the illusion of difference

People argue a lot, very often about a thing called "god". We fight and kill for reasons to do with a thing called "god".

There are many different fights about god, including but not limited to fights about the existence of god (whether ze exists), the nature of god (what ze is), how we should interact with god, and whether there is one god or many gods or many aspects of the one god. There are fights between people called “believers” and people called “atheists”. There are fights between those who believe they believe in a different god to the god or gods in which others believe they believe. There are fights between people who believe that god is “X” versus people who believe “Y” is god. There are fights between people who believe the name of god is Poseidon and people who believe the name of god is Neptune.

Of course, god is not the only thing we kill each other about. We kill each other for political reasons (to do with power), economic (wealth, resources), cultural, racial and more: you name it, we’ll kill in the name of it.)

We have seen the effects: Crucifixions. Burnings at the stake. People fed to lions. Lampshades of human skin. Crusaders and Saracens. Tutsis and Hutus. Northern Ireland. Jerusalem. Baghdad. Iraq. Afghanistan. Been there, done that.

Now, we could keep on the same way: fighting, arguing, killing. If that’s what we want to do, choose to do. If we feel it serves our purposes to keep fighting, then that is what we should continue to do. That’s assuming we want to serve our purposes. If we choose not to serve our own purposes, we are choosing self-destruction: neurotic if not pathological behaviour. (By the way, what are our purposes?)

Or, we could stop fighting, if we desired to, because actually there is no disagreement, nothing to fight about. Actually, we’re all in agreement, have been forevermore, will be forevermore. We just don’t see it.

We don’t see it for three sets of reasons. The first has to do with language, the meaning of words. The second concerns the Gestalt, set theory: the relationships and interactions between the whole and its parts, and between parts and other parts. The third concerns the Self: what it is, where it is, what it encompasses). Let’s look at the first set first, concerning language.

For starters, let’s not use the word “god”. There is just too much accumulated emotional, cultural and psychological baggage carried on the back of the word “god” (or “Allah”, “Yahweh”, “Ahura Mazda”, “Zeus”, “Shiva”, “Wandjina” or any so-called “name” of god in any language). So let’s start from scratch. Let’s invent a new label, a new word, something neutral, something without connotations or implications. How about "Everything That Is", or even for that matter, "Everything" (as opposed to "every thing")? As in, for example, “her faith in Everything helped sustain her through a difficult childhood”. Or, “…they believe in a personal Everything…”.

More on this some other time or place, but for now let's bear in mind one simple proposition: every thing is part of Everything.

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eBooks by Cosmic Rapture

NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS. This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously and grotesquely illustrated.

AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?). We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS. A disturbing repository of quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.

MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS. An unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms, including but not limited to barbaric episodes of herring-flinging and kipper-kissing. A cacklingly bizarre read that may induce fatal hysteria. Not Recommended!

FIENDS & FREAKS and serpents, dragons, devils, lobsters, anguished spirits, hungry ghosts, hell-beings, zombies, organ-grinders, anti-gods, gods and other horse-thieves you wouldn't want to meet in a dark cosmos. Immature Content! Adults Maybe.

HAGS TO HAGGIS. An obnoxious folio featuring a puke of whiskey-soaked war-nags, witches, maniacs, manticores and escapegoats. Not to mention (please don't!) debottlenecking and desilofication, illustrated. Take your brain for a walk on the wild side. Leave your guts behind.