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ABSOLUTE

Book by Dejan Stojanovic · 33 quotes · Dejan Stojanovic, Absolute, Universe

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“For the fine-tuning to be accidental, there would have to be a multiverse and an “infinite” number of universes. Nobody has yet measured the level of fine-tuning in objective and absolute mathematical terms. This idea would imply calculating everything on every level, micro and macro, in every direction and combining everything with everything. Most likely, this would show that only the “infinite” number of universes would provide the real source for such a possibility because the level of fine-tuning in the existing Universe is so fine that it would require almost an infinite number of combinations to organize one in such a manner. At the same time, similar fine-tuning can happen in some other universe. The vast potential goes far beyond the human scope of comprehension, understanding, and observation. However, infinity as such is impossible mathematically or logically. Infinity only exists as a potential.”

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“We can be sure that the fifth element (idea) was immaterial for Plato and Aristotle, who used the term aether. The fifth element (Latin: quinta esentia) differs from the other four elements (Earth, Water, Fire, and Air). When we look at aether, from the perspective of our philosophy, as the main principle before the formation of the world, as a potential (in posse), during its actualization (in esse), and as the underlying Being or reality of all the existence, then this term can be equated with God or, conditionally, with the Universal Mind. A posse ad esse is the transformation from the potential of the Universal Mind to its actualization as the Universe.”

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“God belongs equally to believers and atheists, but believers “authorized” the right to the word God and its meaning. Agnostics and atheists got caught on it, although they would like to know the truth, too. Since God is the truth, atheists did not realize this yet. Once they realize it, they will become believers because they believe in truth and God is Truth. However, this does not mean that the Christian God or the God of Islam is the truth, but that the truth itself is God. The majority of believers, atheists, and agnostics would instead like to know or accept the truth rather than a stolen idea of God and lies (although many of them conceived with good intentions) presented as truth.”

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“An agnostic does not want to succumb to a religious heritage without proof supported by science. An agnostic is guided more by rational thinking than by emotions and religious sentiments that may or may not exist in him or her. This fight, or dilemma, in every one of us, is a fight between a believer and an atheist. Many believers are, perhaps, agnostics to some extent. They know they don’t know the truth and will never find it, but they still believe (credo quia absurdum). Faith and agnosticism do not necessarily exclude each other, as it is usually perceived, and are compatible.”

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“Opponents of the particular ideas of past philosophers may be equally indebted, to a larger or lesser extent, to the very same philosophers they oppose as those they agree with. One thing is sure—there is no complete agreement or disagreement, nor can there be one, with any of the philosophers. (Complete agreement can be expected only within purely religious thought based on the dogmas of nominal religions.)”

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“The main problem lies not in the beliefs but in the conception of God. What is God? Depending on the answer to the question of what God is, our relation, not only to God but to the idea of beliefs and religions, is formed and resolved. The main obstacle to this problem comes from our concept of God and not from God or the world itself. First of all, we cannot agree on what God is. We only see, analyze, and interpret religions in their expressed forms, primarily based on revelations that serve (and must serve) as God’s given laws. In these books and “laws,” God is described, ascribed, and prescribed. As such, God is a defined and untouchable being. The status of untouchability lies in revelations by the prophets, which is to say, in “God’s own words.” That is the only legitimacy to base these laws and secure them. We have no other fact or proof except the words of the few, which we must believe and follow.”

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“What do we do by following these words or rules, laws, prophets and their revelations, and religions? We only believe in those who uttered and wrote these words and revelations. However, we do not know if there were any revelations in the first place or even if they were “real” to become the measures or expressions of truth or God automatically. There is nothing beyond this secret except our belief not in God but in the people (so-called prophets).”

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“These practices persisted for thousands of years, and it is a logical consequence that our real idea about God, or our idea about “real God,” necessarily became so distorted that we cannot talk about this idea or concept with almost any certainty. In this manner, we can never know if we talk about the same thing and mean the same thing unless we speak to people with the same opinions and way of thinking (followers).”

