove wholeheartedly into the series, and what did I find about 2/3rds of the way through Book 1 but my old friend, the snowflake-as-soul metaphor. All of a sudden, TCS came soaring out of the back burner of my mind with a big old DONE on it, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck like a lion attacking a gazelle, and informed me in no uncertain terms that I would begin writing it. NOW.
Never before and never since has an idea consumed me the way TCS did. My lovely wife told me after the fact that I was impossible to live with during the writing process because I was utterly and completely somewhere else. I knocked the first draft out in 9 days, and over that time I did nothing but write, think about writing, and (no joke) dream about writing. I suppose I worked, cooked meals, functioned as a human being, but all I remember of that week and a half is an unprecedented obsession, a complete mania.
I believe with all my heart that creativity is not a process of bringing something new into the world, but a process of bringing something through from a higher plane of consciousness. In my moments of clearest and best creative power, I feel like nothing so much as a conduit, a pipeline, a scribe taking dictation. From what? I could conjecture, I suppose, but anything I could call it would be just a label. The Muse, God, the Great Creator, an angel sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear (or in the case of TCS, screaming it's little feathered head off), it doesn't matter. All I know is that my creativity comes through me, not from me. I am, to quote Paul, not the Potter, nor the Potter's wheel, but the Potter's clay. Sexist bastard with an ego to crush a mountain, but he had his moments. :-P
TCS, in its form found on Amazon, is 97% exactly as it came through me in those frantic 9 days in March of 2010. I made a few grammatical adjustments, tweaked a word here or there, but all they were was polish on a few facets of the gem. I go back once or twice a year to reread TCS, just to reassure myself that I am not delusional, I am not a raving egotist, that it really is as good as I remember it being, as I remember it becoming. Each time, I am filled with awe and gratitude that I was capable of bringing it into being as well as I did. I am not proud of TCS. I am humbled by it.
JCS
For 2 1/2 years I had an 80+ mile daily commute, a long, lonely, and incredibly boring drone up and back Interstate 80 five times a week (and don't get me started on the gas costs). My lovely wife knew this, so for my 35th birthday she bought me a nice stereo for my car and paid to have it professionally installed. One of the neat features of this stereo was its ability to play burnt MP3 CD-ROMs. Not a fabulous feature in this day of iPods and smart phones, but one that appealed to me because of a quirk of an old job of mine. I once worked in the Interlibrary Loan department of one of the biggest libraries in the Chicago area, and nearly every new CD that the library added to their collection went through my hands (this was around 2003, back when CDs were still a thing). So I would snag any CD that held any appeal for me, bring it home, rip it onto my computer, and then bring it back and send it on its merry way. Over time I accumulated a massive library of music, far more than any early-2000s computer could hold, so I started archiving them onto disc. Now you understand the appeal of a car stereo that could read MP3 discs.
During my digital excavations, I came across some audiobooks I had copied during my library tenure, so I started working through those as a change of pace. Lo and behold, I find audio versions of Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God books. I'd read the books themselves once, and found them interesting but, at the time, a bit esoteric for my tastes. I decided to give them another shot and fell in love. Part of this was because in the intervening 7 years or so my personal philosophy had matured considerably, part was because the production was excellent. Walsch himself reads his own parts with Ed Asner and Ellen Burstyn alternately taking the voice of God, Asner's gravel contrasting wonderfully with Burstyn's mellow contralto. I can't recommend them enough.
In any case, I dove wholeheartedly into the series, and what did I find about 2/3rds of the way through Book 1 but my old friend, the snowflake-as-soul metaphor. All of a sudden, TCS came soaring out of the back burner of my mind with a big old DONE on it, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck like a lion attacking a gazelle, and informed me in no uncertain terms that I would begin writing it. NOW.
Never before and never since has an idea consumed me the way TCS did. My lovely wife told me after the fact that I was impossible to live with during the writing process because I was utterly and completely somewhere else. I knocked the first draft out in 9 days, and over that time I did nothing but write, think about writing, and (no joke) dream about writing. I suppose I worked, cooked meals, functioned as a human being, but all I remember of that week and a half is an unprecedented obsession, a complete mania.
