The recognition of existence of God who is omnipotent and good must be a false recognition because there cannot be omnipotent and kind God when misery is seen in the world. Either no God exists and it is man made. In the alternative he is not omnipotent and good. Either he is good or omnipotent. There cannot exist God who is omnipotent and good in the light of misery seen everywhere in this world.
At any rate we are speaking of omnipotent God. Omnipotent God means he has unlimited powers. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. hence power is bad. Hence we have to reject it from our hearts. It is here that man’s true freedom lies.
The freedom I am speaking requires strength. Strength has to be respected. Let us respect the strength of those who refuse false recognition of facts.
Man must struggle to become free as far as possible from the tyranny of non-human power. The moment you attribute absolute power to God, we think that it has got to be worshiped and It must be given unlimited respect notwithstanding its wanton infliction of pain.
In addition to this Unfortunately in our actions we have no option but to submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces. However in thought, in aspiration we are free. We are free when we live, even from the tyranny of death .
If you oppose God on the basis that God is a creation of man and if that ideal grows fully visible, a spirit of fierce revolt and hatred of the Gods would come and it seems necessary to the assertion of freedom.
It is the duty of one and all to keep the evil always in view but always actively hated. In this regard man shall learn to refuse no pain that the malice of power can invent ,to assert man’s freedom.
For all the above what is most important is we should see that our thoughts are not burdened by the load of eager wishes. If it is not so loaded, freedom comes automatically. Freedom is available to those who do not ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time. When we loose all eagerness of temporary desire, struggle and strife for petty ends and trivial things which would make the common life day by day, we would be able to enjoy our freedom.
It is the part of courage to turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. The degree of submission to power should be just and right and it is wisdom.
We have to resign to the out world rule of fate but we have to recognize that the non-human world is unworthy of our worship.
Ideas are from mysticism and logic and other essays by Bertrand Russell.
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Wooooohooooo!!!!!! Mind Blowing! We should have Bertrand Russel's essays incorporated into English literature syllabus in all schools.
ReplyDeleteThanks to this blog, I am going to start reading everything from Bertrand Russel, starting today!!
This has a direct attack on the existance of god. I suggest to go through what is god before the so called attacks. What is the form of god? This is a very complex question not easily explained in a few sentances. I would put god as an omnipotent being which is watching your every movement physically and mentelly. If you see it in your own concience, the god could be within you. From a very long time this has been created to give us a feeling of not doing bad things detremental to the society. According to me the concept should be left alone for every one to decide their own concept of god with out interference. Any effort in this regard should only to reinforce their own concepts rather than destroying ones concept, trying to do post mortem of their concepts.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully explained about desires,and how our modification of mind can take away our freedom.
ReplyDeleteYes if we think God is a seperate entity nt in all of us,can creat all those issues . God is nothing but a third party witness sitting in all of us. He is neither bad or good. If you compare God with electricity one can understand easily- how it can be used in different ways, sometime in bulbs,or motor or anything ..it is untouched ..with actions.