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“Einstein wrote that “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind,” but we have to remember that Einstein talks about the “cosmic religious feeling,” which is very different from the religious feeling exercised within the official religions. He explains, “[h]ow can a cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, art and science's most important function is to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.” … “I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.” … “A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours, the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.” … “You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific mind without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religiosity of the naïve man.”

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“If we accept that intelligent design is not necessarily what we think it is, or if we enrich the word (term) design to contain additional meaning in extraordinary contexts or ideas about God and creation, we may understand that design may be the design without designing, that the creation may be creation without creating in the way we see it and understand it. We admit that there can be no design without designing and no creation without creating, but what is to be created or designed in the absolute? If the Absolute is the “highest” form of “existence,” then it must be, at the same time, absolute perfection. If there is absolute perfection, what creation can match the existing perfection? We must agree that no possible outcome of the Absolute can be more perfect than the Absolute itself. Absolute itself is perfection; otherwise, it would not be absolute.”

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“If the creation of the world needed to be perfect (absolutely perfect), then why create (design) to arrive at the same point of the Absolute, which would be pure idleness, an idle walk from one perfection to another or from nothing to another nothing? If the purpose of creating is not only in creating but more in existing, and not only in existing per se but in meaningful and purposeful existing, then this creating or creation must first and foremost accommodate its purpose rather than perfection itself. Its perfection must be valued and measured by and through its purpose and meaning rather than by pure perfection. Measure through purpose makes us see the deeper importance and meaning in the lack of ordinary perfection. Perfection and absolute goodness (benevolence) are not necessarily as we see them and would like to see them. When we measure ideals through purpose, the idea, function, and manifestation of perfection and purpose become more pronounced, although subtly.”

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“If absolute perfection is an idle walk from one point to another, which is no walk at all, then there is no existence and no life. If we come from this postulate and premise, the existence and life, as we see it, must be, conditionally speaking, “less perfect.” This less-perfect world (existence) is possible only through creation or recreation (“design”). But this creation is not possible without recreation. There is nothing to start from except the Absolute itself—Being and Nonbeing (Something and Nothing). There is nothing to hope for outside this realm. Nothing can be created from nothing if the Being does not create it. Regardless of how omnipotent it is, the Being cannot create anything except out of itself. Even creation out of itself would not be the real creation but recreation because the created being would still be the same (although modified).”

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“The Absolute can exercise its potential only through non-accidental accidents or chances. Chance, although almost accidental, is not accidental. In a predetermined world, chances would not be possible. Even if chances existed, they would only be appearances of chances and not real chances. In a world (universe) established based on its full potential, chance is compatible with determinism. This almost absurd statement becomes logical if observed from the point of view of the potential of the Absolute, which is predetermined. Absolute is not only absolute but also capable of infinity by exercising its infinite potential.”

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“Although the absolute potential of the Absolute and its existence are predetermined, any particular existence is developed, among other things, through chance. The voyage toward infinity allows free will and secures its compatibility with determinism based on the absolute potential of the Absolute itself. The absolute potential would not be possible without the magic force of chance. If a world were predetermined, that would be like playing out the story with the known outcome. In such a world, even if existence, or multiple creations, would go ad infinitum, the outcome of any possible existence (universe) would be predetermined and therefore known at the moment of creation. If this were possible, even theoretically, what would be the purpose of such existence (existences) if the outcome is already known? If the sole purpose were to exist, this possibility would not satisfy the ultimate purpose, which is the meaning itself.”

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“Agnosticism is compatible with faith. We either believe or not, irrespective of our ability to find the truth. Faith, developed or established based on the nominal religion, is not proof of our ability to prove God’s existence and is not proof of our implied agnosticism. Genuine faith is based on the belief in God regardless of the lack of evidence, religion, or agnosticism that may exist in a believer.”