I believe with all my heart that creativity is not a process of bringing something new into the world, but a process of bringing something through from a higher plane of consciousness. In my moments of clearest and best creative power, I feel like nothing so much as a conduit, a pipeline, a scribe taking dictation. From what? I could conjecture, I suppose, but anything I could call it would be just a label. The Muse, God, the Great Creator, an angel sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear (or in the case of TCS, screaming it's little feathered head off), it doesn't matter. All I know is that my creativity comes through me, not from me. I am, to quote Paul, not the Potter, nor the Potter's wheel, but the Potter's clay. Sexist bastard with an ego to crush a mountain, but he had his moments. :-P
TCS, in its form found on Amazon, is 97% exactly as it came through me in those frantic 9 days in March of 2010. I made a few grammatical adjustments, tweaked a word here or there, but all they were was polish on a few facets of the gem. I go back once or twice a year to reread TCS, just to reassure myself that I am not delusional, I am not a raving egotist, that it really is as good as I remember it being, as I remember it becoming. Each time, I am filled with awe and gratitude that I was capable of bringing it into being as well as I did. I am not proud of TCS. I am humbled by it.
JCS
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Genesis of a Snowflake
In my 20+ years as a writer, the experience of bringing The Curious Snowflake to life was the most unique. No other idea ever came to me in this way, no other idea stayed with me so long before finally coming to fruition, and no other idea devoured me so completely once I started it.
Most of my ideas are visual or auditory, not conceptual. When I get the itch to write something, it usually starts with an image or a conversation in my head. Some of these bounce around once in my noggin and then disappear, but the good ones stay, rattling around like marbles in a bucket until I get them out and put them on paper. TCS was different. It started out as an idea rather than image or dialogue, or more accurately, it began as two ideas that collided, one from my childhood an another from my spiritual readings.
My mother is a very unique woman, as anyone who has met her can attest. She always believed in challenging me intellectually and never dumbed anything down for me. The place where this was most evident was in her choices in my childhood literature. Yes, I got the typical staples, Seuss and such, but from a very young age my mother also read to me from the Bible and from books of poetry and classic literature. I enjoyed these immensely (loved the plagues of Egypt story as a kid) but one of my absolute favorites was a collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling (best known for writing The Jungle Book) called The Just So Stories. These were stories written by Kipling that he read aloud to his own daughter, whom he refers to throughout the collection as his Best Beloved. The stories are universally charming, but the one I liked the best was one called The Elephant's Child. It is the story of a young elephant who "was full of 'satiable curiosity, which means he asked ever so many questions" who then goes on a journey to discover what crocodiles have for breakfast. Needless to say, this almost ends disastrously for the Elephant's Child.
The second idea is one familiar to anyone who reads New Age literature, the image of souls as snowflakes. My basic life philosophy is pantheistic; I believe that All Is One, appearing separate and linear for the purpose of creating experience. Souls as snowflakes is a perfect parallel to this concept. All snowflakes are made from the same thing, and yet every snowflake is unique because the possible variations is equal to the number of individual water molecules in the flake factorialized. For you non-math people out there, that would be S times (S -1) times (S - 2) and so on all the way down to 1. So mathematically speaking, even considering the millions of snowflakes that fall in each snowstorm on Earth, the amount of time it would take for an exact replica of a snowflake to appear is longer than the age of the universe, and that's assuming that all snowflakes have exactly the same number of water molecules in them, which they obviously don't.
Anyway, math nerding-out aside, the ideas of souls as snowflakes and the dangers and wonders of curiosity coexisted in my mind for many years until one day about 8 years ago. I'd been on one of my spiritual reading kicks at the time, and I was cleaning out the bedroom my wife and I share in anticipation for the birth of our daughter. Lo and behold, I come across the old copy of the Just So Stories my mother had given me when our oldest was born. I sat down on the bed and started thumbing through it (I am one of the world's greatest procrastinators) and I come across The Elephant's Child. Suddenly these two ideas collide in my head and the idea of The Curious Snowflake, a spiritual children's parable was born. I rummaged around in the bedroom until I found a spiral notebook and pen (not difficult, I keep some in every room, which drives my DW nuts) and start writing.
