A cake made out of myths - Belief after a spiritual nuclear event

I set up this blog post almost at the creation of the blog itself and I thought that I had to struggle rather much to conjure up things I believe in after such a long time where belief in anything except what my immediate perceptions told me was impossible. Turns out that was not the case, the return to my normal mind set has activated all my previous belief systems and I could quickly spit out text after text explaining their structures and meme content without too much hesitation involved. I believe in stuff, clearly - so this text will be an exercise in keeping it short and constraint rather than a struggle to find anything, anything at all to claim as my beliefs. For me, that's a relief. 

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i like to begin by talking a bit about the concept of paradigms. A paradigm in this context is to be understood as a set of beliefs that form a cohesive whole. Everything within a paradigm fits together and you can take a paradigm as a given and by doing that you get the axioms and premises of the paradigm for "free", you don't need to prove them once again but can treat them as stone hard facts. Different paradigms can exist parallel to each other without being in conflict regarding being "true" or "false". Science works in this way along its path of constant progress. Sooner or later so much more new data and information has been amassed that a previous understanding of the workings of a certain field simply is outdated. What happens then is that a new paradigm is formulated and science can move forward, leaving the old paradigm - more or less lovingly - behind but without proclaiming that the old one is "false" and the new one is "true". No, sometimes the old paradigm is more practical to use than the new one and then you still have usage of it. The clearest example of this is within physics where the Newtonian model has been replaced by Relative theory and the latter one is giving way to Quantum Physics. None of these are more "true" than the other but they're explaining reality at different scales and with different assumptions. In certain situations the Newtonian paradigm lacks too much data, let's say, to be satisfyingly applied, in others the Quantum paradigm is impractical for what you want to explore and perform. Paradigms are equal to each other, as long as a paradigm is complete you can judge what is true and false within them. To decide what is true without a paradigm I would dare to say is entirely impossible. Our concept of truth is dependent on having a paradigm as a grounding perspective.

The idealist understanding of mythology works the same way and is our word for paradigm one could say. Every consistent world view can be told in the forms of myths and mythology and every expanded mythology can be distilled into a coherent world view. Materialism, different theisms and my own project of seeing reality as a gaming platform are all examples of mythologies in this way of understanding the term. They can not be literally true, our language is inadequate to describe literal truth on a metaphysical scale, but they are at the same time not meant to be seen as mere fiction. Mythological statements and beliefs are in a constant flux between the two states of real and fiction and if one tries to hammer them down into one of these boxes they will stop to function. We use mythology and myths to see reality and the world, and we have to step into another Mythology structure to be able to judge anything about the one we are currently living from. Materialists can dunk on the mythical stories of Christianity, seeing how ridiculous and improbable they are but they don't get how a Christian can look through the current narrative of science - that we are evolved amoebas living on a spinning rock around an exploding ball of plasma etc - and just see a bunch of far fetched nonsense. Both are moronic to the other, both are blinded (and provided with sight) by their own mythological paradigm. 

This is one of the reasons I so sincerely prefer Idealism over any other metaphysical system. Idealism recognize this and keep its mythology very thin, namely: all that is is made out of "consciousness" which is defined as an insubstantial substance that can be known only by observing ones own experience - an act which also serves as the defining proof for the whole premise. Consciousness and self awareness is undeniable, and all other observations are done through these aspects of reality. Yes, everything else out there, made by language and linguistics, is to be considered as myths and mythologies defined as above. This is why different idealists can sound very dissimilar to and from each other while still considering each other as valid idealists. We are operating with different myths to describe and navigate in reality. These different mythologies have different aims and purposes but all idealistic mythologies will always point back to "Consciousness" as the reason for all which is occurring and the source to the content of all the various myths we are telling.  

When it comes to the Game of Reality (GoR) I have with this in mind no problem to accept almost any statement about reality, provided that I understand which mythology the statement operates within and that I'm able to conclude that the statement isn't nonsensical within it's own mythology. Claiming that Jesus is the son of God may be meaningless to a Materialist, but to claim that Jesus is the son of Zeus is pointless even within Christianity. It's factually wrong and messes up the mythological structure of the symbols Christianity uses to describe what reality is. But, if I'm able to conclude the inner consistency of a certain claim I only have to switch my mythological glasses and I can "believe" ("have usage of" is a better phrase here) any claim imaginable. Thus, I can believe in evolution and creationism simultaneously, I can't however exist in a materialist mythology and a Christian literalist one at the same time - the different mythologies are mutually exclusive and I need to choose among them depending on what I want to do (The tasks of being respected in a crowded science forum on Reddit or conversing with my grand mother requires different mythologies to be preformed successfully). 

GoR and Idealism are, understood this way, the fundamental layers of my "cake of beliefs". GoR is what it is regardless of what we are thinking about it, but when I need to perform a certain action I consult the proper mythology whom can assist me with a theory about GoR that in turn can help me resolving my task. And my understanding of Idealism gives me permission to consult any mythology in the catalog of human thought. I'm not restricted exclusively to Idealist ones because Idealism in my belief system is just an underlying mythology itself - it's not "the truth", nay, its function is to give access to whatever myth I need in order to play GoR as well as possible.       

