Gods exist

(We invented them)



The Gods have been there since the obscure beginnings of the humanity, when we finally emerged from the darkness, slowly finishing being monkeys and beginning being men.
Try for a second to imagine yourself in the shoes of these primitive creatures with a brain complex enough for beginning to think, but too simple to understand reality as most of we can do now. What could be then the answers to so many questions suddenly appeared?: Gods!
And we should probably be grateful to religions because they were the primitive (and probably irreplaceable) substitutes for philosophy in the first stages of man's evolution.

On the other hand Ayn Rand explicitly agreed from a metaphysical point of view, with the classic concept attributed to ancient Chinese culture: "Be brave enough to change what can be changed, humble enough to leave what can't be changed and wise enough to recognize the difference".
Gods have by definition all that we lack and men invented Gods because we are not Gods, i.e. we are not omnipotent nor omniscient and most people needed (still need) someone to take care of which they can't.

Background:
Atheists to believers spectrum:

Full believer: Honesty believes in miracles and in the God pictured in the Bible by example (or any other similar religion), he is convinced that people can fly, walk over water and create matter from nothing, or revive long dead bodies, contradicting all the known scientific and/or natural rules.

Half believer: Believe that there are some "divine" entities outside our current human-limited sphere of understanding, but don't believe in magic miracles or in priests from any particular religion. Probably considers the Bible as a metaphoric story

Agnostic: With a more scientific approach he is sure that the "magic" God pictured in the Bible by example (or any other similar religion) doesn't exist outside man's mind
But he is not sure if other Gods (superior "divine" entities) exist or not outside man's mind, because he doesn't care or because he has no scientific proof for either position

Atheist: Is absolutely convinced that no Gods exist at all outside man's mind, either the God pictured in the Bible by example (or any other similar religion) nor any superior "divine" entities of any kind. He only believes in what he can "touch and see" or what current science can proof.

Hypothesis:
There is some kind of "mystic instinct" in all men: Some kind of natural tendency to associate the things they don't understand or value very much to some "kingdom of magic" (Gods, angels, demons, spirits, reincarnation, gnomes, divination, astrology, whatever)

Thesis:
It is better for an Objectivist to know more about these "kingdoms of magic". Knowledge is personal and the most real knowledge can be only acquired by personal experience or proof, otherwise you just repeat by faith what other people said or wrote
Thus we Objectivists should know more closely about Gods or even worship some one (!), as long as we keep always clear in our minds that they are our invention: The God of money, the God of Wisdom, the God of Technology, the God of Love...

You can and should create Gods and these kind of Gods, your own Gods, should be concepts that you particularly value, admire and want to keep in some special place within your soul (your self-made soul as Ayn Rand said)
These "Gods" serve as an important part of the process by which your conscious mind constructs over the years your sense of life. (For an explanation about what I mean with "sense of life" please read Ayn Rand's essay "Philosophy and sense of life" in the Romantic Manifesto)

This extra knowledge about mysticism (and any other subject by the way) is also very useful to your mind in order to expand its limits an be able to extrapolate more concepts, based on more "points" of reliable reference-information

Explanation:
How can an Objectivist exercise his "mystic muscle" without renouncing to his principles?
Simple: Using the imagination, but always controlled by reason

Imagination is a powerful tool which importance is perhaps a little diminished in our Objectivist context where it is usually associated with fantasy, unreality, no-objectivity, no-reason
But correctly used imagination is one of the most powerful tools of reason. It allows to induction, to think about the not-yet-created. Imagination is essential to inventors, to discovery, to the thinkers of the not yet thought.

Unfortunately imagination is also essential (along with fear, ignorance, laziness, etc) for all sort of mystics and believers in the non-real and I suppose it is the reason for its "bad fame" around Objectivists. Imagination, like a wild horse, can easily get out of control, out of the control of reason.

