The white-bearded guy in the skyWhile at a social function recently I got chatting with some religious people who started to talk about how we're all 'fallen', sinners in need of saving, and how we're all needing His forgiveness, and so on.

Now, from a systems perspective this all makes no sense.1

So I asked, "if God is infinite, isn't all necessarily WITHIN God? After all," I added, "if we and all else, including evil is not of God, then we're outside and beyond the infinite — and that would make us and evil bigger than God. That would make God small relative to us, and relative to evil."

"Best not do that," I said.

"Think of it this way," I explained "God is infinite ... literally that means "He" has no limits — he's everywhere, and in everything, everyone, every spirit, including Evil. In other words, everything and everyone is of God.  It's His energy that's behind all the muck-ups, and the beautiful wonderful things, and ..."

If all — including Evil — is not God's creation then that means "He" has limits to where His creative energy goes. That makes Him small. Best not do that.

If it's not His energy, then it's someone else's, but that again means He has limits to where His energy goes.2

Pretty straight-forward, I would think, to understand all this.

 

After having pointed all this out, the lady in question simply reverted back to "Oh no, Evil is 'down there' and fallen from God" or some such.

"Yes, but that's still God, yes? Cannot be anything other than God's love, misapplied. Otherwise you're saying you're outside of God, and bigger than God'. You're making God small if you say evil is not OF God. All God, all good", I said.

She looked at me like I had two heads.

But it all underscored the extraordinary importance of good, sound spiritual concepts. This lady in particular is now 'rooted' in concept and in fear of evil, God, whatever.

And this does harm to our world ... people who are fearful have a habit of doing destructive things, of shutting down loving potentials that could lift and enliven our world.

Not good.

But then All God, all good.

That's the paradox - it's both at once.

  • 1. We're all part of a wonderful (and at times terrible) self-organising system. And as within the whole, so within the part — meaning, any potentials within God are necessarily potential with all 'parts'.
  • 2. Implicit in a lot of religious thinking is a reliance on weirdo disconnects, that, if considered, are ... well, just down-right weird, and nonsensical. If we're entirely disconnected (separate) from God He'd never get to know of us, or anything. If it's not His energy with which we're living life, that again implies perfectly separate physical system from the common source-energy of existence. More weird disconnects.