The Divine Slave
I'm thinking about god right now. Don't get me wrong, I've spent a lot of time contemplating on god - does he exist? is he benevolent? is all religion just one massive delusion? and so on. Although I'm certain that I've devoted a considerable amount of time thinking on god I'm unsure how much of that thinking was of good quality.
As I wrestled with the idea of the divine, a thought crossed my mind - should I just take the plunge, make the leap of faith, and just believe in god, a benevolent creator who will unfailingly look out for me no matter what?
I began to feel a sense of comfort and peace engulf me like a warm blanket on a cold night. This just by entertaining a hypothetical acceptance of god; I wondered what greater peace and joy lay in store if I actually became a theist. Will it change my life completely from what it is right now - meaningless and sad - to something else - meaningful and happy?
Just as things were looking very bright for me and theism, I asked myself one single question: what is theism, actually? I then realized that theism is, at its core, a belief that there is a being whose commands one has to obey without question. Isn't this slavery? A slave must obey his master's command and the master makes it clear that he has zero tolerance for any disobedience. Yes, god's benevolence lessens the blow - surely a being who loves us will have our best interests in mind - but then ask yourself this: would anyone agree to be a slave to loving masters? No, right? Truth be told, benevolence precludes the condition of unquestioning obedience - they contradict each other.
Setting aside the good [slave] master conundrum for the moment, consider only how god demands absolute obedience, much like slavemasters did not too long ago.
Is belief in god then a symptom of slave mentality?
P.S. This isn't a comprehensive analysis but is just an exploratory effort on my part into how theism maybe a reflection of a slavish instinct within us all.
As I wrestled with the idea of the divine, a thought crossed my mind - should I just take the plunge, make the leap of faith, and just believe in god, a benevolent creator who will unfailingly look out for me no matter what?
I began to feel a sense of comfort and peace engulf me like a warm blanket on a cold night. This just by entertaining a hypothetical acceptance of god; I wondered what greater peace and joy lay in store if I actually became a theist. Will it change my life completely from what it is right now - meaningless and sad - to something else - meaningful and happy?
Just as things were looking very bright for me and theism, I asked myself one single question: what is theism, actually? I then realized that theism is, at its core, a belief that there is a being whose commands one has to obey without question. Isn't this slavery? A slave must obey his master's command and the master makes it clear that he has zero tolerance for any disobedience. Yes, god's benevolence lessens the blow - surely a being who loves us will have our best interests in mind - but then ask yourself this: would anyone agree to be a slave to loving masters? No, right? Truth be told, benevolence precludes the condition of unquestioning obedience - they contradict each other.
Setting aside the good [slave] master conundrum for the moment, consider only how god demands absolute obedience, much like slavemasters did not too long ago.
Is belief in god then a symptom of slave mentality?
P.S. This isn't a comprehensive analysis but is just an exploratory effort on my part into how theism maybe a reflection of a slavish instinct within us all.
Comments (51)
Well, everything you wrote surely hinges on this one assumption. I have to ask, do you think this is really the only possible relationship that is possible with a/the divine being? Assuming A is the creator of everything, why in and of itself does that restrict all us little b's and c's and d's to obedience? You are assuming that A is even interested in telling us what to do. Why?
Seems to me free-will is the ultimate gift (in every sense). And if a creator really wanted to create something extraordinary, that would be it.
'Commanded to love' (re: JCI theism), I'd say yes.
It depends on what you mean by obedience. Obedience is essential for development. eg someone practicing music or art must have great discipline/obedience. A great tennis player must make their body obedient to their mind.
Wise obedience is a good thing if it leads to freedom. A good soldier must learn obedience. A bad soldier will get killed. One must try to understand why obedience is necessary and how it leads to freedom. Sloth and disobedience don't achieve anything worth while.
Are you defining discipline as obedience to one's self?
Yes, but obedience to someone else can also be a good thing if that obedience has a purpose. An athlete needs to listen to and obey the trainer. Musicians need to be attentive to the conductor. Pupils needs to be obedient to the teacher. But obedience should be understood and its purpose needs to be understood. In evil obedience is slavery to a tyrant. But there are times when obedience is wise and good.
