Friday, April 05, 2019

Godhood in linear evolutionary time


Why would we want to define God as outside of time, as if there is something wrong with the linear succession of time? It's that same old disparagement of the material world.

The theory of evolution once again upends old religious ideas about time, but need not upend religion. Evolution may repeat itself with variations, but in theological materialism evolution still moves on a linear line from lower to higher forms, usually from the simple to the complex, all the way to ascending levels of Godhood, all the while changing and adapting to the exigencies of natural selection.

Why must "order," which is kind of a religion for conservatives, be thought of as based in a non-material timelessness? Why do we need such a nebulous foundation for order? Why do we have to escape time and the material world? There is nothing evil intrinsically by, of, for, or in itself about material life in real linear time. It's not worth trading time and real material life for the inward experience of the bliss of Godhood, which is in reality a peak material experience developed by ascetics which, contrary to them, is not a spiritual experience.

We are not "bound" by material time which supposedly blocks us from a timeless God, because there is no timelessness, there is only material evolution moving on a more or less linear line all the way to ascending levels of supermaterial Godhood. It is not material time that bounds us, it is our level of intelligence that bounds us, which increases if we can manage to evolve in linear evolutionary time, not outside of time (yes, including the aid of genetic engineering) toward superintelligent Godhood.

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