God, Goddess, Satan, Whatever
Trying to reconstruct the gist of the long post that I lost. That one was more structured and organised. This one is ad hoc and messy because I can't be bothered to structure it a second time.
God sure as hell isn't limited by boundaries of sex -- i.e., God is no more "He" than "She".
If humans are created in God's image, then whence did we get sex? Probably from Him-Her.
God encompasses all the stuff that has traditionally been excluded from God and assigned to Satan. I don't believe that God and Satan are different entities. Take the Judeo-Christian definition of God (minus all the Jesus stuff), and take the definition of Satan from Theistic Satanism, and mash it all together. God isn't just the happy, fluffy Big Daddy in the sky supposed by Christian theology. God is also dark, terrifying, shit-your-pants awesome. (There's a reason characters in the Old Testament believe that no one can see God and live. I propose it's because the sheer awesome reality of God so completely overwhelms the human mind that it snuffs it out like a candle in a hurricane.)
God is immanent, present in every atom of Creation, perhaps even the stuff Creation was made from (the abyss or formless void of Genesis 1:1). Every rock, every exploding star, every rutting beast, is a manifestation of the Spirit of God. God is also transcendent, encompassing the finite Universe but also much, much more (in the sense that infinity is more than finity).
As for Jesus, who is referred to as "Lucifer" in the Latin Bible, the same as Satan is...
I think Christ = Promethean Lucifer (aspect of Satan [see above]) = the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Has nothing to do with sin or sacrifice or atonement or indeed most of Christology. Not God, but perhaps more than human. "Aspect" is probably a good word. A human (Jesus of Nazareth, if you want to assume a concrete historical reality rather than a symbolic-mythic one) embodying or carrying (or possessed by) the Spirit of God/Satan as a "Messenger of Light" à la Gnosticism, or a prophet à la Judaism and Islam.
Creation at the smallest level (subatomic) is all made up of the same stuff. It's only as you look at larger and larger structures -- subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, structures -- that the Void is differentiated. The process of differentiation in the Big-Bang-and-evolution-style development of the Universe is the scientific description of what is portrayed mythopoetically in Genesis 1.
In the beginning there was nothing [a void]. Then it exploded.
Creation is the development of filters of perception, filters of reality (division of All into material/spiritual, or in Gnostic terms Pleroma/Kenoma) that limit what parts get interpreted. A religion is also a kind of filter.
The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.
With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.
We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.
Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.
The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.
The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.
Reality is the original Rorschach.
(From The Principia Discordia)
In other words, a person's religion/world-view says nothing about God or ultimate Reality, and everything about the person himself. We never see the whole picture. We only see through our own eyes and our own filters. God designed it that way. God also designed things so that no one set of filters ("grids") is inherently better or more True than the others. They are all nothing more than paths. In order to get the full picture, you have to discard the grid entirely, look God in the face, and have your Self annihilated (Nirvana, fana', gnosis, whatever). The filters allow, even preserve, Ego. (At this point I'm into pure theory and speculation, not experience.)
Good and Evil are human value-judgments that inform some (many) of the filters we use. They assume a human-centred universe. If humans are the purpose of Creation, then Creation makes no sense, because there's so much in the universe that works against humanity. If humans are a by-product of Creation (a pretty cool one, let's face it, and possibly of special interest to God because we're just plain neat), then Good and Evil are meaningful only in terms of human interaction and also highly subjective, but the universe suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense.
There's no such thing as sin, only ignorance and egoism. Neither humanity nor Creation in general is flawed or fallen.
Scripture is a record of human perceptions and experiences of the Divine. It is always written from a human perspective, with all the biases and prejudices and filters of human language and culture and personal agenda*. In some cases, God may have influenced a prophet to convey a specific message to his or her people, but God doesn't speak in human words. Not even Hebrew or Arabic.
Agenda is the plural of agendum. Now you know.
I'm sure this is highly self-contradictory. I don't give a shit. Take a look at Christian or Islamic doctrine sometime if you want to see real hypocrisy and bullshit.