I get about a page in and the idea died. Utterly. But it still itched at me, so I filed it away in the back of my head and forgot about it. It stayed there, simmering away, for about 4 years.
More later.
Most of my ideas are visual or auditory, not conceptual. When I get the itch to write something, it usually starts with an image or a conversation in my head. Some of these bounce around once in my noggin and then disappear, but the good ones stay, rattling around like marbles in a bucket until I get them out and put them on paper. TCS was different. It started out as an idea rather than image or dialogue, or more accurately, it began as two ideas that collided, one from my childhood an another from my spiritual readings.
My mother is a very unique woman, as anyone who has met her can attest. She always believed in challenging me intellectually and never dumbed anything down for me. The place where this was most evident was in her choices in my childhood literature. Yes, I got the typical staples, Seuss and such, but from a very young age my mother also read to me from the Bible and from books of poetry and classic literature. I enjoyed these immensely (loved the plagues of Egypt story as a kid) but one of my absolute favorites was a collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling (best known for writing The Jungle Book) called The Just So Stories. These were stories written by Kipling that he read aloud to his own daughter, whom he refers to throughout the collection as his Best Beloved. The stories are universally charming, but the one I liked the best was one called The Elephant's Child. It is the story of a young elephant who "was full of 'satiable curiosity, which means he asked ever so many questions" who then goes on a journey to discover what crocodiles have for breakfast. Needless to say, this almost ends disastrously for the Elephant's Child.
The second idea is one familiar to anyone who reads New Age literature, the image of souls as snowflakes. My basic life philosophy is pantheistic; I believe that All Is One, appearing separate and linear for the purpose of creating experience. Souls as snowflakes is a perfect parallel to this concept. All snowflakes are made from the same thing, and yet every snowflake is unique because the possible variations is equal to the number of individual water molecules in the flake factorialized. For you non-math people out there, that would be S times (S -1) times (S - 2) and so on all the way down to 1. So mathematically speaking, even considering the millions of snowflakes that fall in each snowstorm on Earth, the amount of time it would take for an exact replica of a snowflake to appear is longer than the age of the universe, and that's assuming that all snowflakes have exactly the same number of water molecules in them, which they obviously don't.
Anyway, math nerding-out aside, the ideas of souls as snowflakes and the dangers and wonders of curiosity coexisted in my mind for many years until one day about 8 years ago. I'd been on one of my spiritual reading kicks at the time, and I was cleaning out the bedroom my wife and I share in anticipation for the birth of our daughter. Lo and behold, I come across the old copy of the Just So Stories my mother had given me when our oldest was born. I sat down on the bed and started thumbing through it (I am one of the world's greatest procrastinators) and I come across The Elephant's Child. Suddenly these two ideas collide in my head and the idea of The Curious Snowflake, a spiritual children's parable was born. I rummaged around in the bedroom until I found a spiral notebook and pen (not difficult, I keep some in every room, which drives my DW nuts) and start writing.
I get about a page in and the idea died. Utterly. But it still itched at me, so I filed it away in the back of my head and forgot about it. It stayed there, simmering away, for about 4 years.
More later.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Welcome Home, Beloved
Hello my friends,
It's been almost 3 years since I've used this blog, but since I have rededicated myself to TCS, I figured it was time for me to dust this old thing off and start using it again. I will try to post something about once a week.
I do not know how it is for other creatives, but for me the whole process is about momentum. As long as I keep creating, keep working, keep coming to the page and putting something on it, I'm okay. The moment I lapse, everything calcifies. I was going great guns on my WIP, Children of Dusk, for about 2 months, then a combination of work, stress, and a little videogame called Destiny pulled me away from it, and I've barely written 10 pages in the last 3 months. Every time I went to the page, it felt like I was constipated. The ideas were there, but they wouldn't come together. Just yesterday, I finally got things moving again, but I don't know how long I can maintain the focus with it being December and all.
Does anyone else have problems like this?
