 67. G.O.D. (God) |
All the popular “religious” traditions of humankind and all the mystical Spiritual traditions of humankind tend to be associated with this chain of conceptions (or the characteristic ideas of the first five stages of life). It is only in the sixth stage traditions that these ideas begin to give way to different conceptions. It is only in the sixth stage of life that the egoic basis of the first five stages of life is penetrated.
The theological and general “religious” conceptions I have just Described have always been subject to criticism (or at least simple non-belief) on the part of those who are not persuaded by “religious” and theological arguments. Atheism (or the conception that no “Creator-God”—or any other Greater Reality— exists) has always opposed theism (or “God-religion”). Nevertheless, atheistic ideas are the product of the same fundamental egoic consciousness that otherwise produces theistic (or conventional “religious”) ideas.
Atheism is the product of the ego (or the phenomenal “self”, grounded in elemental perception), and so also is theism. Atheism, like exoteric “God-religion”, extends itself only into the domain of the first three stages of life—whereas esoteric “God-religion” provides a means for entering, mystically and Spiritually, into the developmental processes of the fourth stage of life and the fifth stage of life.
Atheism regularly proposes a “logic” of life that has its own dogmatic features. It does not propose a “God”-idea but, instead, founds itself on and in the perceptual and phenomenal mind alone. Atheism concedes only a universal and ultimately indifferent (or merely lawful) cosmic Nature (not a “God”)—and, so, there is no need to create a “religious creation-myth” to account for suffering. (And atheistic thinkers thus generally confine themselves to constructing a cosmology, based on material observations alone, that merely accounts for the apparent workings of the conditionally manifested events of cosmic Nature.)
Indeed, just as conventional “God-religion” (or conventional theism) arises to account for suffering, atheism arises on the basis of the unreserved acknowledgment of suffering. And, if there is no idea of “God”, there is no idea of the human being as “creature” (or, in other words, the human being as the bearer of an immortal, or “God-like”, “inner” part). Nor is there any need to interpret unfortunate or painful events as the “effects” of “Evil”. Therefore, the atheistic “point of view” is characterized by the trend of mind called “realism”, just as the conventional “religious” (or theistic) “point of view” is characterized by the trend of mind called “idealism”—but both atheism and theism arise on the basis of the “self”-contraction (or the ego of phenomenal “self”-consciousness), rather than on the basis of direct Intuition of the Real Self-Nature, Self- Condition, and Self-State That is Prior to separate “self” and its conventions of perception and thought.
The realistic (or atheistic) view is just as much the bearer of a myth (or a merely conceptual interpretation of the “world”) as is the conventional “religious” (or theistic) view. Atheism (or conventional realism) is a state of mind which is based in the phenomenal “self” and which seeks the ultimate protection, nourishment, pleasure, and preservation of the phenomenal “self” (at least in this “world” and, if there should be an afterlife, then also in any other “world”). Therefore, atheism (or conventional realism) is simply a philosophical alternative to theism (or conventional “God-religion”), based on the same principle and consciousness (which is the phenomenal ego), and seeking (by alternative means) to fulfill the conditionally manifested “self” and relieve it of its suffering.
Atheism (or conventional realism) is a state of mind that possesses individuals who are fixed in the first three stages of life. It is a form of “spiritual neurosis” (or ego-possession), as are all of the characteristic mind-states of the first six stages of life. Esoteric “God-religion” provides a basis for certain remarkable individuals to enter the fourth stage of life and the fifth stage of life, but the commonly (or exoterically) “religious” individual is, like the atheist, a relatively adolescent (if not childish, and even infantile) character, fixed in the ego-possessed states characteristic of the first three stages of life.
Atheism proposes a myth and a “method” for ego-fulfillment that is based on phenomenal realism, rather than “religious” idealism (or the culture of the conventional “God”-idea). Therefore, atheism is traditionally associated with the philosophy of materialism—just as theism is associated with “Creationism”, and “Emanationism”, and conventional (or mystical, or fourth and fifth stage) Spirituality. And the realistic (or atheistic) view tends to be the foundation for all kinds of political, social, and technological movements, since its orientation is toward the investigation and manipulation of material Nature.
Atheism is realism and materialism. It is about the acquisition of “knowledge” about conditional Nature and the exploitation of that “knowledge” to command (or gain power over) conditional Nature. And it is this scheme of “knowledge” and power (expressed as political and technological means of all kinds) that is the basis of the mythology and quasi-”religion” of atheism. The atheistic (or non-theistic) view of life is egobased, organized relative to conditional Nature as an elemental (or grossly perceived) process, and committed to “knowledge” and power as the means of “salvation” (or material fulfillment of egoity). In this “late-time” (or “dark” epoch), the materialistic, realistic, and non-theistic philosophy of egofulfillment is represented by the global culture of scientific, technological, and political materialism. The entire race of humankind is now being organized by the cultural movement of scientific materialism—which counters (and even seeks to suppress) the alternative cultures of exoteric “religion”, esoteric mysticism, Transcendental Self-Realization, and Divine Enlightenment. Scientism (or the culture of realistic or materialistic “knowledge”) and its two arms of power (technology and political order) are the primary forces in global culture of the present time. And humanity at large is (thus) tending to be reduced to the robotic acculturations of orderly egoism in the limited terms represented by humanity’s functional development in the first three stages of life.
