Joker,
I appreciate the post and the excellent writing. You’ve definitely got a lot of Nietzsche in you, with your dramatization of what you consider stark (and undramatic) realities, as well as your reliance on aphorism. It reads beautifully, though I will leave you to consider whether it accomplishes its ends. In respect for your thread, I will respond, as best as I can, in kind. For those of you who don’t want to read, skip to the bottom for the summary.
You have shown me the iniquities of god, the inequalities of man, the vast suffering the mass of humanity has laid against one another. Show me this godless man of whom you speak. Show me this man who serves no god, not even himself.
For when one elevates herself, when one exalts her own morals, when one systematically, thoughtfully, with purpose and power rejects the dictates, the presumptions, and the force of her world upon her, does she not become a god? Does she not assume those powers that were granted the gods of antiquity, and does she not assume the powers of the gods we call the state or that we tacitly allow the right of inheritance to the egoists?
For such a man or woman as this has waged a holy war against the 10 commandments, the gita, the iching, and the sacred books of ancestory. Such a man has set the writings of moralists and ethicists into an eternal eclipse, and has cast an unceasing midnight upon the thoughts and actions of his brothers, as he has presupposed, even if on their behalf, his intimations of justifiable action, plausible morality, and experience of the world subsume theirs.
He has become the God of his own hatred, and he has submitted himself to the heavy-handed critiques he has levied so forcefully against the world of his captors.
How might a woman achieve liberation in a world of bondage? Can it be had by donning the garments of her oppressors, by taking in hand the tools of her oppression or by applying the shackles of dismissiveness to those who oppose? By no means!
Freedom is not gained in the auspices of the oppressor, just as it is not gained by wearing the bondage of slavery. But it remains that a man is not made free or slave by his condition. Our modern world, despite its errors, has conformed to the thinking of history, and has sought to universalize those concepts previously only conjectured, namely that freedom and bondage are the responsibility of the individual. That I can be made a slave by no man, by no government, and by no God unless I freely consent.
Is the corporation to blame that I buy their product out of my private or even enlightened conception of need? Is the President to blame that I voted him into office (note: I didn’t vote for W)? Is the moralist to blame that I tacitly consent to his precepts? Is God to blame that I choose to sacrifice my freedom at his feet?
It has been the role of God, his parishoners, his minions, and his partners to incent the mass of humanity to accept his empty promises. It has, however, been the willing choice of humanity to accept such an unequal bargain. It has become clear that oppression has not come to us from without; it has come, far more sinister, from within. It has lurked in the shadow of every man, in the heart of every woman, and it has come to light that the Deceiver was in fact the liberator, and the God of light was in fact the Master of Darkness. We can not blame the serpent that Eve bit the apple, but we can certainly thank her for it now. It is in this act of defiance, of desire, of passionate awakening, and of exercise of open consent that humanity must find its strength.
While this consent can and has been misconstrued by governments, by pontifs, by gurus, by statesmen, and by well-meaning individuals, it can not be taken from my hands until I freely give it, no matter the emotional, intellectual or physical burden I may have to bear to retain it.
But my freedom does not grant me a license to speak from on high. It does not negate the more essential state of my condition: one grain of sand upon an infinite landscape.
It is only by grave miscalculation that a grain of sand, that I, would find in myself the capability to turn back the rushing tide of history. It is with imminent failure that I, even if on behalf of every grain of sand that ever has been, would stand against the known forces of nature. Similarly, lest I re-assume my chains, it would be implausible to think that I play no part in the epic dance of history. That I, liberated, enlightened, am incapable of affecting my minute piece of the universe.
Having lifted the veil of God, having pushed aside the urges of the almighty dollar, it becomes evident that the fate of I and the fate of We is indelibly knit into the fabric of existence.
Were we of the mind to liberate ourselves and to bring that liberation to our brothers and sisters of the world and of the future, we must do so by means of our own liberation.
To that end, it is not God who must be destroyed, but rather human as God’s servant, as God’s captive, as the subject of God’s wrath or misguided love. To that end, let us march together in an historical coup to that heavenly palace and dethrone the mythical figure and all of his earthly companions and let us place ourselves, united, upon his throne. Let us each assume the power of God for ourselves so fully that the word ceases to have any meaning except “human”.
Our world has demonstrated with scientific precision, with god-like infallibility, that destruction is impossible. To that end, let us not seek to blindly destroy the object of our oppression, but rather transform it into the object of our desire - freedom, equality, life.
We are all Gods; we are all God; there is no other. No longer shall we submit to self-alienating dictates of unjustifiable coercive authority until we have rightfully assumed the inheritance that we have promised ourselves since our minds wandered into abstraction: divinity. And we can not assume such lofty thrones until the human and all of humanity has been transformed into God, and God into human.
Summary:
- To attempt to individually combat God and its reflections (government, egoism, etc.) is the same as electing oneself God.
- This transformation is as bad as government, et al assuming the role of God.
- This is not freedom.
- Freedom is the ability to consent.
- Humans are free by nature, and can not blame circumstance for their bondage. That society has expediated systems of bondage has no bearing on the question of freedom, except that humans must revolutionize these systems.
- Even free individuals are of minute importance in the vast universe and thus incapable of individually becoming or destroying God.
- Thus liberation from God is a communal act.
- God can not be destroyed (I will imply now, maybe shouldn’t be destroyed)
- The fundamental problem is the separation of man from God, the lack of man’s ability to be free and godly.
- It is this separation from God that must be destroyed.
- The method for doing so is the transformation of man, both individually and collectively, into God; to equate God and human as equals.
- In doing this, humans can assume the divine (after which it has always longed) and it can “destroy” God, by changing the meaning of the word into something antithetical to its present, coercive meaning.