Also, God hates straights.
God sure as hell isn't limited by boundaries of sex -- i.e., God is no more "He" than "She".
If humans are created in God's image, then whence did we get sex? Probably from Him-Her.
God encompasses all the stuff that has traditionally been excluded from God and assigned to Satan. I don't believe that God and Satan are different entities. Take the Judeo-Christian definition of God (minus all the Jesus stuff), and take the definition of Satan from Theistic Satanism, and mash it all together. God isn't just the happy, fluffy Big Daddy in the sky supposed by Christian theology. God is also dark, terrifying, shit-your-pants awesome. (There's a reason characters in the Old Testament believe that no one can see God and live. I propose it's because the sheer awesome reality of God so completely overwhelms the human mind that it snuffs it out like a candle in a hurricane.)
God is immanent, present in every atom of Creation, perhaps even the stuff Creation was made from (the abyss or formless void of Genesis 1:1). Every rock, every exploding star, every rutting beast, is a manifestation of the Spirit of God. God is also transcendent, encompassing the finite Universe but also much, much more (in the sense that infinity is more than finity).
As for Jesus, who is referred to as "Lucifer" in the Latin Bible, the same as Satan is...
I think Christ = Promethean Lucifer (aspect of Satan [see above]) = the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Has nothing to do with sin or sacrifice or atonement or indeed most of Christology. Not God, but perhaps more than human. "Aspect" is probably a good word. A human (Jesus of Nazareth, if you want to assume a concrete historical reality rather than a symbolic-mythic one) embodying or carrying (or possessed by) the Spirit of God/Satan as a "Messenger of Light" à la Gnosticism, or a prophet à la Judaism and Islam.
Creation at the smallest level (subatomic) is all made up of the same stuff. It's only as you look at larger and larger structures -- subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, structures -- that the Void is differentiated. The process of differentiation in the Big-Bang-and-evolution-style development of the Universe is the scientific description of what is portrayed mythopoetically in Genesis 1.
In the beginning there was nothing [a void]. Then it exploded.
Creation is the development of filters of perception, filters of reality (division of All into material/spiritual, or in Gnostic terms Pleroma/Kenoma) that limit what parts get interpreted. A religion is also a kind of filter.
The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.
With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.
We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.
Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.
The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.
The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.
Reality is the original Rorschach.
(From The Principia Discordia)
In other words, a person's religion/world-view says nothing about God or ultimate Reality, and everything about the person himself. We never see the whole picture. We only see through our own eyes and our own filters. God designed it that way. God also designed things so that no one set of filters ("grids") is inherently better or more True than the others. They are all nothing more than paths. In order to get the full picture, you have to discard the grid entirely, look God in the face, and have your Self annihilated (Nirvana, fana', gnosis, whatever). The filters allow, even preserve, Ego. (At this point I'm into pure theory and speculation, not experience.)
Good and Evil are human value-judgments that inform some (many) of the filters we use. They assume a human-centred universe. If humans are the purpose of Creation, then Creation makes no sense, because there's so much in the universe that works against humanity. If humans are a by-product of Creation (a pretty cool one, let's face it, and possibly of special interest to God because we're just plain neat), then Good and Evil are meaningful only in terms of human interaction and also highly subjective, but the universe suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense.
There's no such thing as sin, only ignorance and egoism. Neither humanity nor Creation in general is flawed or fallen.
Scripture is a record of human perceptions and experiences of the Divine. It is always written from a human perspective, with all the biases and prejudices and filters of human language and culture and personal agenda*. In some cases, God may have influenced a prophet to convey a specific message to his or her people, but God doesn't speak in human words. Not even Hebrew or Arabic.
Agenda is the plural of agendum. Now you know.
I'm sure this is highly self-contradictory. I don't give a shit. Take a look at Christian or Islamic doctrine sometime if you want to see real hypocrisy and bullshit.
Also, God hates straights.