God Is Listening
Anything I ever learned was not taught to me by others. This late-stage acquittal of my teachers is presented partly as a salve to the grief I put them through, but it is mostly an acknowledgement that the Socratic Method of teaching operates from within. The educational system which, by default, takes credit as the primary information source of every general reference factoid absorbed throughout my life, is a foundation of society. Modern parenting is dependent upon this system for the socialization and babysitting of our children. For that, we are grateful. Still, I find that most of what I am most convinced is true is the result of inner analysis and personal vetting, rather than a direct product of my rather expensive schooling. In this respect, it is likely that the bulk of the knowledge I possess was not due to some reductionist reaction between what I already knew and what I was subsequently told, but merely the revelation of previously unseen truths in my possession from conception, a complete inter-universal taxonomy encoded and distributed throughout my being. All we really need is to be reminded of its existence. This is an extension of what seems to be an eternal argument; the difference between knowledge and awareness. The first is based on the confidence we place in external source material to develop and sustain a particular position. The second is purely sensory, lacking any method for us to confirm our impressions other than to speak them aloud and await the reaction of others. This is the underlying cause of conflict between science and faith, which shouldn’t be the mutually exclusive concepts they have developed into. We know what we know. We believe what we believe. The first is subject to further examination. The second should be, but rarely is. Modern science is the direct descendent of philosophy, which probed our desire to be closer to the gods so we might understand their reasons and, through such understanding, learn our purpose. Modern religion, in its theological sense, is also beholden to the Greeks, at least as it applies to the form of the argument.
Inspiration is a purely sensory experience. Those of us who can claim to have enjoyed that ride will confirm its out-of-body character. Some will say it is the voice of God speaking through them, an argument that is impossible to confirm and difficult to deny. Such is the impressive ability of the fortress of firm belief to repel the siege of pure reason — Our faith will carry us forth against all doubt. We can acknowledge that such a stance just barely raises the human credo above our natural brute savagery and yet still admire the steadfastness of its adherents. Taking into account my personal belief, as steadfast as any, that nothing as complex as our existence can be reduced to such simplistic canon, it does appear that we are not so in control individually that we can summon inspiration upon demand. It comes and goes … even Shakespeare experienced writer’s block. This intermittency encourages the idea that we are merely transducing the message from another source. That is, God is speaking to us through Aeschylus and Proust and, yeah, Bill Shakespeare. If we can receive and then find a way to express these messages in an understandable form, what does that say about our ability to transmit such messages back with the same frequency? Is the concept of prayer an elementary form of this idea? Have we known from the first moment of consciousness that something unseen was listening? One might argue that this is a part of every religious dogma and that’s how we recognize the concept. I will argue that it is intrinsic to our being. Not taught, but branded upon our consciousness and thereafter adopted by every belief system. Even the most faithless of astrophysicists is sending digital prayers into the ether and hoping for some form of response.
The Earth is a dangerous place, but compared to other places in the galaxy it’s very hospitable for beings such as us. The idea that we owe our existence to the planet is impossible to argue. But that point of view leads us to a couple of false premises, one borne of faith and the other fostered by science. Judeo-Christian legend would have us cast to this place, which awaited our arrival. The theory of Evolution is not so complete that it survives all scrutiny, but it is certainly solid enough to make Genesis and the Eden legend difficult to support beyond the auspices of personal belief. We have risen to our place within a timeline which coincides with the planet developing an environment perfectly suited to our purposes. We are a product of that development, accident or not. As for the science of our existence, the continuing assumption that complex lifeforms such as ours must exist beyond our planet remains unsupported by any sort of empirical evidence beyond the statistical, making its pursuit one of the most troubling elements of modern scientific study. These two pillars of the human condition lurk across from each other, each standing astride opposite banks of the river of Time. Each pillar is built on a strong foundation and each rises to allow our vision to go beyond the horizon and expand the limits of our senses. We started, from both perspectives, at ground level. Then, before there was religion, before there was science, before we knew where we were, or that others like us were living nearby, we were listening and talking to the gods. This goes to the root of our nature, every member of every tribe and clan in every habitable place on the planet simultaneously looking to the sky seeking answers. And receiving them.
If we have a purpose, that purpose was imposed from the start. We are limited by our senses, which operate within certain parameters. That’s the impression our senses relay to us, at any rate. There is much in the way of information that we are not capable of recognizing, due to those processing limitations. That doesn’t mean the information isn’t there, or that we are not absorbing and retransmitting it. We may even be, unconsciously, transforming the information prior to passing it on. This would make us, collectively, the sensory nexus of the planet, of the solar system, even of the galaxy and beyond. If something from without wanted to know what was going on here, they could get it from us, even if we didn’t completely understand the actual messages we were sending. The scale is such that there isn’t a distinction between individual joy and sorrow. Everything comes into balance and the actual message has absolutely nothing to do with us. We are each a part of the whole, no more or less important than any other part. When we die, someone or two take over. The communication never stops. If we have a purpose, why not that? It goes beyond the individual being. It is the collective, the measure of its emotional state and the grand total of all that is out there. If we are here to serve God, I can’t think of a simpler, or more obvious, way. Even Marcel Proust would concede that point.