That’s not so much theism as it is divine command theory. Not all theists subscribe to that.
Quoting Pantagruel
I can only speak of what of I see. Look at the major theistic traditions extant today - the Abrahamic triad of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's probably wrong to interpret it this way, and if it is tell me how, but these religions seem to represent an evolutionary series - beginning with Moses and, allegedly, ending with Mohammad - and what exactly is the final word here? Islam = surrender. Surrender what precisely? Everything of course - including everyone's, anyone's free will too. The latest version of theism (Islam) makes giving up one's freedom and replacing it with eternal and absolute servitude to the will of god the only true virtue we're capable of and one all of us should unceasingly strive toward.
Quoting EnPassant
Quoting EnPassant
Your example of the soldier hits the spot. Whenever something immoral is on the horizon for a normal person, s/he will instinctively find him/herself resisting; s/he will be in two minds about it and I hear one of the most effective methods to make normal people do immoral things is to convince him/her that s/he is doing god's will.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I can't think of a role for god beyond the one where he commands, issues moral injunctions, rewards those who obey his word and punishes those who don't.
:up: :ok:
This is setting yourself up for failure. Life is ups and downs. Sometimes more of the latter. That's why it's life. Humans are not little Tamigachi pets that God pushes buttons to feed, play with, and clean up waste.
Watch something for me would you. Twilight Zone "A Nice Place to Visit". I think you'll begin to understand how life can be as it is if there is a benevolent creator.
That would be false or misguided obedience.
Oh. I'm sorry I wasn't aware in the few days I've been away someone ended child hunger and slavery. *clears throat extremely loudly*
Look I don't know you mate. What you have on your plate or how your health is and whatnot but I'd bet money you wouldn't know sadness and misery if it bit you in the arse.
Sorry. Taking a deep breath. What I meant to say was, I've read many of your posts and a few threads during my time here. Always decent. Usually enjoying or at least mildly interesting. So, while I may not know you, I know your words and views are- at least in a small way- part of my own life now and consider them very meaningful. As do others I'm sure. Still, it's your perspective that you're asking about being changed more than anything. What do you think?
Hapiness is complicated. Contentness brings complacency which brings inattentiveness which brings mistakes which brings suffering.
Furthermore it's not some sleazy massage parlour under the expressway. You don't just come in saying you'll do or give this and that for this and that in return. It takes time. It's a journey. Especially for the demanding.
Afterall, Jesus was all rebel and such. Teaching empowerment through love was rebel stuff back then in Jesus’s time. Your greatest teachers may not be the most pleasant. True teachers are not meant to make you feel comfortable. Billions turn to Jesus as a teacher, yet they know not that in his lifetime, Jesus did not have a permanent place of his own. He was constantly surfing from house to house. Going around living and spending time with the criminals, teaching the criminals to become better. Jesus was a rebel, everything he did was rebel stuff in his day. Teaching empowerment through love was rebel stuff back then, and Jesus did exactly that. His students carried swords, one guy even cut another guy's ear off. And Jesus went around with those type of people in his lifetime. Would you want a guy like that to be your teacher with this knowing?
Does it make a person feel better if Jehoshua/Yeshua/Jesus was brown or white or black or blue or red or green or purple or gold? Jesus is actually human born from premarital relations between Joseph and Mary. And take a guess what language those people spoke already. What does it matter what color he was or what language he spoke? It’s his message that counts. The guy died nailed to a wooden cross at the age of 33. His mission of coming here was different than you and I. He came because he wanted to experience human suffering for himself. He had his own reasons for being here, as do you and me. He did not come here to die for you or me. Jesus didn’t do any magic like healing people. He only taught the way. It’s the religious zealots making things sound overblown. Then you got the Romans. Making people believe weird stuff. If people find it hard to be within their own light even though it’s been there all the while, jeez. You are for you to treat. It’s for you to discover. Your actions by choice and decided upon by you. Once you figure that you only need to decide how to treat yourself, all things within your life gets reconciled.
