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Dejan Stojanovic

Dejan Stojanovic Quotes

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“There is a world beyond the world, the primordial Being, which I call the Universal Mind. This world is independent of its creation, yet its creation depends on it. Still, in its metaphysical “form,” the Being loses its purpose without creating or recreating. The Being must create to keep itself alive. Without creating, it is dead. Creating is not only the source of the Universe but also the source of the continuous life of the Being through myriad forms. The life of the Primordial Being is dependent on its creation and vice versa. The life of one depends on the life of the other, although they always, in a way, stay the same. The Creator is its creation, and its Creation is the Creator. The Universe, or the World, depends on the Primordial Being, the Universal Mind. Yet, it is conditionally independent in creating the always new Self, a new World (ultimately the source of free will).”

“The argument from poor design in its strict and simplest sense means that the World (Universe) and everything in it is not perfect. To better understand and answer this argument, it is essential to know that the world and everything in it were neither made nor came into being to be perfect as we understand perfection. With the more “perfect” design (to use this term for the argument), conditionally speaking, evolution would either not be possible or would be limited in proportion to its potential.”

“The perfect world is contradictio in adjecto. A perfect world is not a world anymore. A perfect world is a dead world. The perfect world contradicts existence. A perfect world, as a multitude, is impossible. A plurality implies meaning and cannot and should not be perfect. Perfect can only be One, but the perfect One is equal to its opposite, which is nothingness. The world, in its plurality, equals life. “Imperfection” secures meaning and purpose in life. In a perfect world, there would be no purpose and meaning. Perfection is only the goal and not the way or mode of the Universe. By becoming perfect, the world becomes nothing since only nothing is perfect. If the Universe were perfect, it would not be the world as we see it but “God” itself. Evolution (as atheists see it) would not be possible in the perfect world because such a world would already be perfect, which would imply that the highest point of “evolution” had already been achieved. Absolute perfection negates any evolution, except if we imagine retrolution (to coin a word), moving backward.”

“The idea of evolution, proving itself before our eyes at every moment, is even less compatible with the simplistic notion of design. Anything designed is static in a way. On the other hand, if design predicts evolution, then evolution must be a crucial part of the design, but what kind of evolution? If design predetermines evolution itself, then evolution must develop as planned and only in one way; otherwise, there would be no possibility for chance or free will.”

“To celebrate the world would be the most honorable task. If the World is the work of God or emanation of God, this celebration would be the celebration of both the World and God at the same time. This God is not the God from religious books. No book can claim God, and no people hiding behind holy books can be God’s representatives on Earth and be its sole interpreters and definers. The church needs thorough transformation. The church's task is not to claim or steal God but to promote and celebrate life in its purest form.”

“Why creation? Why creating? Is it not better to be perfect and absolute at the pinnacle of itself? We think it is not, as we tried to prove in the preceding pages, and it is not precisely because of perfection and absoluteness. The absolute perfection of the absolute is its death penalty, as we have already stated. Absolute of itself and for itself (without plurality) is nothing.”

“The biggest problem is not faith itself but the appropriation of faith by any particular religion or group, claiming to have the right (implicitly) to God. It is acquired through disputable knowledge and merely through “revelations” presented as truth. If only for this implicit claim, religions must be under constant scrutiny because such claims are not only logically false but are intellectually dishonest and immoral, regardless of the original intentions of their proponents. (Nonetheless, such ideas may have served an essential purpose, ethically and inspirationally, at the time of their making and for the particular people.)”

“God and the idea of God have obsessed philosophers since the beginning of philosophy. For any serious philosophical inquiry, it is essential to establish precise prerequisites and rules if we want to get the desired results or get close to them. If the subjects or the terms we use are not precisely defined, we may shift in different directions, not knowing that the result we get is different from what we wanted, or we may move, more or less, within the realm of logical fallacies.”

“Before we start pondering about God, we have to set up the philosophical, logical, and linguistic frame within which we investigate the idea of God. If we do not define our ideas about God, we can hardly accomplish what we want, regardless of our desires. Our ideas about God are not God. Our ideas about God cannot create God. Our ideas about God are just that—ideas.”