JCS
It's been almost 3 years since I've used this blog, but since I have rededicated myself to TCS, I figured it was time for me to dust this old thing off and start using it again. I will try to post something about once a week.
I do not know how it is for other creatives, but for me the whole process is about momentum. As long as I keep creating, keep working, keep coming to the page and putting something on it, I'm okay. The moment I lapse, everything calcifies. I was going great guns on my WIP, Children of Dusk, for about 2 months, then a combination of work, stress, and a little videogame called Destiny pulled me away from it, and I've barely written 10 pages in the last 3 months. Every time I went to the page, it felt like I was constipated. The ideas were there, but they wouldn't come together. Just yesterday, I finally got things moving again, but I don't know how long I can maintain the focus with it being December and all.
Does anyone else have problems like this?
JCS
Saturday, February 25, 2012
One Observation, One Conclusion, One Choice
All the philosophies, religions, and worldviews that exist come down to one observation, one conclusion, and one choice. We look at the world and our experiences and we observe that we are limited. We then must conclude one of two things; either we created these limitations or someone else did. From this comes our choice: accept or reject the limitations. To assume external limits and accept them is the path of organized religion (and atheism, for that matter). This is by far the easiest path: figure out the rules, follow them, and all will be right with the world. To assume external limits and reject them is the path conspiracy theorists and the archetypical New Age nuts choose. From this comes a life of conflict and strife, since to truly overcome the limitations is to negate one's purpose for living. So ever more elaborate constructs and ever deeper conspiracies must be uncovered in order to validate this worldview.
Yet both of these worldviews sidestep one important point (and atheism simply ignores it). If all of this springs from some Unlimited Source, where do all the limits originally come from? Can that which is Unlimited actually become limited? And if it could, where would the limits come from but the Unlimited itself? Either the limits must be illusions, or they are created and chosen, which are functionally the same thing. Either way, they only exist in the mind.
So this brings us to the second conclusion. To own the limits but resist them is the path of the spiritual seeker, constantly fighting against the millenia-ingrained tendency we have to limit ourselves. There is great sense of accomplishment is such a life, great sense of purpose, but it is not the highest path we can tread. The highest choice of all is to own that we create our limits and then to accept them. This all comes from a simple truth; to resist a thing makes it more real. Despite the realization, one who knows they create their limitations only makes them more solid by fighting them. Only by acceptance and joy in the creation and experience of one's limitations can we really be set free from them. In truth, conscious creation and acceptance of limits is the greatest form of freedom.
Yet both of these worldviews sidestep one important point (and atheism simply ignores it). If all of this springs from some Unlimited Source, where do all the limits originally come from? Can that which is Unlimited actually become limited? And if it could, where would the limits come from but the Unlimited itself? Either the limits must be illusions, or they are created and chosen, which are functionally the same thing. Either way, they only exist in the mind.
So this brings us to the second conclusion. To own the limits but resist them is the path of the spiritual seeker, constantly fighting against the millenia-ingrained tendency we have to limit ourselves. There is great sense of accomplishment is such a life, great sense of purpose, but it is not the highest path we can tread. The highest choice of all is to own that we create our limits and then to accept them. This all comes from a simple truth; to resist a thing makes it more real. Despite the realization, one who knows they create their limitations only makes them more solid by fighting them. Only by acceptance and joy in the creation and experience of one's limitations can we really be set free from them. In truth, conscious creation and acceptance of limits is the greatest form of freedom.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
My favorite Bible story: Mark 11
I am not a Christian, but I still find great wisdom and insight in the Bible, especially in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (John has it's moments, but I can take it or leave it). Of all the wonderful parts of the Gospels, the Beatitudes, Gethsemane, the parables, my favorite part is chapter 11 of the Gospel of Mark. It not only shows Yeshua ben Yosef, the man we now call Jesus, at the height of his ministry with his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but it shows his flaws and his humanness as well. Best of all, it shows Yeshua speaking of the true potential of humanity in the clearest of terms.
It begins, as I said, with Palm Sunday, and then continues to this (KJV)...
