Man has spent centuries worshiping invisible beings. Various gods and goddesses that were believed to be the cause of rain, tornadoes, fire, and love. In more recent times, many people worship a single god that is believed to be in charge of everything. But is there any kind of evidence to back up this belief? Or is everyone just being blindly screwed out of their money?

Now – there are a lot of things in the world that I do not understand. But in general, the things that I do understand I understand because they are actually part of my reality. I understand money because money is a requirement to buy food. I understand software development, because that’s what I do at work in order to make money. But when it comes to invisible beings and other things that I don’t directly experience, understanding becomes somewhat difficult.

So instead of pointing to such invisible things directly, I point to their effects. For example, I know that wind exists because I can feel its effects on my skin. I can’t see wind directly, but I can see its effects on the waving flag outside. I know that when the flag is waving violently, then it is very windy outside.

Using this same analogy, can we determine if God is real or not? Interesting question. Whenever I think or put my focus on God or divinity, there is a distinct feeling that I get. A feeling of amazement, awe, and gratitude. My experience of life takes on a very distinct quality. A quality that I have yet to replicate with anything else. Can I safely say, then, that my thinking about God creates this effect?

Or, alternatively, can I say that my thinking about God brings more of God into my life, and that these things that I experience are merely an effect of God? Is it that I am somehow getting closer to God?

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Is it possible to tell the difference between the two?

When I think about this topic I am reminded of a passage out of Peaceful Warrior. The conversation is between Dan, and his teacher, nicknamed Socrates. It goes something like this.

Soc: “Dan, where are you?”

Dan: “I’m at a gas station”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is this gas station?”

Dan: “In the city”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is this city?”

Dan: “In our state”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is our state?”

Dan: “It’s part of the U.S.”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is the U.S.?”

Dan: “It’s on the planet Earth”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is Earth?”

Dan: “It’s part of our solar system”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is our Solar System?”

Dan: “It’s part of the milky way galaxy”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is the milky way galaxy?”

Dan: “It’s part of the Universe”

Soc: “And where, Dan, is the universe?”

Dan: “…”

We have a lot of concepts and words with which to describe things. This makes it appear that we’re more intelligent and knowledgeable about things than we actually are. Many people fall to the illusion that they actually do, in fact, know something. When in Reality, they do not.

I’ve encountered a lot of paradoxes on the outer edges of awareness. Concepts that are based upon concepts, which are in turn based upon other concepts. But when you follow any particular concept to its absolute beginning, you get absolute madness. The whole house is built upon nothing.

I think this is one of the reasons that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Smart people learn and play with a lot of advanced concepts. This helps them to ’succeed’ in life. A genius takes these concepts and understand their commonalities. They understand the underlying principles. They understand the meaning.

Past genius, you realize that all of the concepts and things that you think you know actually have nothing behind them to support them. Everything is built around basic assumptions – assumptions that cannot be proven.

For example, prove to me that tomorrow gravity will still exist. Please. Show me a proof that shows that tomorrow gravity will continue to exist. Since all of our current knowledge, theories, and beliefs are all based upon the past, how can we prove that these will be true in the future? How can you truly ‘know’ what the future holds, if it hasn’t yet occurred?

You see, we don’t actually know anything for certain. How can we? What does knowing about something really imply? If I drop a ball I know that it will hit the ground. But what if it didn’t hit the ground? What if the ball floated in mid air, or started floating upwards?

When someone says they know something, what this really means is that they have a strong belief that it’s true. It’s a belief. All of our seeming knowledge, from science, to religion, to relationships, it is all belief systems. Our entire perception of the world is based upon these various belief systems. Belief systems that, interestingly enough, we have completely made up. None of them can be proven in any absolute sense. Tomorrow, physical reality can potentially change to contradict all of the beliefs and knowledge we have about it.

Which naturally leads me to my next idea. What, exactly, is reality? We have a collection of senses. Inputs, if you will. Sight. Hearing. Touch. Taste. Smell. Mental. Everything that we know about reality comes through one of these sensory channels. How do we know that this is, really, reality? How do we know that the real world isn’t actually just another dream world?

The short answer is – once again – we don’t know. There is no way for me to know that what my eyes are telling me is the truth. There is no way for me to know that what my ears are telling me is the truth. I could just be hallucinating, after all. There’s no proof for reality, is there?

When I get like this, other people usually go screaming for the woods. The horror! The horror! No one likes the feeling of not being in control of their lives. They don’t enjoy being faced with their own ignorance. When examining the nature of the human mind, I’m actually surprised that Socrates lived as long as he did. Or Jesus, for that matter, although that was for slightly different reasons.

But our ignorance of reality goes even deeper than not knowing even if our senses are really telling us the truth or not. There is a last, final ignorance, that is heavily defended and protected by us. And for good reason.

How do we know that we even exist? Awareness jumps from stimuli to stimuli, sure. There is a perception of objects, sure. A hearing of words, most certainly. But how, exactly, do we know that we exist? How can we?

Is our very existence not just another belief?

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We are completely and utterly ignorant about our fundamental reality, and I’m the only person who seems to have a problem with this.

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Go figure.