“In religions, the idea often takes the subject's place. The idea becomes the subject itself. Since this is impossible, human words are used as the words of “God,” which serves as “proof” that God said them. In this way, human words, sold as God’s words, cannot be questioned and are “proof” of God’s existence. That’s the idea that takes the place of the subject. Everything would be easier if this were the only problem relating to God and philosophical inquiries about God. The problem is much more complicated because wherever we turn, we either find logical fallacies, misusage of language, or inadequate comparisons to try to make a statement, to try to oppose and deny the other side's argument and prove the “truth,” which usually turns out only to be our “truth,” our view and not the objective truth. We can find this among believers, atheists, and agnostics when the idea avoids or bypasses the subject in a real sense.”

“Since God is not a subject of which we can have tangible evidence through direct experience, or at least, we think there is no clear and direct experience, and we are mainly dealing with our ideas about God and not God himself. Based on our thoughts, God can be many different things to different people. In Judeo-Christian, theistic tradition, God is the creator of the world from nothing—creatio ex nihilo. In this view, God is not its creation.”

“When we ask somebody if they believe in God, we expect them to believe or not in what we think our idea of God is. But what if God is not what we think it is? Many believe that some undetectable higher Force they do not understand governs the Universe. This kind of belief is more rational because there is something they believe in, but religious books do not describe it.”

“God is not what our idea of “It” is. There is no religious book that offers a satisfying picture of God. Nevertheless, if we think of God as a force, even atheists may agree (if not now, then perhaps in the future) that there is a unifying force in everything. That force is the Absolute, whereas the Being responsible for creating motion, energy, and “material world” is the force we may call God, the Ultimate Being, Ultimate Force, or Universal Mind (Spirit). Still, the world is not only the product of its creator but is the creator itself in a different mode of existence.”

“According to Plotinus (c. 204/5—270 CE), God is Intelligence or Mind (Nous), and the world is created out of God (ex deo) and not from nothing (ex nihilo). “The power of the One is to provide a foundation (arkhe) and location (topos) for all existents. The foundation provided by the One is intelligence. The location in which the cosmos takes objective shape and determinate, physical, form is the soul.” … “The being of intelligence is thought, and the thought of intelligence is Being.” … “No idea is different from intelligence but is itself intelligence.” Plotinus accepted the Stoic’s idea of logoi spermatikoi; for him, logoi spermatikoi is a bridge between the soul and the material.”

“Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274) states that God is a simple being. Although God is eternal, a material world, Universe, is not eternal. For Aquinas, God’s existence is his essence, the basis of Divine simplicity. For anything else, there is a distinction between existence and essence. Aquinas defined his five arguments for the existence of God in his book Summa Theologica: 1. The First Way: Motion. (The argument from "first mover.") 2. The Second Way: Efficient Cause. (The argument from universal causation.) 3. The Third Way: Possibility and Necessity. (The argument from contingency). 4. The Fourth Way: Gradation. (The argument from degree.) 5. The Fifth Way: Design. (The argument from final cause or ends [Teleological argument].)”

“Spinoza’s (1632—1677) Ethics starts with a clear framework, explanation, and definition of his terms. In that way, the philosophical inquiry becomes more accessible and precise for a reader or interpreter to understand and grasp. When Spinoza, in his definitions, uses the term substance, we understand that it is God. But when the term substance reappears under point III and then again under VI, which treats God, we must question why. For Spinoza, there is substance and substance. What is the difference between the substance under III and VI? We would say that, according to Spinoza, the ultimate, infinite substance is God, and everything formed is of the same substance. If that is the case, all substance is God or Nature. If all substance is God, then the question is, why separate substance from substance? Spinoza wanted to highlight the difference between the infinite substance of the ultimate Being, God, and the substance that makes Nature in all its forms. But nature, or anything in nature, is substance “which is in itself and is conceived through itself and does not need another “thing” to form it.” Nature is just a manifestation or mode of God or Substance. Substance (substantia) is not a new term and has been used since Aristotle, if not earlier. Perhaps the substance is interchangeable with terms like arche, aether …. fifth element, proton archon (first principle), Plotinus’ Divine mind (nous), or intelligence. Here are Spinoza’s definitions: Of God DEFINITIONS I. By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived unless existing. II. That thing is called finite in its own kind (in suo genere) which can be limited by another thing of the same nature. For example, a body is called finite because we always conceive another which is greater. So a thought is limited by another thought; but a body is not limited by a thought, nor a thought by a body. III. By substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that the conception of which does not need, the conception of another thing from which it must be formed. IV. By attribute I understand that which the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence. V. By mode I understand the modifications of substance, or that which is in another thing through which also it is conceived. VI. By God I understand Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, substance consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence.”