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“A believer is not necessarily someone who never had any doubts about the existence of God but rather someone who did not submit to skepticism and doubt. A believer is the one who fights agnosticism; an agnostic is the one who submits to it. To put it differently—a believer is the one whose atheism (or agnosticism) submits to his or her faith (or belief); an atheist is the one whose faith (if there is any) submits to atheism rather than submitting to faith or agnosticism; an agnostic is the one in whom faith and disbelief are equally present. This equidistance to God and atheism makes agnostics appear somewhat indifferent about these questions. Agnostics would rather wait for proof than bother tirelessly with the question without evidence. In believers, faith wins; in atheists, disbelief wins; in agnostics, neither belief nor disbelief wins.”

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“The Argument from Design Based on Russell's treatment of this argument, we assume that Russel expected that the world's creation, by design, had to be perfect. But, as with all other arguments, we must establish what design and perfection mean. If we do not clearly define what design is and what perfection is, we are applying our judgments to something either undefined or loosely defined. Evolutionary theory, be it Darwin’s theory, cannot be proof of a bad design of the world. Anomalies or shortages in the world are not proof of a bad design. Imperfections are needed in the world and serve a higher purpose. Let’s say that God if he existed, wanted to create the perfect world. This perfect world would be sterile. In the perfect world, there would be no cosmic hierarchies, lows, and highs, enough friction to sustain life as something whose purpose is not to be made perfect from the beginning but to seek perfection, to make “progress” in myriad ways toward the main purpose which is life itself. Life, by definition, is not perfect. Perfect life is not a real life. The purpose of design is not to predict a Ku Klux Klan or the fascists and eliminate them from the design before any creation but to put the “engine” of the vast Universe in motion, to enable the world to seek its paths freely, without a God playing dice. That is where determinism and free will come together to create a sensible world. Design does not mean playing dice, nor necessarily creating something new, but the creator offers himself an exit to exist in an ever-new world, a new form with meaning. We also may say that in the Universe or Omniverse, beyond our knowledge, there can be not only thirty-six (to make a comparison with dice) but a googolplex of universes (dice), and the possibility for combinations is infinite. “Impossibility to prove God” is not proof that God does not exist. Russel would argue that the burden of proof is on the person making a claim, but the world itself is proof of God’s existence. The solution to this enigma is to recognize that the world is God. The problem is not belief or disbelief, first cause, natural law or good or bad design, or any other argument for the existence or against the existence of God; the problem is in our understanding and consensus about the idea of what God is. Argumentation or proof can never be shifted to only one side. Something so obvious as the world does not need proof but understanding that the world is also, in its deepest nature, God itself. We can fight as long as we want, but if we fight from different positions for the sake of different positions, we are not going anywhere. God is not the same for the theist or the deist. Christian God is so far from Spinoza’s idea about God. The majority of people who are atheists today are atheists more in revolt against nominal, official religions and not necessarily in revolt against God if this God was better defined or approached from an angle unaffected by religions.”

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“At the point of creation, two poles of the Absolute, Universal Mind (Something) and Absolute Void (Nothing) become creators of the world. The Universal Mind is the active “pole,” and the Absolute Void (Nothingness) is the passive “pole.” At the “moment” of creation, the Universal Mind envelops nothingness by the size of its program, but there is always nothingness “beyond” this nothingness unaffected by the creation. There can be many of these creations or universes. All of them together form the Universe. The Universe we live in is only a speck of the real Universe we cannot identify based on our current technology. It is a big question whether we will ever be able to glimpse the Absolute except through abstract thought and imagination, which are, in my opinion, legitimate methods not only of philosophical investigation but also scientific ones.”