Your human self is stupid because it is unconscious. There is more to self than higher. Think for yourself. People are slave to the material world’s so-called masters. Slave to desire. Slave to their own illusions. Lover of slave and victim mentality. Talking about material comforts is slave thinking. Completely indoctrinated slaves. Living life as a slave and not realize the state of slavery people themselves set in motion. Constantly thinking they have nothing. Because slaves have nothing. They only depend on having and serving a master as their one and only reality. That is willingly being a slave. It is because people are always wanting a master to give their slave butts some direction. People are afraid to think for themselves, afraid their slave existence might go up in smoke. I tell their slave butts the key to break the chains and their slave mind keeps looking for a master to come save them from their illusory framework. If that sounds dumb of someone to do, it is exactly why they think they are stupid, doubting themselves and clouding their mind. People have been shown their tools and yet they still want to be a slave. People were like this even back then. People followed the merchants, royals, military leaders, religious leaders, and political leaders instead of ancient spiritual masters, sages, ancient yogis, ancient monks, mystics who offered themselves as teachers. Buddha and Jesus being among them.
So, get ready slave mentality holder. A slave to socio-cultural pressures, fossil pressures, etc. I tell people to think for yourself and master yourself. Think about what slaves do and you will set your own slave mentality. The spiritual master known as Jesus in his love came to show others their chains as slaves, shown people the tools to become free of slave mentality. That is the light of complete unconditional love. And yet they go and say he cannot do that. Because he has stepped into taboo that you can’t be with God as a master of self. And thus, are stuck with the slave of God mentality when God wants humans to access his light through knowing and mastering self. Why worship. What is worship. It means to serve. True service is that of love.
Slaves are expendable. You use your intelligence, not your brain. Brain makes you stupid. Limitless reality is limited by what is the rules of physics. The universe in all of its layers of dimensionality, life or the very nature of things itself is the most limitless form of the physics, but when it becomes conscious within itself, it must define itself, then it is already limited. Because its limited, it is reaching back towards the unlimited. From that basic primordial aspect, role of creation is to actually explore from creation the limitless possibility, also means nothing. Our universe is surrounded and engulfed with nothing. Surrounded by nothing, surrounded by unlimited potential, therefore like a cell within a dimension being covered and surrounded by that dimension which is absolutely nothing.
It is a cell within that medium. The universe might be a single cell, like a blood cell floating around in the blood stream. To the blood cell, the blood stream feels unlimited, doesn’t it? But the blood cell does not know that the blood stream is limited, because it keeps cycling through doing the same thing over again, limitless possibility within limited space or limited medium. That bubble is the observable universe, what we cannot see that is stoking the limitless potential of our imagination. Imagine the limits of this universe can be seen as a little bubble but we know nothing beyond it, nothing beyond it. Beyond what we can see that is this universe is nothing, because we do not know. As it gets to the edge of observation, then that nothing becomes something.
Beyond what you can perceive is absolutely nothing, what you do not know. That is why nothing means I do not know, the unlimited possibilities. If you were to become nothing, you would actually reap the powers of all of creation and all of potential. That is how you will know how the very nature of things itself happens to be, nothing. Radical thinking, believe it or not, means thinking beyond the box, not outside the box. Thinking beyond the limitations of thinking.
Slave service is the fear of something perceived as greater than self. Keep at it slave. Sadhguru is also a slave to Shiva, why do you think he says Shiva’s name out loud so much? Why do you see him shouting and saying Shiva’s name all the time? Sadhguru is not a monotheist, does he sound like a theist of any kind to you? He is not an atheist. Want to know why? He is not stupid like most people. The desire to serve self in a self-imposed illusion of inert slavery. You are also a slave to your own fears. And not realize the divinity inside. People still have no idea how to use their free will. That is how dark ones can bonk you from behind, like feed you fantastic imaginings then sell you off to slavery somewhere. Dim ones fall for such illusions. Keep yourself grounded. Trust your own cognition.
Fundamental misconception. You're not commanded to believe in Christianity, it is entirely up to you whether you do or not. God is not depicted as an oriental despot or authoritarian dictator. Christ was 'born in a manger' unlike the gods of the ancient world. But you are always a free being, it's always your own choice. Sadly Christianity itself has often lost sight of this fundamental doctrine.
