Review your accomplishments.
You are aware that there is a different kind of existence than you know in your current life; your current life exists in a state of duality. The different existence is a state of perfect being, perfect in the sense that decisions are not required as in duality. There is only one experience: perfectness. Therefore, having only one experience, this existence is a singularity.
You use the word ‘god’ which is a metaphor for singularity; saying or thinking god means you are saying or thinking about the meaning or influence of singularity in your life; god is neither the manager nor an emissary – god is a word that identifies the fact that the state of singularity is on your mind. Briefly, your relationship between duality and singularity is to shape your understanding and habitual behavior in a way that improves your experience of singularity – an experience of perfection replacing the turmoil of constant duality.
This is only a starter kit. On a relative religious completeness scale the kit is similar to a flashlight with bad batteries at midnight versus the Sun at Noon.
A few ideological/theological comments to help you start thinking about the role of religion:
The naturalist and empiricist dilemma.
Humans were born into a combative, sinful world AKA born into duality. Humans are cursed to have superior brains capable of making human centric decisions. Therefore humans can violate god’s balanced creation and continually do. God’s balanced reality is constantly unbalanced by disregard for nature and the cosmos. Humans demonstrate their lack of divine morality even among themselves with wars, violent abuse and disregard for the quality of H. sapiens wellbeing.
The ritualist conflict.
Every organized religion has the ritualist conflict. In sum, god handed down rules of obedience, humans are to adhere to these rules and thereby be rescued from duality. The conflict is that to a great degree, it is the same dilemma the naturalists and empiricists have – humans keep changing god’s rules. Disciplining structures are based on negative duality AKA machine rules (machine rules are rules that have ulterior motives not related to god’s perspective on things; rules are more about the wellbeing of the machine).
The spiritualist’s and conspirator’s escape.
Spiritualism and conspiracy theories are pursued because in their hearts these folks know the rest of us don’t know what we’re doing. They avoid dualistic conflict by believing in a back door that looks like reality but is beyond their ability to alter – a kind of faux singularity.
Atheism, humanism, deism and other deniers of god – life without singularity.
Simply put for atheism, no gods exist. Repeat no gods exist. It is difficult, in the whole universe, to adopt an authoritative ethic not subject to human frailty but atheists can live with that. Humanists live by a cocktail of ideologies which include traditional religious practices and verbal commitment to holistic Grace but refuse to conjure dominance over human competence. Pantheists believe god was here for a while but left when creation was complete.
There are other ideologies but these are the most common. Before you move on in the Starter Kit, ponder these to decide what relationship seems to influence you as you put together your theology and how you may accommodate your role between duality and singularity – or not.
Your religious purpose, ethics and social behavior are built on your theology.
Ancient Mariner
I can accept God as a singularity, but I cannot accept that that Singularity is a mindless aimless thing. I have to believe that this Singularity is headed somewhere and we are part of this movement. That being said, I feel it is right for us to respect this Singularity. I feel that I can get in touch with the Singularity through prayer, ritual, and music. Religion without these is, for me, a dry sterile thing.
Robert, you appear already well founded in your faith. That is an advantage over the Starter Kit. You can imagine the mariner trying to put together a skin-and-bones instruction manual on how to reintroduce religious values into one’s daily life. If any premise thwarted your faith or theology, it was not intended. Religion is a very personal construct. The Starter Kit attempts to lay a road to positive ethics that will hold the course in one’s life while oppressed by the negative abuses we experience in the present.
Singularity is an important concept that often is not addressed in traditional afterlife – instead being pushed aside to paint a three dimensional heaven with nothing but reunions. Even this image is accepted if that anticipation represents perfection and is a reward for living a positive life. The bottom line is none of us living folk have experienced singularity as a holistic life experience but as you anticipate, it is a dynamic perfection, not a static one.
Look at singularity as a glorious experience that will be meaningful to you, not a communist ward of blandness. Look at singularity as a state of continuous bliss with duality left behind.
You didn’t thwart my faith or theology, in fact what you’ve been saying is, I think, right on the button. It’s good stuff. Keep it up. Your latest post about love, seems to me, says it all. Love must be the big “antibiotic” for the “germs” (racism, selfishness, bigotry, xenophobia etc., etc.) that infest our current society. But it’s really really hard for me to manifest any love for some of the characters on today’s landscape. I do try, but I constantly fail.
Religion as everything else is tainted.