Thus a fine mind uses a lot of imagination but always under control of reason. There it resides the huge difference

I particularly propose as an interesting imagination's exercise worshiping The Nine Divines (an invented mythology of the video game Oblivion). Isn't it funny inventing some magic around us?
And I also propose the main deity Akatosh be the "Soul of the World", this means all the knowledge accumulated by the effort of every individual that ever existed. The knowledge we inherited and which sum allows us to live in the wonderful World we live now, with internet, motorcycles, microwave furnaces, skyscrapers, guns, poetry, roads, satellites, medicine, movies and the Macbook computer in which keyboard I am writing just now these words.

However I see (at least) three basic dangers in misunderstanding the concept of Gods who supposedly are the ones in charge of the things we really can't change:

1-Believing in Gods as entities with existence outside man's mind and thus believing they are some kind of external, "real" beings with power on their own.

2-Leaving Gods the job that we are supposed to do: The job to change what we can change: adapt our environment to us, develop our own means to survive, use and improve our mind, fight for what we desire.

3-Finally giving to some priests or witch-doctors the supposed ability to communicate with the Gods and then say what should or shouldn't be done.

Conclusion:
I would not take so lightly the "fantasy" of men, it is after all one of the most powerful driving forces that took humanity up to here. Fantasy reflects the exercise of one wonderful quality of man: imagination. As every tool of the mind it can be used for good (projecting things for the future for example) or for evil (denying reality for example).
On the other hand John Galt exists (the character, not the "real" person obviously) and his influence would probably not have been necessarily more powerful or important if he was a "flesh and bone" person...
If religious people can't distinguish between reality and fantasy is their problem and beside that I usually don't argue with worshipers of any religion, it is pointless because they can't prove the existence of whatever their God happens to be and I can't prove otherwise.
More important: Religious people believe in Gods because they desperately need to, their minds and/or souls are not strong enough to stand existence and death or to have their own values, so it is good to have some compassion for those people, I used to be one of them after all...
Finally I don't think being an Objectivist necessarily means having a mind so "practice" that is incapable of distinguishing the shades of gray even and specially in the minds of adversaries. Reality (including man of course) is complex, so our mind have to be complex enough to properly understand it.
An oversimplified discourse is useful for a club where all people agree with you, but trying to "reach" other people with distinct mental structures is a different challenge.
You talk about how things work, but you are forgetting one of the most wonderful "things" on Earth: Man's mind. And the alleged existence of Gods explains a lot about how human mind works.

Never again I will say to a religious person that his or her God doesn't exist, it is a lie because all Gods exist, as literature, mathematical equations or music exist, since for good or worse we invented all of them. Even when I know the entire Universe is neutral to the existence of men on this little rock called Earth. Even when I know that Universe is not inimical against us, nor "love" us. Even when I know there is no consciousness (like ours at least) outside man's mind, only the cold eternal Universe that don't care if we live, die, love, do good or evil, make planes, satellites, Bibles, Giocondas or whatever.
I also know that Gods have been always there, but they are not responsible for the misuse we make of them.

The Self-Help Guide to Living in a Free Society

(By Gen LaGreca from "The New Individualist" magazine)



Too many Americans are losing the ability to take care of themselves and are instead looking to the government to run their lives for them, in the tax-gouging, liberty-killing system called the welfare state.

Too many Americans seem willing to replace the life of a proud American eagle, flying alone and free, with that of a hapless chicken penned in a coop, waiting to be fed. The welfare state has all but squashed the essential skill of our survival: the skill of taking responsibility for our own lives.

Although we are besieged by self-help guides of every kind - from how to train a parakeet, to how to cook pasta, to how to combat addictions to alcohol, or obsessive 'Net surfing, or other disorders - there is one guide to personal improvement that is conspicuously absent from today's cultural scene. It's a guide that statist politicians and the groups that support them do not want us to discover. It's a guide to curing the worst dependency of all: the urge to satisfy one's needs by dipping his hand into the wallet of his taxpaying neighbor.

To combat this affliction and to rediscover the meaning of freedom we need a "Self Help Guide to Living in a Free Society." It might read something like this:

1. If you don't go to school and don't work hard to get ahead, don't expect the same rewards as those who do. You haven't earned them.