After this, Yeshua and the disciples enter Jerusalem, and we find the famous moneychangers in the Temple scene. Then this follows...
There are three very important lessons in these verses. First, even more than the moneychangers scene, this story displays the essential humanness of Yeshua. This incredible man, this wonderful and wise teacher, loses his temper at a tree and kills it with a word (in Matthew the tree withers instantly, rather than overnight as here). This shows us that Yeshua is not perfect, he is flawed, just like all of us. How many of us have wounded another with unkindness in a moment of frustration? How many of us have gotten snappy with others, even others we love, when we are hungry, as he was? How incredibly normal and natural! This moment of imperfection on the part of Yeshua I find incredibly inspiring, because more than his temptation in the wilderness or his fear in Gethsemane or his doubt at Golgotha, this shows me a Yeshua I can relate to as another man, searching for peace within and without, and occasionally failing.
Notice then, in the second part, how he turns a negative into a positive. Instead of dwelling on his mistake, he uses the awe his followers feel at the sight of the dead tree into an object lesson in the power that all have within them. And notice also, there are no caveats or limits to the power of prayer (some were added to this same story in Matthew), only that one needs to believe, completely, in the power of the Divine and that the prayer will be answered. It doesn't matter what is prayed for, it doesn't matter the purity of the asker, all that matters is faith that goes beyond faith to perfect knowing and confidence.
But notice now the addendum to this teaching, the importance of forgiveness of others. This seems abrupt, almost a changing of subject, if one assumes the perfection of Yeshua, but in light of his flaws it makes perfect sense. Yeshua knows that he has done wrong by losing his temper and killing the tree, and in his heart he has asked the Divine for forgiveness for his trespass. Since this is on his mind, he then passes on the insight that God will forgive us precisely as much as we forgive others. With the knowledge of how close Yeshua is to his greatest forgivenesses of others at this time (the Tuesday before Good Friday), this teaching becomes especially poignant.
Mark 11, more than any other part of the Bible, reveals to me the true nature of the man we now call Jesus; God made man, yes, but not unique in this and, in his own way, just as flawed and human as any of us.
It begins, as I said, with Palm Sunday, and then continues to this (KJV)...
Quote:
Mark 11 12 And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: 13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. 14 And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. |
After this, Yeshua and the disciples enter Jerusalem, and we find the famous moneychangers in the Temple scene. Then this follows...
Quote:
Mark 11 19 And when even was come, he went out of the city. 20 And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21 And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. 22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. 23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. 25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. |
There are three very important lessons in these verses. First, even more than the moneychangers scene, this story displays the essential humanness of Yeshua. This incredible man, this wonderful and wise teacher, loses his temper at a tree and kills it with a word (in Matthew the tree withers instantly, rather than overnight as here). This shows us that Yeshua is not perfect, he is flawed, just like all of us. How many of us have wounded another with unkindness in a moment of frustration? How many of us have gotten snappy with others, even others we love, when we are hungry, as he was? How incredibly normal and natural! This moment of imperfection on the part of Yeshua I find incredibly inspiring, because more than his temptation in the wilderness or his fear in Gethsemane or his doubt at Golgotha, this shows me a Yeshua I can relate to as another man, searching for peace within and without, and occasionally failing.
Notice then, in the second part, how he turns a negative into a positive. Instead of dwelling on his mistake, he uses the awe his followers feel at the sight of the dead tree into an object lesson in the power that all have within them. And notice also, there are no caveats or limits to the power of prayer (some were added to this same story in Matthew), only that one needs to believe, completely, in the power of the Divine and that the prayer will be answered. It doesn't matter what is prayed for, it doesn't matter the purity of the asker, all that matters is faith that goes beyond faith to perfect knowing and confidence.
But notice now the addendum to this teaching, the importance of forgiveness of others. This seems abrupt, almost a changing of subject, if one assumes the perfection of Yeshua, but in light of his flaws it makes perfect sense. Yeshua knows that he has done wrong by losing his temper and killing the tree, and in his heart he has asked the Divine for forgiveness for his trespass. Since this is on his mind, he then passes on the insight that God will forgive us precisely as much as we forgive others. With the knowledge of how close Yeshua is to his greatest forgivenesses of others at this time (the Tuesday before Good Friday), this teaching becomes especially poignant.