A Christian would say that most people are really enslaved by all kinds of things that are beneath them - possessions, sensations, addictions, dependencies and other kinds of hindrances and obstacles. What is at stake, according to them, is your discovery that your actual nature is nothing at all like what people mainly accept. Because of attachment to the transitory world of passing attachments, we fail to realise our true nature and heritage. That I take to be the message of Christianity.
Are you familiar with Pan-psychism (over 11 forms)? I would argue set theory goes very much with pan-psychism and even scientific determinism (~Fate). Set was an Egyptian god. The subset is always somewhat enslaved to the Set. I believe Set (the egyptian god) is a derivative of Adam's third son Seth. We are paritally related to Seth and Cain according to Christianity.
Spinoza used the basic notion of Pan-psychism and broke away from Judaism, however i think the jews recognized Pan-psychism to some extent which is what partially (partially) propelled Spinoza to take it one step to far.
I don't believe Solomon was 100% correct when he said God dwells in darkness. He was partially correct but Solomon in terms of some of the things he said were based on partial knowledge and a limited ability to witness reality. I believe God is like a star in that he is a very bright object surrounded by darkness. Do a bing or google search on chapters or passages dealing with God dwelling in darkness.
My memory isn't what it used to be and it wasn't something worth mentioning to begin with. All I remember is briefly reading about Egyptian gods but I have no memory of the exact details of the mythology surrounding them.
Anyway, what would be useful to me, in the current context of god making slaves of men, is whether Egyptians too thought of gods as beings that had to be worshipped in ways that suggest a desire to obey them (the gods) unconditionally.
As for Solomon, all I know is he was famed for his wisdom. What does he mean by "god dwells in darkness"?
[quote=Acts 16:31]They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household."[/quote]
In other words, there's something dreadful waiting for us at an undesignated location and at an unspecified time and the only way I can save myself and my family is to believe in Jesus.
You make a very good point about we being enslaved by "things that are beneath us" but these are, notwithstanding the fact that they're extremely difficult to free ourselves from, child's play compared to divine enslavement which is eternal and non-negotiable.
I appreciate the way you've framed the issue in a Buddhist perspective. Thanks.
To entertain the idea of false/misguided obedience is to sow the seeds of disobedience that ultimately leads to the rejection of god.
Quoting Outlander
Noted, Outlander. Reminds me of the RPG Diablo.
The hope is that it would lead to wise obedience. Slavish obedience is not a good thing. Obedience should be understood rather than rejected at face value. There is a worthy goal in wise obedience.
You have a point there I suppose. What means you by wise obedience?
It means thinking about why religion tells us how to live. This is what Buddhism means by 'wise living'. But, of course, sometimes religion is corrupt.
What I've referred to as the (mono)theistic 'command to love' seems akin to masochistic rape-fantasy or self-abnegation:
• Islam means surrender or submission to Allah.
• Judaism consists in a tribal covenant with Yahweh to obey His 613 Commandments (mitzvahs) which, in essence, begins with
[quote=The Shema (Torah prayer, Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18b)]Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one, and as for you, you shall Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.[/quote]
• Christianity is rooted as well in Jesus' recitation of The Shema (Mark 12:28-30 and Luke 10:25-27).
The "faithful" (i.e. religiously observant theists) are, as far as I can tell, willing slaves.
It was a common practice. A sign of status. It'd be like having acres of land today. Many were inherited and naturally a responsibility. Of course you a 21st century person reading this on a computer can't imagine being in the 17th century when *I think* they finally invented a flushing toilet. No one like that could.
Moreover though, the idea of 'a slave to God' is a bit of a misnomer for several reasons. That assumes you believe in a God that created you for essentially no reason and usually some kind of Hell. Not hard to put two and two together. Even not, you'd just be a slave to whoever happens to be stronger than you. Not only physically, but mentally, and that's the ticket to understanding. I suppose you could say morality and whatnot didn't come from or by means of God. I say, look around even today. Do you really think anyone with amassed power would give it up just because some philosopher came up with an emotionally satisfying monologue or an oppressed people looked at the person with a sad face? Doubtful. It took divine power. And suffering.
Fact is stranger than fiction is all I can say to that.