“We must reevaluate and enrich the idea of God to encompass all inquiries, including scientific and philosophical, to fit reality and the truth instead of serving our more or less sophisticated but still poor or poorly presented and imposed ideas. This enriched idea of God is not only the ultimate goal but an ultimate reality we shall strive to understand fully or get closer to.”

“Regardless of whether the world is predetermined, there can be no Devil. The Devil is not only the antithesis of God but is also impossible. The idea of the Devil as the result of chance, free will, rebellion, or sin is also impossible. The only possibility, philosophically, is that God is the Devil. The Devil, as understood in religions, was invented to cover up all unjustifiable evils, all misunderstandings, all sufferings, and all “sins” of human beings. The Devil is a scapegoat of religions. All that is bad we can attribute to the Devil, and all that is good to God. The invention of the Devil is the biggest fraud of all.”

“Why would God create the Devil in the first place? If free will is the excuse, why would the omnipotent God allow the Devil to rebel, and why “he” would not predict this rebellion? Why would God allow Eve to sin? Are animals capable of sinning? What is sinning? Is suffering possible only within the realm of human beings? Although animals do not possess or understand the morality of humans, they can suffer. Even if they cannot suffer all human suffering, they can still suffer pain. Does God predict the pain and suffering throughout the animal kingdom? If not, why not? Why would this suffering or distress of animals be less sympathetic to God than human suffering? Who determined that humans are not animals, and is this definition, or generally accepted view, only arbitrary?”

“No main monotheistic religion offers satisfying answers to many important questions. No religion is concerned with the well-being of the animal kingdom, and no religion proposes or establishes sin in the animal kingdom. Religious books strictly reserve sin for human beings. No religion offers or predicts either hell or paradise for the animal kingdom, only for human beings. No religion even tries to explain, in a reasonable manner, the absurdity of eternal punishment and its “ethics.” What horror can equal the monstrosity of eternal punishment, eternal hell? There is no bigger pain, no bigger monstrosity, no bigger immorality, and no bigger cruelty than the eternal punishment, eternal hell. And only an imperfect, mortal human deserves this eternal measure, eternal punishment. How monstrous is this?”

“Where is the logic behind the idea that something mortal, fickle, imperfect, weak, could deserve such eternal measure, eternal punishment in its absolute force, which would be too harsh even for the Devil if it existed? Only absolute crime deserves absolute punishment, and Hell, being eternal, is the absolute punishment for its inhabitants. But what possible crime deserves absolute punishment except if a man was capable of killing God, which would be the absolute crime, deserving absolute punishment and Hell? In that case, there would be no God to execute the punishment. Therefore, absolute crime is impossible. Even if God survived, this omnipotent and benevolent God would still have mercy over such a weak and wicked creature as a human being, to exercise his grace and absolute power instead of revenge and save the soul of a lost human being from eternal pain.”

“Where can we find anything so cruel invented by the Devil in any religious book that would equal the evil majesty of the last judgment, eternal hell, and eternal punishment? It is hard to imagine or invent anything more powerful, more painful, and cruel than hell. It is also hard to imagine that the evil Devil would be able and capable of creating anything as monstrous as the Hell “invented by God,” not the Devil, according to the scriptures. Where is the difference, then, between God and the Devil? And if there is any difference, by what criteria is the evil Devil more “malevolent” than the “benevolent” God, based on what we read? If we correctly read and make common sense conclusions, there is no more immense evil than the Hell invented by the benevolent God.”

“Is it possible that a benevolent God would punish eternally weak and wicked creatures as human beings are, and probably must be, based on their limited powers? We answer that it is impossible. A benevolent God would not do all this in this world or the afterlife. It is inconceivable that the omnipotent being, characterized by mercy and grace, among other things, would be so cruel. The all-powerful, benevolent, and all-knowing God would, at least to a certain extent, save human beings from their sins and his “future son” from suffering if all this was a matter of free will and the original sin. All this sinning and suffering could have been easily prevented by the omnipotent and benevolent God without the infringement on free will, without the possibility for sin and eternal hell for the millions of people in the “afterlife life.”