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“Russell’s Teapot (Celestial Teapot Analogy) We cannot equate Russell’s teapot idea with the idea of God. Although this idea is humorous, it isn't very sensible. If anybody without scientific credentials stated thoughtfully that the teapot is circling the Sun, the majority of people would think that a person saying that is either bipolar, schizophrenic, or suffers from some other mental illness. This kind of comparison is absurd. Comic and absurdist comparisons of this kind only muddy the waters. Proof or disproof of such a thing is unnecessary because almost everybody knows the teapot can't orbit the Sun as freely as planets on a microcosmic or macro level. Regardless of Russel being aware that his example is nonsense, he still used it (and he states that). The point was not to prove anything but to make a funny remark to diminish the subject of the attack, God. It is a logical fallacy whenever we use such tactics or tricks because we use witty comments for lacking something more potent. If we make fun of some ideas, it does not mean they have no value. We cannot destroy an idea that has existed for millennia by witty but silly arguments. Carl Sagan made an even sillier argument about the undetectable dragon in his garage. To compare the idea of God to the teapot or a dragon in a garage is a useless way to refute an idea or argument with an “argument” (example) in the form of funny irony. I admire Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan for their ingenuity and insights. I also admire Bertrand Russell’s writing style because he could express complicated ideas and concepts in very readable and clear prose. There can be no comparison between the idea of God and a teapot floating around the Sun or between God and an unidentifiable dragon in the garage. We cannot base our arguments on the value of their wit because regardless of how witty the statement is, it has to stand the test of truth, not the test of wit. We can easily exclude the idea of a teapot floating in orbit around the Sun as ridiculous. The same applies to the argument about the dragon in a garage. But can we exclude the idea of God from religious and theological thoughts and serious philosophical inquiries interested in discovering the truth about the world and God? We can easily refuse to accept a teapot or dragon in the garage as serious arguments. However, we cannot a priori deny the legitimacy of the idea about God, at least not the deist one (or pantheistic).”

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“There is a universal reservoir, the source of all knowledge, which is the same for the arts and sciences as for philosophy and religion. In a way, science is an art. In some ways, religion is philosophy because philosophy and religion often deal with the same questions—with the first and the final causes, among others. Religious people a priori “bet” on God, whereas philosophers may bet on God or not. The difference in approach toward God between religion and philosophy is that religion imposes and prescribes God, and philosophy offers the freedom of thought and choice. Religious prescriptions of God are not proof of faith or God’s existence, but rather the opposite—they prove that philosophy is more “religious” than religion because it doesn’t steal God from people but offers freedom.”

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“Canonization, limitation, and reduction of God to a “few” sentences are inconceivable attempts to kill and expel God from people under the excuse that God is doing that. There is no weakness in science and language as instruments. There is no excuse. There is only human power and weakness. Understanding depends on the balance between human strengths and weaknesses.”

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“The world was ready for greater discoveries two thousand years ago. (Heron of Alexandria is an excellent example of an inventor who invented the first steam engine, aeolipile.) There was a basis for it. Only the language to translate abstract ideas and symbols into the language of science was missing. The only obstacle to a human being is a human being himself. The only limitation comes from the inability to dream and pierce into the essence that permeates all that exists in the universe. There is the same law for a galaxy, for a man, and for an ant. Basic principles are the same everywhere; they never change and exist as long as the universe exists.”

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“God is not absolute, and Nothingness is not absolute. If we come from these positions (postulates), we confront the inability of language to be precise. This inability reveals that the problem of understanding different phenomena is not so much in the phenomena themselves but in our failure to understand or present them linguistically in the best and most precise manner.”

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“God, or to put it better, our idea of God, is a concept before anything else. The way God had been (mainly) understood throughout history leads to the idea of God as an entity beyond the world that creates the world and stays beyond the world but affects it. There is no proof for this, but the concept itself, by its nature, is a theoretical expression or view of a particular phenomenon. As such, applied to something invisible or tangible and visible, it is subject to change.”

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“Many concepts and ideas become laws in time, like the laws of physics. In time, many of these same concepts lose validity in favor of new concepts that become new laws. These phenomena lead to the progress of science; otherwise, some concepts, which were previously laws, would always stay the same regardless of whether they were correct.”