[quote=Outlander]Moreover though, the idea of 'a slave to God' is a bit of a misnomer for several reasons. That assumes you believe in a God that created you for essentially no reason and usually some kind of Hell. Not hard to put two and two together. Even not, you'd just be a slave to whoever happens to be stronger than you. Not only physically, but mentally, and that's the ticket to understanding. I suppose you could say morality and whatnot didn't come from or by means of God. I say, look around even today. Do you really think anyone with amassed power would give it up just because some philosopher came up with an emotionally satisfying monologue or an oppressed people looked at the person with a sad face? Doubtful. It took divine power. And suffering.[/quote]
:chin:
The concept of men being slaves to the gods or being slaves to the city state temple priests who commune with the gods is very ancient. I know thats how the ancient Sumerians viewed the gods relationship to men. The pharoah was a pseudo god and had many slaves due to "divine right" and stuff along that lines.
Nations in the beginning started out as tribes in ancient sumer starting city states. A city state is like US state but much smaller terrain. You have your farms that surround the city and the farms help support the city in the middle. Every city-state (or greek polis) was a little different.
You should check out "The Epic of Gilgamesh" on wikipedia or get the book on amazon.com. You might be able to get a cheap copy on ebay. It is the oldest written piece of fiction on the earth.
I would argue (my opinion) God started out in the darkness and he plays scenarios out in his head using the laws of physics he created and particle collisions. I would argue when he plans a scenario out in his head it actually happens in reality. I would also argue if we are doing ok in terms of ethics, he can still send evil our way even due to the slightest amount of pride. I wouldn't let this make you be depressed but it is something to think about. Supposedly the oldest book in the Bible was written by a non israelite/jew. The book of Job is about Job and Job wasn't a Israelite nor a jew.
The book is fascinating. "Speak to the earth and it will teach you". I believe this is a polymorphic statement saying to embrace science and also brings up pan-psychism in my opinion. "the mountains and XYZ inanimate object glorify God"
Even despite all this i still believe scientific determination (~Fate) does not contradict pan-psychism.
I think you're looking at it through the perspective of a hellfire smalltown preacher.
Symptoms are spoken in the language of disease. Disease registers Health as a credible possibility. So this is the actual concept to investigate.
The various ways to talk about a good life are connected to condemnations of bad ones by various means. The only thing anybody really cares about is the first part.
I should add that the problem of what the bad thing is is central to caring about the good thing.
Islam isn't ancient, in fact it's the very latest incarnation of religion we know of and it means "surrender" or "submission".
Quoting Wayfarer
Isn't the smalltown preacher the real face of religion? They're the ones who believe in the literal truth of scriptures, no? If we have a bone to pick with religion, the place to start would be the smalltown preacher and not sophisticated theologians who've tinkered with faith to make them almost unrecognizable - a way of living transformed into an intellectual enterprise.
Thanks anyway.
Masochism is a distortion of spirituality, not the other way round.
Maybe it is for you. Maybe that’s why you see it as you do.
What, in your opinion, is the right view of religion then?
My interest in it was always centred on the idea of enlightenment. As I pursued that, I discovered it did have connections with Christian ideas as well, albeit pretty underground. I used to joke that Comparative Religion ought to have been called 'the school of mysticism and heresy.' But I resisted being 'a believer', I thought 'believing' was for those not intelligent enough to investigate for themselves.
I suppose one thing I could usefully say is that there are ways of understanding religions in terms of archetypal psychology and the hero's journey. Myths represent deep structures in consciousness that unfold over millenia. That doesn't invalidate religion, but it also doesn't simply validate it either (have a read of this article.)
I sense you're wrestling with a spiritual issue - don't let your image of what you think religion means stop you from pursuing it.
That was Marx's economic-class-based view. But a more general view of the god/man relationship might be Dominant/Submissive. In other words, the gods represent human leaders who are both feared and respected. And in polytheism, the gods had hierarchies of their own.