“The main problem is not God or the Devil but a human being incapable of resolving affairs without “sinning.” The biggest source of continuous sinning and misunderstanding is not God’s word but a word uttered by a human being who sold it as God’s word. These and similar deceits throughout history are the highest forms of the enslavement of human beings, the highest forms of insincerity, and the highest forms of disrespect to a benevolent human being. Skillful and often evil human beings act (enjoy acting), using a benevolent God as the means for malevolent human causes. Even if the reasons were benevolent and often based on ethics, the ends did not justify the means. To trade the souls of millions of people in this life, not in an afterlife, to accomplish either political goals or to provide grounds for easier rule, “ethics” and “legislature” are the best examples of evil will that can be best described as inspired by the “Devil” itself.”

“The omnipotent God, regardless of free will, would predict the Devil himself and save not the human race but himself from this possibility, which undermines his omnipotence. No Devil can exist as a creation of God unless intended by God. If God did not intend the Devil, then it either does not exist or is God himself. Nothing in the universe, even evil, can be ascribed to anything else except God. No Devil can accept the world’s sins, which are God’s sins. No Devil can sacrifice himself for the sins of the world or human beings, which are ultimately God’s sins. If the Devil would be offered, or serve as an excuse and scapegoat, for the world’s sins or human sins, which are, ultimately, God’s, then the Devil’s sacrifice would exceed in nobleness God’s benevolence and again prove that the Devil is a higher Being who must pay a higher price than God for the existence of all.”

“God is even what we hate in him. There is more goodness in the Devil than there could be evil in God. God and the Devil are the same. Both are words that describe the same thing. The act of creating is more devilish than anything else. Maybe the creation itself is the primordial sin for which we all pay the price. Maybe Eve did not commit the original sin but the Devil-God himself. Maybe God-Devil himself wanted the fruit of knowledge, the fruit of creation. Perhaps he challenged the absolute peace of the Absolute, the absolute peace of nothingness. Maybe the original sin stems from this provocation of the Absolute Being. Perhaps the absolute emptiness, the ultimate Garden of Eden, was disturbed by this interference, and God threw a challenge into the face of nothingness and the face of the Absolute. And maybe for this sin (God’s rebellion), the Absolute Father, the Absolute Being, had to expel God from the absolute garden of peace and Paradise into the Hell of Existence, the Hell of Life.”

“Who is the first rebel, the first warrior, the first sinner? Who disturbed the first and universal peace of the Absolute? God himself. Who pays the price of the original sin of God himself, not Adam’s sin? The world itself. The Devil is all we don’t recognize in ourselves. God is all we don’t understand. But what we don’t understand, we ascribe to the Devil. Evil is what we don’t recognize, and what we don’t recognize, we don’t understand. If God is the Creator, his only legitimate son is the World (Christ can only be a grandson, among myriad others in the Universe). But God and the World are the same. Since God is the World, through the World, God creates and recreates himself—the God-World.”

“Existence is the noblest task for the noblest being. There is no real existence without real life. Real life is impossible in absolute comfort and perfection. Absolute perfection and comfort in real life, or of real life, would undermine its value. The value of life is manifested, among other things, through the efforts of every single being in a universal scheme of things. Without effort and action, there would be no real beauty, and even if there were real beauty, this beauty would be less beautiful because we would take it for granted; it would be too easy and, therefore, less enjoyable.”

“The highest beauty is life itself. The measure of life is not suffering but existing. The purpose of existence is life. The measure of existing is not absolute comfort but absolute strife for absolute beauty, absolute perfection. The hardship of life, even innumerable suffering, is proof of life as it is and not as it should be, according to us. We can only dream of producing a more perfect existence, a more perfect life, a more perfect eye or jaw, but we are incapable of making life. In this sense, we are incapable of judging, in absolute terms, what good or bad design is, and we are incapable of escaping a given reality, which we may improve and approve of but in no way disprove.”

“Even if we create a better human eye (biologically), a better leg, a better heart, and a better jaw, this will prove nothing except our drive to continue and improve ourselves and live within the given frame. An idea of creation in terms of fundamental creation of what we see as the Universe (or anything in it) will always be beyond human reach. Whatever we create can only be the modification or mutation of whatever exists. We can explore our potential for novelty within scientific discoveries and arts and not in the realm of primordial original creation beyond human comprehension and reach.”

“The whole purpose of the Absolute is contained much more in the meaning of existence than in the existence itself, regardless of meaning. The meaning and purpose of existence is the experience of life. Therefore, we cannot apodictically state, as Schopenhauer, that the driving force of the whole Universe is the will (or energy) per any cost but rather the meaning. Not everything is aware of its existence and life, but it serves life as a whole.”

