Views about the Nature of Reallity and the Divine..??

[GCSTroop]

Without understanding the direction the course has taken or what points the professor is trying to get you to examine (admittedly, I haven't read the required reading either) I hope that my response is not misleading or failing to encapsulate what you're looking for.

For me, in order to understand the nature of reality, you have to look at the physical (and mental) components that comprise our existence. What our are perceptions and cognitive intuitions based upon? How did we get here and by what means of explanation do we have to explain that? What definitions of 'reality' do we harbor within ourselves?

Many of the world's religions (both 'dead' religions and religions still followed) sought to explain the world, the universe, and the nature of reality in various capacities. From the polytheistic usage of unique and individual gods which took control of various aspects of each part of the universe and world (Eros was of love, lust, etc... Mars was of war, Poseidon of the sea, etc...) to the monotheistic viewpoint in which one God is the benevolent manufacturer of all we see, to the Atheistic viewpoint in which reality is more existential than anything else, they all seek to define reality in and of itself.

All of these individual explanations of "reality" seek to encompass what is the true nature of our existence, and if so inclined, what the meaning of our existence actually is. My personal opinion is that it is imperative to deduce reality using the scientific method (as well as the mathematical connotations) in deducing what reality is so that we can further elucidate the metaphorical aspects of what each religion tries to seek and explain.

If you hang around on these forums long enough, you may find that believers very often harbor this sense of justification to support their ideologies in ways that can be amusing (to say the least). For example, using the first book of Genesis to explain the creation of the universe, the Earth, etc... are commonly used and cited as being factual accounts of "Creation." Nevermind the audacious lack of perspicacity involved to cognitively disassociate what centuries of scientific investigation have told us otherwise, some believe that the first book of Genesis is a fundamental truth and indeed the "nature of reality."

I will not make amends for this lack of ingenuity but I will say it is an explanation nonetheless. An infantile, reckless and stupid explanation - but an explanation nonetheless. However, this explanation served at one time, indeed for a very long time, as a very accurate account of history. Primitive in nature, fostered by illiterate goatherders indeed, but an explanation nonetheless.

It is the explanations, whether grand in sense and scope or boring and petulant, that seem to shape the cognitive followings of the world's religions. Whether we speak of polytheism, monotheism, pantheism, etc... we should make note of the fact that for all intensive purposes, they are explanations of what is deemed to be reality.

As I write this, I can't help but also feel that our own existential models of 'self' as well as our external influences in life seek to incorporate the validities of our reality until we project them onto what we believe. In an extreme case, we might say that those who harbor ill-will and even in some cases hatred against those of the homosexual community do so, they say, because of what a line or two in the Bible (or other holy book) says. Yet, it seems to me that these lines are merely justifications for what is already felt. A steady, repugnant disgust for certain sexual practices (for whatever reason) seems to be what is at the core. The lines of the codified text are merely 'enablers' that allow people to project their internal versions of reality onto an external being - often that which they call God.

Thus, to me, the existential reality of our existence is what largely shapes and molds the nature of what our religious beliefs are in the first place. It is, in fact, almost self-evident to me to point out that communal standards and society-held beliefs within a given community are often genuflected upon the very religion said society largely worships - not the other way around.

I hope that helps and I hope I didn't completely miss the point.

Edit:

Suggestion - Perhaps trying to briefly explain the nature of the realities of each religion, comparing it to your own personal beliefs, as well as what supporting evidence you have for the nature of your own reality, may perhaps make for an interesting paper?

Then again, this is coming from a guy who could never do precisely what the teachers asked of me because I always felt they were too rigorously strict with what they wanted and never encouraged any sort of abstract thought.