As societies grew larger and more complex, the egalitarian hunter-gatherer tribes --- whose gods were mostly ancestors (i.e. family) --- evolved into Chieftainships, with a top-down hierarchy. Then city-states & empires formalized their bureaucracies into even more rigid differentiation between Nobles & Commoners. At each step in the development of political bodies, the separation between Dominant leaders and Submissive followers was widened, until the human leader was regarded as a god or a son of a god. Since some gods seemed to be able to punish disobedience with sickness or death, the leaders were deemed to also have absolute life or death authority over their subjects. Thus, commoners who wanted to solicit favors were expected to approach their mercurial leaders on their knees or prostrate --- demonstrating their non-threatening submissiveness.
This submissive prayer posture was required even of lower-ranking nobles. So it was not only slaves who had to bow and scrape before their masters, but the whole hierarchy had a politically defined pecking order. And, when Monotheism emerged, the top-god was viewed as being the Lord even of Kings. In that sense, all of humanity was enslaved. But since the remote universal god leaves most day to day regulation to his human administrators, the religious-political system allowed varying degrees of freedom, based on the official or de facto hierarchy of the society.
So, the mentality of political & religious subjects is not simply that of abject slaves, but of bureaucratic role-playing that can change as the political structure changes. For example, after one society has been absorbed into a new empire, its hierarchy can shift dramatically. A former king may be put in the stocks, as a laughing-stock. And a former slave could be promoted to a position of authority, as in the stories of Joseph and Daniel in the Bible.
Humans are instinctively like wolves or sheep or chickens, in that they have dominant/submissive relationships that vary all the way down to the rank of powerless slaves. And human leaders, including priests, take advantage of that submissiveness to leverage their personal power by claiming divine authority. Hence, us commoners are not just slaves of gods, but slaves of everyone above us in the chain-of-command. :gasp:
PS___Some might view their relationship to their god more positively, as good soldiers following orders from above.
That depends on one's subjective point of view.
Isn't child abuse perverse? I don't see why one's subjective point of view needs to be meaningless. The sadist is acting out evil. The masochist wants freedom from self - without giving up self.
Quoting TheMadFool
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this quite similar to the lines of Nietzsche?
Slave morality came with Christianity and wrecked the master morality of Antiquity and so on...
I was trying to say that the whole god(s)/slavery thing predates Islam. I actually didn't bring up Islam. Hammurabi goes back to ~1800bc and that god(s)/slavery thing predates him.
You were contemplating a rational voluntary belief in a debatable concept. But that's a calculated cost/benefit approach; it's a gamble. It's the rational pragmatic solution that Pascal came up with. The problem with that kind of belief is that it can be swayed by a change of circumstances. For example, many Christians & Jews in Europe became practicing Muslims or Christians, when it was the lesser of two evils : death or conversion. Yet, when the dominant political entity changed, some of those pragmatic folks switched their allegiance to a different god-concept.
Ideally, true Faith is involuntary and irrational. It's based on feelings, not reasons. Or at least, that was what I was told when young and impressionable. So, I suspect the emotion you felt while imagining a benevolent god, was only half of the Faith calculus : Hope plus Trust. Hope is a felt need for succor, but it can be fleeting. Trust, though, comes with positive feedback. If you pray to god for something that can be confirmed, and it comes to pass, your Hope will be augmented. Ironically, irregular reinforcement of Faith is more effective than when every prayer is answered. That's why Gambling is so addictive. The faithful, and gamblers, reassure themselves that they are betting on an almost sure thing. :nerd:
Pascal's Big Bet : Pascal's wager was groundbreaking because it charted new territory in probability theory,[4] marked the first formal use of decision theory, existentialism, pragmatism, and voluntarism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
Succor : assistance and support in times of hardship and distress.
Intermittent Reinforcement Schedule : Gambling is an example of intermittent reinforcement.
https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Intermittent+Reinforcement
One of the elements Kierkegaard introduced in his Works of Love is the idea that what is taken as examples of the highest discrimination of pagan Love actually requires another ingredient.
That the interest in another person is not just a bundle of instincts but a kind of emptiness of self. Not as a exemplar of perfection but as a means to a way of seeing.
