Real God And False Gods

The false gods are going to turn against you. The Communists and some others deified the state, and the state became monstrous. The New Agers deified the self, and the people became jerks. The consciousness movement people deified the mind, and the minds went insane. As for my own group – the romantics – we used to deify women, only to see women acting in vicious and nasty ways.

When something is given powers that it does not deserve, it will use these powers for wrong things. Not the state, not the economy, not the academia, not the family, have a right to be given godlike powers. Most of these things have a legitimate roles, and it is rightful that they be given power appropriate to these roles. However none of such things begin to deserve ultimate power.

I do not recommend that we go without – the state, the economy, the academia, the family, and so forth. I recommend that we see these things as accessories to a purpose and not as a purpose in itself. Economy is not “reality” or “the real world”; it is a system composed of disparate and competing entities whose common goal is to make money. Academia is not reality either, but a place where people do research and learn. As for the state, it is simply one of the many things that exist. It, just like the rest of the civilization, is composed of people; and I see no reason at all to see the people in the state – as did Hobbes – to be better than others, or – as do the libertarians – to be worse than others. Some people in the state will be better than others. Likewise outside the state. In some cases the state is the organ of wrongdoing against people; in some cases it isn't. I have known a number of people who suffered badly under Soviet Communism; but I have also known many people who suffered in America from their families or the mafia or Jehovah's Witnesses or doctors or lawyers or their men.

So who actually does deserve ultimate power? Only one being in the Universe. And while I have been attempting to follow this power, even in my case I keep getting doubts or attempting to forget what I have been experiencing. It is not easy at all to see that your life belongs not to you but to God, or that wrongdoing could lead to hellfire. It means that you have to do what God tells you to do. However I would much rather take that from God than from a military sargeant or a Soviet commissar, even though even in this case I would not promise consistent compliance.

Paul said that the woman exists for the man, the man for the church and the church for God. He was envisioning a political order that is lead by God through the church involving all men and women. I would very much like to see what an order like that would look like. Some thought that they were doing it in the Middle Ages, but they did it wrong. The people with conscience went into monasteries, and the kings and the nobles ruled the place without conscience. Then there was the idea of the divine right of kings, which is completely wrong. Once again, they were deifying a monarch, creating a false god who would turn against them.

When faced with a deified monarch, some decided instead to deify “the people.” That too is wrong. Whichever people they may be talking about are just as fallible as the monarchs. Some people will be better than others. Once again, I see no reason to see people outside the state as being better than people in the state, any more than the other way around. We will have good governments and bad governments, and we will have good people and bad people.

Similar with business, with the academia, and with just about anything else.

Now I cannot promise that I will always worship God or do what He tells me to do. I can however explain to people that He is much more worthy of such powers than earthly false gods. And while the priestry is not always the best form of governance, maybe there should be more power left to religion than to the business, the academia or the state.