2. Don't expect others to pay for your foolishness. If you spill hot coffee on yourself, be more careful next time. Don't sue the restaurant that served you or push for a law to regulate the temerature of coffee. And if you're on a jury, don't award people huge sums for being irresponsible.

3. If you coose to live in a hurricane zone, then buy insurance or take your chances. Don't expect the taxpayers of Minnesota to cover your losses.

4. Drop the communal mentality that aims to force one course of action on everyone, paid for by one cosmic bank account: the taxpayers'. Don't ask, "Should we go to Mars?" If you want to go, go - as a private venture and stake claim when you get there.

5. Don't meddle in others' affirs. Don't ask, "Should we ban this drug for arthritis because it has side effects?" Consult your doctor, not the government, and let others decide for themselves how severe their arthritis is and the risks they're willing to take. Other peoples' joints are none of your business.

6. Don't expect the government to look after your health. If you think certain foods will clog your arteries, then don't eat them. Don't call for a battalion of bureaucrats to control other people's blood vessels

7. Don't try to force your personal living standards on everyone by pushing for the government to ban harmless activities. If you don't approve of gambling on the Internet, then don't do it. Leave others alone if they choose to gamble and are causing you no injury.

8. Don't try to get a home for free. It's not free. Get a job and pay for it. Don't force others to pay a premium on their homes so that you can get yours at their expense. If you want affordable housing, then support the deregulation of the industry, which will lower prices for everyone.

9. If you default on a loan, accept the consequences, lick your wounds and avoid making the same mistakes again. Don't expect the government to bail you out with money fleeced from the taxpayers who made a more prudent lending and borrowing decision.

10. Don't try to get ahead by forcing people to give you special privileges. Your sex or race doesn't qualify you for a degree or a job. Only merit does.

11. Don't look for a risk-free life. There is no such thing. If you buy a malfunctioning toaster, return it for a refund. If it is truly harmful, seek redress in court. But don't unleash a squadron of inspectors to regulate every toaster on the planet, just to protect you from one defective cord.

12. Don't instigate laws to stifle your competitors or to give your business special governmental favors. If you can't win customers by offering them the best products and services in a free market, then close up your shop and get a job working for a competitor who can.

13. Don't force people to support your pet causes. They are entitled to use their money to support their own causes. Look for private funding - not government grants - to find a cure for a disease, to produce a play, or to preserve an old mansion. The government has no business giving you charity with money that it uncharitably seizes from other taxpayers.

14. Don't support laws to control your employers. They're covered by the Constitution, too. They have the right to decide whom to hire, what to pay, and how long a lunch break will be in the businesses they own. If you don't like the terms, go elsewhere - and work to loosen the regulatory noose around business's neck, so you'll find better job opportunitites.

15. Don't expect any guarantees in life. There are none. You can lose your job, your investments can fail and your fiance can leave you. You have the right to pursue happiness, but no one ensures you'll attain it. Stop trying to use the government to shield you from life's risks.

16. Stop shouting, "Tax the rick!" The rich are also citizens whose rights are protected by the Constitution. The rich have the right to pursue their own happiness, not yours; and they are entitled to the fruits of their labor, just as you are to yours. Instead of chipping away at the rights of the rich, redirect your engery to creating wealth and joining their ranks.

17. Don't campaign for the government to give you things for free. If it pays your medical bills, then it controls the treatment you'll get or wont get. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but there is such a thing as being swallowed by a shark.

18. In short, recognize that every person - not just you - has an absolute right to his own life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. Being a good citizen is like being a good neighbor: You live your life privately and you respect others' rights to do the same. You keep what you make, and they keep what they make. You don't force your opinions, causes, needs, or problems on your neighbors, and they don't force theirs on you.

To live in a free society, each person must embrace the responsiblity for his own life that comes with freedom. To defeat the creeping tyranny of the welfare state, we must rediscover the founding principle of America: the power, the moral rightness, and the glory of the individual as the master of his fate and the captain of his soul.