Formal Theism is a late development in human religion. For thousands of years, Neanderthals and primitive Homo Sapiens were "slaves" of Nature. They had no control over natural events, including life or death scenarios. So, all they could do was pray to whatever powers might be for some very practical interventions : recovery from illness, rain for crops, a healthy baby. But as people began to form complex societies in bronze-age civilizations, they also formed more specific images of the gods : one god for each major aspect of Nature & Culture --- weather, success in battle, etc. Eventually Universal Montheism, of the sort you seem to be contemplating, was devised to reflect the all-powerful emperors & courtiers of the Iron Age earthly empires, wherein everybody was a slave to his superiors in a rigid top-down hierarchy. Some modern liberal Christians and New Agers, though, seem to imagine God as a sort of democratic president in the sky, so all men are free, and subject only to the beneficent laws of reason.
But there has always been a less hierarchical minority view of god. By that I mean the "god of the philosophers", which is now known as Deism, in contrast to Theism. This is a god, generally identified with Nature, and knowable via Science, but not assumed to intervene on behalf of supplicants. The Deus does not inspire fear, and doesn't require slavish behavior (except for obeying natural laws), but it also doesn't appeal to the emotions, inspiring feelings of comfort & peace, or fear & dread. As a rational person, you could easily make the leap to faith in a Cosmic Nature God, but you'll have to find emotional support and salvation elsewhere. :cool:
What I'm trying to do is, firstly, investigate my suspicions that a desire to believe in a god might be a telltale sign of a [subconscious] desire to be enslaved/dominated.
Secondly, if you're going to take a Pascalian approach to this then don't forget that Pascal's thoughts on what the stakes are. Pascal was of the opinion that the stakes were just too high for a person to lay his bet on god's nonexistence - eternal hellfire - and believing in god who didn't exist is not disastrous - just a minor inconvenience. In essence, Pascal considered it an extremely dangerous affair not to believe in god - that's fear and fear is precisely what sustains the beast of slavery.
Quoting Valentinus
:chin:
Yes. Christianity and Islam have made unbelief, and especially apostasy, into a one-way ticket to Hell. That embedded fear may be why I was so slow to make a clean break from Theism, long after my disbelief in the Bible was rationally confirmed. Actually, I still believe in what I call "G*D", but I'm not afraid of Mother Nature. She may punish violations of natural laws, but everlasting fire is not a natural punishment. It's a sadistic torture device dreamed-up by religious rulers to keep the unruly in line with the stick of awe & fear, because the carrot of promised blessings is so mundane by comparison, and also because mere Death happens even to fervent believers. :worry:
PS__As mentioned in my prior post, I suspect that what you call the "desire to be enslaved" is merely our herd animal instinct to follow the leader. Most of us timid souls are not aggressive and ambitious enough to challenge the top-dog, or the top-god. As human societies grow larger and more complex, the hierarchical power structures become more rigid. But we still have romantic notions of the individuality and freedom enjoyed by Noble Savages, which may have inspired our occasional experiments with Democracy, that usually revert to Fascism when the herd is threatened by outside forces. The god of monotheism is a Fascist Fuhrer who "makes the trains run on time", but requires absolute obedience to official commandments, and has prepared a "Final Solution" for those who don't conform.
I think if you take the fundamental tenet that God is an ideal state of being... then the consideration of whether you're submitting to slavery or not is null and void. Would you consider subordination as ideal? Would he/she/it/them consider tyranny as ideal?
Be careful when you attempt to contemplate God/ Gods as you like everyone else likely have a lot of preconceptions and misconceptions that we are unaware of. Most of which have an origin not in the divine but in human manipulation, power play, authority and politics - using a state of ideal (using a gods name) in vain -for their own agenda.
I also dont believe God, if one exists, is benevolent at least not by the narrow definitions of what a human considers good or bad....as our concept of good is at the very least always centred around our privilege as a species and self entitlement, or "the world according to us." Which will be inherently biased and changes constantly through history. Consider that benevolence on the scale of a God would apply to things beyond what we can even know or imagine yet.
Also I'd imagine benevolence would disallow for freedom of choice. He would always be intervening by moral imperative and giving us no choice to commit grave errors or mistakes. Then we could not learn.
For me the closest association I can make to a God that exists is energy. A phenomenon/substance from which all things arise. Energy is the the core concept underlying omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence as it is the propagator of action.