There is No “god”, Silly!
In Episode 6 of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers: Masks of Eternity, Moyers and Campbell discuss the common experience of God.
This is the absolute truth. No one comes closer to identifying it. It is what pedestrian minds refer to as ‘god’. And yes, I do know better than believers because I’ve spent my entire life contemplating this concept. Not ‘God’ but Being.
My earliest conscious memories began when I was 5 or 6 years old. I wanted to know what THIS was all about. What was the explanation, the reason for existence? Why THIS and not something else. I demanded an explanation.
At 9 I asked by father, a distinguished academic with 2 PHds (in Anthropology and Sociology), if he existed.
“Of course I exist”, my bemused daddy answered as he drove his Ford Cortina, his family in tow, to La Jolla Shores.
“But Daddy, how do you know you exist?”, I countered.
My father gave me a sideways glance to determine whether or not I was teasing or serious.
I was serious, deadly serious.
My father knew everything. He should be able to tell me how he knew that he existed. From there, I could derive some conclusion about the nature of all existence.
That’s what parents are for.
My dad smiled. He said, “I know I exist because I can feel my skin. I feel the breeze on my skin and my breath.”
“Yes”, I interrupted, “But how do you know that this is all real and not a dream? How do we know if anything’s really real? How do we know if we exist or not?”
I was 9 years old.
I was deadly serious.
My life’s work is to answer my own question.
I owe it to myself, my 9 year old self, my every age self and to every other self.
What is the true nature of existence?
What is Being?
“God” is no answer, “God” is just a vanity reflected in a fractured mirror. What THERE IS, what is really going on is much bigger. It is much deeper and much grander than any silly sky-daddy can answer.
MY BELIEF is that asking that question ‘What is Being?’ is the only human activity, the only human mental cognition worth bothering with.
The only person who has nearly answered this question satisfactorily is the German Existentialist Martin Heidegger. It is the premise of his opus Being and Time.
He asks the question on the first page and by the time you are through he answers:
“What is the true nature of existence?
What is Being?”
Answer : “Who is asking?”·
In Episode 6 of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers: Masks of Eternity, Moyers and Campbell discuss the common experience of God. They explore how this experience spans across cultures. Campbell provides challenging insights into the concepts of God, religion, and eternity. These insights are revealed in Christian teachings and the beliefs of Buddhists, Navajo Indians, Schopenhauer, Jung, and others.
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