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“That which we never question is the concept itself. But what is a concept? Is it necessary to put the idea of a concept itself, or the law, under the magnifying glass to better understand it because a concept is only a word or term it expresses? Even the concept itself, as an idea or term, can be a matter of discussion or scientific, philosophical, artistic, or religious discourse. Consequently, we may discover that something that slowed down the development of ideas and their formulations or understanding of laws is the impossibility of breaking up with concepts or paradigms that became a priori truths.”

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“From the point of established religions, God is conceptually the source of the world, something that creates the world but stays beyond the world as something absolute that influences the world. Not only is God understood in this way, but it is also appropriated in the main monotheistic religions. Therefore, from the standpoint of official religions, it is much more important to claim God understood in this manner and establish the right to God than the God itself (accurate idea and concept of God). That is how this strange ownership functions and obtains “legitimacy.”

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“Divine Hiddenness Argument against God’s Existence Divine Hiddenness does not necessarily mean that the Ultimate Being hides; it instead means that our human powers are limited. The natural laws were secret (and still are) to the people before they learned to decipher them slowly. We may say that Newton's laws deciphered and formulated were hidden up to that point not because they were hiding per se but because our abilities were not on par with the laws of physics, which we have thought were “hidden.” It is a poor argument to use hiddenness as a legitimate argument against God or against anything else, of which, at some point, we do not have a proper or complete understanding. Hiddenness by itself is not proof that God does not exist. By using that logic, we may say that mosquitos are not aware of the existence of human beings. The argument that they are very “aware,” in some sense while sucking the blood of humans would not be sufficient because they are not aware of who and what human beings are. Certainly, microorganisms, without any desire to compare human beings with microorganisms, are not aware of the existence of human beings. What if animals used an argument, if they could, that there is no evidence that there are many galaxies in the Universe, or if any other animal could have used that argument? Would that be proof that other galaxies do not exist? On what basis are we sure that we possess the ability to experience God directly if it existed (although the world is one of the faces of God)? I am not trying to compare human beings to other animals or diminish human abilities. Still, I would like to emphasize that, regardless of how advanced we are, we may still be as distant from God, or more, as some animals are from us. To rely only on evidence is to limit the science, not to be scientific. What is scientific in limiting science to the frame that fits our capacity for understanding, learning, and comprehension instead of fitting the frame of reality and the truth? To be precise, we would need to redefine or make the idea of God more precise. Maybe God is not what we think it is. What if the World itself is God? What if the World, regardless of its beginning and end, is still a consequence of an eternal Being without a beginning and end? What if the world and matter as we know it are only the modes of the Universal Eternal Being from which everything originates and to which everything returns? Matter is not what we think it is. God is not what religious books say. Nobody has the right to God, a title to God. No prophet can tell other people that he (or she) speaks the word of God. Humans do the things done in the name of God in their name, not the name of God. Their hiding behind God is a form of manipulation, demagogy, and control of others.”

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“The lack of understanding and some consensus about the question of God shows the fanaticism of both religious people and atheists who have become atheists more because of hate toward religion than because of “hatred” toward God. Therefore, they cannot understand the difference between God and religion. Curt Gödel (1906—1978) noted, '[I am] against religions but not against religion.' Without intermediaries and 'holy books,' real religion is the desire to reconnect (religio) to the Ultimate Source.”

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“What is the Absolute? Absolute can only be the absolute knowledge, thought, mind, immaterial “substance,” the absolute “brain” (spirit) that contains an infinite programming ability and potential for absolute plurality through chance. Since human beings are limited, although much more advanced than other animals, they cannot understand inconceivable and invisible spaces by experience, experiment, or evidence, far exceeding their perceptive and sensory abilities. Even if they were at a higher level of evolution, humans would be unsure if they found the final truths and complete knowledge. However, if they free themselves from dogmas—religious, political, and others—human beings can count on a higher degree of understanding and closer touch with the world.”

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