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My primary mythology is the myth of Jesus Christ (see Appendix below for a full description on this myth, all according to me). I don't really have a choice in this regard but I'm also pleased that this is the case. Christ represents an over-arching principle in existence and is the human role model for embodying love which as I see it, is the most important objective in the whole of existence. The mythology of Jesus Christ also allows for a personal God at the basis of Creation, which I deem reasonable. God the father is the source of everything we find in our minds, every emotion and every faculty of the rational mind of a human He also has access to and uses in a "similar" way but on a cosmic scale. Through the incarnation He is intimate with the human condition in a way that may guide every practitioner in how they pray and relate to the divine. As God became human it is our destiny to become divine. This mythology gives a valid starting point for such aspects of existence as evilness, sickness and death itself. It dramatizes the history of humanity in a nearly unmatched way via Scripture and exposes the finale; that one day all of what we are fighting and struggling with now will be gone and done for. It captures the role and divine function of humanity in a (rather wide) nutshell and with this integrated, one is pretty much good to go. The practitioner of this mythology is supposed to embody the mind of Christ in a world filled with evil and darkness and via this path transform both oneself and by extension also the world. 

To me, it's very useful. A personal God is easier to relate to than "Existence" or "the Universe" alone. I fight with my God. Our most common way of hanging out is by undergoing vast wrestling matches spanning years sometimes and how am I supposed to do this with energy clusters or galaxy dito, would you say? Nah, if it works for you, great, but I myself need Jehovah, the God of Jacob, Isac and Abraham to not feel awkward alongside the divine.  

The science issue when accepting this mythology doesn't bother me too much. For one thing the mythology doesn't touch all that much on things like evolution and the age of the universe, it's up for interpretation and in any case I'm not a science guy. In my every day life it simply doesn't matter if the earth is 6000 years old, if it's flat as a pancake or not. I can't for the life of me understand why it bothers so many people if non-science people like to hold unscientific ideas in their head. We can never know these things, we can only make educated guesses and the guesses and clues given from Scripture are as good as any to my mind. 

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Next up is my ethics and Libertarianism gives me what I need in this regard. If you exclude a confusing passage from Paul (and why wouldn't you..), an anarcho-capitalistic position goes in no way against the ethics shining forth by the Jesus mythology and strengthened by libertarianism I can build a fort against all the kinds of evil which people in general make compromises with seemingly only by pure convenience. 

A libertarian ethic won't allow me to relax to that degree. As I see it God is definitely a libertarian in the way he gives freedom to his creations to pursue any path they see fit. The God of Moses might give his opinions on what a good moral should look like, but we are still free to choose to be followers of those laws or not. God is Freedom. Literally. And to my mind libertarianism and its principle of non- aggression is the closest description on how to live a moral life that is mirroring the spirit of God Himself. It flows naturally from the mythology discussed above.   

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So the last layer, which is the layer - the mythological construction - one might say I have created "on my own", namely the Game of God (GoG). I have already described the configuration of this game and I will try to not repeat myself but the formulation of this layer is what makes it possible to see life in an entirely new way for me. I won't need to use the mythologies of Materialism or classical Christianity all that much because I will live my life in this layer of reality, this gaming platform and I will make sure - to the best of my abilities and have mercy on me Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, a sinner - to make these games right, I will make the best I can to avoid the typical errors and evils of humanity within them and I will make them fun. All in the purpose of exploring what love is and to spread this understanding of love as wide and as plentiful as I may be able too.

We'll see. I'm happy to be a believer in all these things described above. In the end it all is what it is anyway. 

Appendix - The mythology of Jesus Christ according to a Jester

I believe in the mythology of Jesus Christ. It states that God (Here only defined as the Giver of the gift soon mentioned) gave humanity the gift of life and a world to steward - but humanity didn't take care of this gift and their world declined in every way imaginable. God tried to solve the situation in various ways but decided in the end to take the route of Israel and Jesus from Nazareth. This solution boils down to that God entered into the gifts he had given, he took on human form and lived a life in their world. In this life he confronted the evil humanity had made - - let's say - face to face and in doing so he also managed to defeat it. Jesus Christ won the ultimate victory. A victory which he invites every one of us to join in on. By accepting this invitation we choose to participate in his life, as he chose to participate in ours. I don't believe that Jesus has done anything for us, we must still face every evil of this world regardless if we are Christians or not, but with Jesus we have a blueprint to follow and we can know the unavoidable result if we are persisting in this choice. Every single evil will fade away eventually, yes, even the biggest evil of all: Death itself. Nothing from the realm of Darkness can stay put when challenged by the Son of God. 

But we must do it in the same way as he did, by being uncompromising towards it when that is asked of us and to surrender to it when that time is up. It's horribly hard and the humanity in us can not do it. Hence why it's necessary to constantly call upon the Son of God and participate in the Christian rhythm as much as possible. That's why we do all the religious stuff. We trade our humanity for Christ's godliness, bit by bit. Symbolically, sure, but not any less actually. 

Why? Because he did it first, but the other way around. This is the Way, the Truth and the Life - no one can come to the Father without trading their humanity to receive God in return. Do you strictly need to do it through a church or the Christian faith for it to "work"? Burn me at the stakes, my brothers, but I don't believe so. I believe the offer is open to every one and that knowledge of Jesus from Nazareth isn't necessary for this to take place. I don't care about the details, I certainly won't argue with bible quotes to prove my point, this is simply where I stand. Salvation is a process that begins in the realisation of limit and failure and ends, through constant cosmic breathing together with God, with the realisation that there wasn't ever any limits and no possibility of failure - but you can't reach the end before you walked every necessary step of the way. So we are Christians. Or Hindus. Or Buddhists. Or Inguzians. Or whatever else. Learning to love and to be wise the way God intends for us one day at the time. There is no other way it could be, I must state.