“There is Something, the Being, and this Being cannot be denied empirically or theoretically and cannot be challenged by skepticism. It would also be hard to deny that the Being (Universe) may be God himself (Itself), theoretically or hypothetically. If, for a moment, we forget the idea of intelligent design or the idea of a benevolent God or any God as presented by religions, and even if we forget the idea of a God who creates the world (Creator-God), we can still think of a God who recreates himself in the form of the Universe.”

“What if God is here? What if God is the Universe? If we ask this question, it becomes clear that God is the subject and must be the subject of scientific inquiry equally, if not more, as of religious investigations, not to mention philosophical ones. Arguments about the existence or nonexistence of God should not be based only on assumptions and premises that God is something beyond the World, beyond the Universe. It is equally legitimate to consider the Universe, God-World, as the God himself (itself).”

“It is impossible that any (incredibly highly complex) universe would be, or can be, created by pure chance. If any chance is involved, then this is a chance of higher order and functioning under the ultimate laws of the Being. But this chance (as we understand the word chance and use it) is zero because “chance” gives a chance to the possibility (probability). The chance is the creation itself (the moment of creation) and is not random. Chance is responsible more for improbability than for securing probability because the driving force ("engine") of existence is not a chance; it is not evolution per se but the potential activated through evolution and not caused or created by evolution. Evolution manifests degrees of existing potential (Being, Absolute Mind). (This potential is the infinity of probabilities [which excludes improbability because if there were improbability, there would be no infinity].) We are all part of the paradoxical labyrinth (infinity) of the strange, mysterious being called the Absolute. Solving this biggest mystery of all helps us solve our own mystery of existence because the Absolute is one organism of which we are minuscule cells.”

“The so-called "organized complexity" should not be ascribed to God or the Universe but to the complexity of our understanding. These complexities are not complex per se but arise from our limited powers of comprehension and understanding. Not only is God (the Being) simple, but the Universe is also simple. Our idea of complexity and the complexity of our knowledge is not simple. Whatever we do not understand becomes complex but becomes simple once we understand it. The level of our understanding is not the measure of complexities but our abilities. Complexities are proportionate to our abilities: the bigger the abilities, the lesser the complexities.”

“Almost perfect precision and fine-tuning, containing laws and order on every level in the Universe, proves more simplicity than complexity. Simplicity is the safer way to order than anarchy, which is complex precisely for its lack of order. What is complex to us is not complex to God. Not only is God simple, but the world (Universe) is also simple in his mind (the world's mind at the same time), which is ours too. We may also say that God and the world are complex from our point of view and simple from God's point of view (which does not help much if we only try to argue for the sake of an argument and not for understanding).”

“The question, “Is God a necessary being?” can be reformulated to read: Is the Being a necessary being? If there is a Being and we know there is (the world), then it must be necessary; otherwise, it would not exist. Not only is the Being necessary, but it is also indestructible and eternal. If the Absolute Being were only necessary and not indestructible and eternal, it would not exist because necessity would not create it. If there is nothing, there is only nothing. In nothingness, there is no necessity out of which anything may come into the Being. If the Being is necessary, this necessity is always present as the Being itself.”

“Onenness: Unity between the Universal Mind and the World The divided One is still the One. The undivided One is the One that sleeps. The modus operandi of the One is union in division and division in the union. There is no escape from the One. No division can damage the oneness or wholeness of the One. There is only one Organism. Although the Source is in the sphere of meta or transcendence, it is still the One with the World. Creation is not separate from the Creator. It is the Creator itself. Not only can the World be separated from the Creator and stay One simultaneously, but the World creates and powers the Creator in the opposite direction. The Source of Everything powers Everything, and Everything powers the Source. Without the Source, there is no World; without the World, there is no Source. The Purpose is the Source of the Source. The purpose is in the division and creation. The life of the Source is the World.”

“God of itself is nothing, and the Nothing of itself is nothing. In the absolute, without the world's existence as a plurality, God equals nothingness, and therefore the whole Absolute is nothing. The world is the Exit of the Absolute through God into nothingness and, in that way, into existence. The primordial essence in this manner becomes existence. Once the Being (God) and the Nonbeing (nothing) are united, neither one is nothing anymore. In this way, not only does the Absolute save itself, but it also saves the Being and the Nonbeing. This Nonbeing (nothing) is not nothing anymore but becomes something equally crucial as the Being itself.”