The alternative is doing nothing forever - being immortal, without company - which is impossible.
It is quite overwhelming being and seeing everything and knowing that you will exist like that forever.
There is no choice, really... "God" is lonely. "He" can create everything forever or create nothing forever.
While the illusion of choice may be perceived, creation is an inevitability.
Interesting as a side-topic; the idea that Christianity does seem to propose a form of immortality, what with heaven and hell and purgatory. According to them, there is no real end to existence in one conscious and personal way. I don't buy it. There is no evidence for it; so I think that, the first time an afterlife was proposed, it was as a work of fiction, it was one person's incomprehension at the idea that this personalised and intensely vivid experience that we are consumed by, could possibly end. It feels like it is eternal, but clearly isn't, so a reasonable person assumes that it must continue. As I said, I don't buy it. I think Christianity has this wrong too. What did it get right.
So God is neutral, or in a moderately good mood? That's not the way I see it, exactly. I hate being in a neutral mood, too, or "lukewarm" as Christ used to say. I prefer the ups and downs. That's just boring and feels unnatural to me.
Even the idea of neutrality requires dualistic opposites to have meaning. Perhaps god is meant to be beyond meaning and elucidation. It/he exists in a realm above relativity, as It/he/she contains everything all at once.
If we were to use the existence and form of the universe to judge gods mood; or if we were to use existence on earth to gauge god's mood; he seems either angry or utterly disinterested. I favour the latter and I don't see it as a negative either. Human creativity is about creating, not about creating something of worth. Perhaps gods creativity is a necessity for it, an inherent function of godliness, neither good nor bad. I was going to say that trying to understand god through the lens of humanity is pointless, and even describing gods mood is futile. Moods are transient, god is meant to be timeless and eternal. The god with feelings and motives doesn't appear to have any basis in reality.
Of course, I am a human. So there.
foreverafter, I have read many book on NDE like people literally died clinically for few minutes and the doctors where trying to reanimate those person. all those person who experience that all say the same thing: the incredible light, consciousness out of the body ect, feeling of peace and bliss. Theres many book on that issue. fascinating stuff.
There is a world of difference between being NEAR death and being dead. For that reason, I disregard the testimonies of NDEers who claim to have seen a bright light and experienced euphoria as well as those who saw/experienced nothing at all. Death, as we know it, is permanent. I think there is a distinction between a low consciousness state that appears like death to observers, and the actual eternal, unchanging reality of death. Its more then just a semantic distinction too.
but, god is everything, where do you take that from?
what about: everything you experience is made of consciousness. consciousness is everything you can experience. but dont you think there's something out of experienced reality. empty space filled with peace and love perhaps?
Where does this love come from, from whom and to whom? Doesn't love require a subject of sorts? Who is it? What about peace, peace is a contrast to turmoil/war? Whats the alternative? How is our chaotic universe peaceful?
I like the sentiment, but I think you are saying that god must exist to render these attributes.
It's been an evolving result i would say.
Initially it was powerfully positive despite the uncomfortable loneliness that accompanied it; i felt liberated from objectivity and plunged into absolute subjectivity.. this was life-changing for me and i do consider the experience as the single most important and influential spiritual experience of my life, it was a fundamental shift in awareness so enormous that i would consider it an awakening.
Its a crazy sort of experience that I've had on DMT (most intensely ayahuasca) as well as ketamine. It is like having true reality confirmed, the true isolation that is the heritage of each of us individuals. Understanding that the present, whilst fleeting, is the only real plane of existence; its where it all unfolds. And you cannot catch it.
We go through our lives doing all these things to disable loneliness and to create a connection, but it can never overcome the barrier that my skull is. I've felt that frightening loneliness in the peak psychedelic trip, but I feel it sober constantly. You cannot come here, into my mind with me, and I cannot enter yours. We are isolated. That's probably our point-of-contact though, our shared and unconquerable isolation. We're all trapped like this, for a time at least. We're all trying to make some kind of bridge to others, though it will, by necessity, fall short. Its never wise to give up though, because a connection can still be made.
The idea of isolation can be rendered unimportant by understanding that even I/we/me/you are fleeting and deconstructed/reconstructed every instant. Instead of saying "I am alone", one could ask "What am I?" For me, that's impossible to answer and is, perhaps, unanswerable. Either the answer is impossible for me to comprehend or. Perhaps this 'I' doesn't neccesarily exist? If it doesn't exist, how can it feel lonely?
The universe exists. You are part of it. You, a piece of the universe, are surrounded constantly by other pieces of it- I can't imagine that we need to feel lonely when surrounded by, and made from, the stuff of existence. I don't know if this make sense or means anything, but its the argument that I came up with when confronted by the Void. And it seems to hold up and has assuaged my existential panic (to some extent).
