I posted this in another thread, so I’m plagiarizing myself, but it’s easier than saying it all over again.
Taoists have it right in the idea that “The Tao that can be described is not the true Tao.” Tao does in many ways correspond to western concepts of God.
People have been saying what “God” is and isn’t for centuries. What they’ve really been doing is putting a name to their personal ideas about what an omnipotent being would be (usually a being that supports they’re own stance and condemns anybody elses).
The obvious problem there is that by describing God people are limiting it. A truly omnipotent, omniscient entity would by definition be beyond description, and beyond human concepts like vengeance and wrath or even compassion and mercy. Those are ideas created by us for use when dealing with each other.
I don’t know if there was a creative intelligence behind the universe or not, but if there is, I think it’s best described as Life. A self sustaining need for existence maybe.
It seems to me that people have come up with the idea of god as a way of comforting themselves when afraid of things they don’t understand. Once upon a time it was a simple reasonable explanation of why the world existed and why things happen.
Also, I think the whole idea of the afterlife is based on the fact that we can’t really imagine oblivion. When we see people and animals die we wonder what has happened to them. We try to imagine ourselves dying and, if we try to imagine nothingness, oblivion, we usually end up thinking of ourselved as being conscious and deprived of any sensory input (floating in the darkness). But maybe when we die, we simply…stop. There’s no consciousness, nothing. It’s an impossible idea to conceptualize. It’s much easier to assume we continue in some form, so naturally we have developed various comforting, and not-so-comforting ideas about what happens.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind continuing to exist, but I can accept that maybe when I die, that’ll be it. I can’t imagine it, but if it happens that way, well, I won’t exist to know one way or the other, right?