Mark 11, more than any other part of the Bible, reveals to me the true nature of the man we now call Jesus; God made man, yes, but not unique in this and, in his own way, just as flawed and human as any of us.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Why I cannot believe in the Monotheist God
Someone on SpiritualForums.com recently posted a link to download a PDF titled "Is Jesus God?", and, curious as always, I downloaded it and gave it a read. Other than two things, it contained no argument or line of reasoning I had not heard before. One of those two was interesting (a discussion of the logic of Yeshua's resurrection), but the other contained such inane leaps of logic I felt compelled to discuss it here.
At the end of the PDF was a 20 part logical Proof of the Divine. It began quite well (though not in any way that hasn't been used before before) with the idea that a universe with a definite beginning must have a Cause. From there it goes logically through the nature of such a Cause, but around Step 15 it starts to break down and make unfounded assumptions. I'll repost the final few steps here.
12. All the causes cannot be finite (non-ultimate) causes.
Therefore,
13. The personal moral existing Creator-Cause is infinite (i.e.,
ultimate).
14. The infinite cause must be eternal because eternality is infinity
applied to time (and no meaningful statement can be made about
space without reference to time).
15. An infinite eternal Cause could not change (since anything He
would change into, He would already be).
Therefore,
16. The Creator-Cause must be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-
perfect (otherwise He could change).
Therefore,
17. A personal, moral, infinite, eternal, immutable (unchanging), all-
knowing, all-powerful, all-perfect Creator-Cause exists.
18. Such a Being is worthy of worship.
19. A Being worthy of worship can be called God.
Therefore,
20. GOD EXISTS.
Point 15 is really the core of why I cannot accept the ideas of Monotheism. The idea of an unchanging Divine, and the ideas of perfection that follow in 16 and 17, is the root of the idea of human imperfectness and sinfulness; God is infinite and we are finite, so if God is also perfect and perfection is infinite, we as finite beings must be imperfect. This is the genesis (pun intended) of Original Sin.
But what such a mindset misses is the unconscious limitations this perspective places upon the Divine. If the Divine is infinite and eternal (as stated in point 14), then the Divine must contain It's creation, since to not contain it creates a finitism; it says that this is something "God" is not. Yet if God contains Creation, God must also change, since change is the defining characteristic of Creation, and especially of Life. Therefore immutability cannot be an aspect of God, and mutability cannot be imperfect. Therefore we must be already perfect, since we are not separate from God.
The real leap of logic, however, is in #18. The idea that we should or need to worship the Divine is completely dependent upon the idea of God's separateness and our imperfection, yet as I stated above, the whole idea of our imperfection and separateness creates a limitation upon God, and therefore must not be true if God is infinite and eternal.
But this does not even touch upon the whole idea that worship of the Divine is a requirement. A requirement implies that worship is something that God needs or desires. If it is a need, it implies that somehow God would be lessened or damaged or hurt by not getting it, and how could that which is unlimited, eternal, and omnipotent be lessened, hurt, or damaged? The very idea that such could happen is a limitation in and of itself.
So therefore, worship must be required out of God's preference, yet why would such a preference exist? It must only exist if God created it. So what purpose does such a creation serve? It would imply that there is something God would prefer that would not manifest, and why would God create the desire for something and the situation where the desire could manifest, yet did not? This implies powerlessness on God's part, another impossibility.
The usual monotheist rebuttal of this is that God gave us free will so that we could come to God out of choice rather than out of compulsion, yet such a construction requires separation of God from Creation, which creates a limitation upon the Unlimited. For us to choose what God does not want us to choose would require God to have no part in our choices, which would require that we are separate from God. If we are separate from God, then there is something God is not, which is a limitation and therefore impossible.
What it comes down to is that the constructions of Western Monotheism require a limited and anthropomorphized Divine. While such idea do have an internal logic, they hinge upon assumptions that I find completely unfounded. Thus I have personally discarded the WM God and forged my own paths and ideas.
JCS
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