Dear Yuyutsu,

According to Maimonides God has no attributes. Although I believe that God is merely a creation of the human mind I am interested in the concepts that believers have come up with. Maimonides believed that we only have negations to guide us. "God is powerful" should be taken to mean that "God is not powerless". This negation is not restricted to Maimonides. The Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.) becomes (Do not do unto others what is harmful to you.) Maimonides also believed that taking the Torah as literal truth and to think God is a bodily thing is a mistake. Anyone who thinks that should be excluded from the Jewish community. God cannot have any attributes since attributes define, and God cannot be defined. Extending this to my worldview what cannot be defined does not exist, and therefore God does not exist.

Dear David F.,

Yes, I fully agree on these points, both with you and with Maimonides.

Existence is overrated. I wonder since when it started to become such an issue.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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Thanks for that.

It’s amazing how ingenious prescientific thinkers were in developing the early cosmological and religious explanations of life on Earth and its relationship with the universe.

It certainly attests to the wonder of human intelligence.

Though some scholars consider Hinduism to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, living religions on earth, its origins dating back to the 2nd millennium BCE or possibly even earlier, I can’t help comparing it to what we refer to in Australia as Aboriginal cosmology.

The Hindu and Aboriginal peoples both strived to develop a comprehensive cultural-religious worldview.

The Hindu version as attested by the Upanishads is obviously more accomplished than that of the Australian Aboriginal tribes whose historically long geographical isolation must necessarily have been a determining factor in the more rudimentary nature of their worldview as attested by The Dreaming.

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Aiden wrote:

"Blind faith is the enemy of reason, but my faith as a Christian is largely based on reason."

Dear Aiden,

My understanding of faith as a Christian requires that one accept that that human virgins have babies, there is a God that is three entities in one and a person goes on living after that person is dead. Since you stated that your faith is largely based on reason the 'largely' allows you to reject those ridiculous beliefs or any other ridiculous beliefs in Christianity. It would seem simpler to ditch all of it.

Instead of living in a story world, why not live in a real world?
A world where there are real objects, and real people.
And being real means these things can be seen and touched.
We can engage with them.

I know the real world can seem harsh, but its harshness obliges us to think and plan.
We can use reason to make it more comfortable and convenient for our use.
We shouldn't wrap it up in tales of fantasy?
We shouldn't see it as something it isn't?

At least not all the time.
The occasional foray in to the realms of make-believe can be good for us.
Reading a book which takes over one's thinking, can certainly give one a welcome break from routine.
Then we can return, refreshed, to normal endeavour.

Firstly, get it quite clear in your mind that religious beliefs are a product of man.
They came about because man needed a 'theory', an explanation, for how life worked.
Theories of all sorts abound in many areas of thought.
These stick around until it is established they are inadequate or unsound.
Then they are modified or ditched, and thinking moves on.

But religion is different.
In some persons it fills an urgent need.
So no matter that it doesn't make sense.
People will still clutch on to it, almost in desperation.
They are that unsure of themselves.

One would hope that by the time they are in advanced years, they would have experienced 'a getting of wisdom'.
In other words, they have found they are able to use reason and logic to plan a rewarding life.
Life is all about survival and reproduction, in a somewhat harsh environment.
Luckily, we can use reason to plan and make changes, to modify it, and make it feel more comfortable.
But first there must be reason.