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I originally wrote this small article in French. I'm trying to improve my english, especially my vocabulary and syntax. If you see any mistakes, please correct them.
Original French text in spoilers:
+ Show Spoiler +L'absolu nécessaire et inexistant
Il est une chose commune à toute religion, à toute croyance en un monde ou un être supérieur. Le désir, le besoin d'ailleurs qui ressemble à une blessure qui ne se serait jamais refermée. Et c'est ainsi que nous l'interprètons: pour nous blesser, il y eut une chute, un accident, un évènement tragique dans le parcours de l'humanité qui nous a enlevé cette perfection que nous recherchons tant.
Remémorons-nous des pensées pascaliennes et de cette obsession qui jamais ne nous a quittés. Ainsi donc, nous serions un malheureux peuple errant depuis cette perte originelle, la perte de notre perfection et de la vérité absolue. Ainsi donc, nous avons été chassés d'un paradis qui était autrefois notre foyer, et cette chute nous a brisés, nous laissant là, agonisants et imparfaits; l'homme pourrait, l'homme devrait, l'homme a été meilleur qu'il ne l'est maintenant.
Voilà la clé de la spiritualité humaine. Considérant notre malheur, notre souffrance et notre incompréhension face au monde, nous avons trouvé un baume abstrait qui allège notre coeur: le passé.
N'est-il pas doux de se souvenir d'un temps révolu et idéalisé par les années? N'est-il pas réconfortant de voir dans notre laideur non pas une fatalité immuable, mais les cicatrices qui dissimulent un passé glorieux et conforme à nos souhaits?
Ne nous trompons pas, il ne s'agit pas d'un passé fictif et encore moins de nostalgie. Il nous manque quelque chose, c'est vrai; n'est-il pas horrible d'être confronté à un manque qui n'est non pas une perte, mais un défaut? Car quelque chose qui devrait être en nous n'y est pas. L'homme a toujours eu l'idée de l'absolu, que ce soit une vérité, une connaissance, voire une forme d'existence.
Aux athées, les croyants ont parfois rétorqué: mais comment Dieu ne pourrait-il n'être qu'un pure et simple invention, puisque nous n'inventons jamais rien? L'impression de nouveauté est après tout un leurre puisque tout n'est qu'évolution, et cette question pose en réalité un problème plus profond: quel est ce trou qu'il nous faut combler?
Qu'est-ce que la spiritualité? Il me semble que c'est bien la seule chose que l'homme ait pu inventer. Mais s'agit-il au moins d'une invention?
"There is something that is common to every religion, every belief in a superior world or being. The desire, the need of "something else" looks like a wound that has never been healed. And this is how we interpret it: to hurt us, there had to be some sort of fall, an accident, a tragic event in the path of mankind that took the perfection we sought after with so much efforts away.
Let us remember the pascalian thoughts and that obsession that never left us. So we are a miserable people who has been wandering ever since that original loss, the loss of our perfection and absolute truth. So then, we have been chased away from a paradise which we called once home, and our fall shattered our being, leaving us agonizing and imperfect; "man could, man should, man has been better than he is now".
There lies the key of human spirituality. Seeing our misery, our pain and our incomprehension of the world, we found an abstract cure to lighten our hearts: the past.
Isn't it heartwarming to remember a lost time idealized by the passing years? Isn't it comforting to see in our ugliness the scars that hide a glorious past that fits our wishes, instead of a neverchanging fate?
Let us not be mistaken, it's not a fictional past nor is it nostalgia. Something is missing, it's true; isn't it horrible to be confronted to a craving that does not originate in a loss, but in our imperfection? Because something that we should have within us is not there. Man has always had the idea of absolute in mind, whether it's truth, knowledge or even a form of existance.
To atheists, believers sometimes answered: but how could God be a pure and simple invention, since we never invent anything? The impression of novelty is after all an illusion since everything is nothing but an evolution, and this question actually speaks of a deeper problem: what is this hole we need to fill up?
What is spirituality? It seems to me that it's the only thing man could've really made up. Or was it?"
In case my mistakes or my difficulties to express myself in english get in the way of your understanding, here is a short, synthetic approach: I'm simply wondering about the nature of spirituality, its roots, and its latest avatars. To me, spiritualty often creates an imaginary past to explain the fact that we can express the idea of perfection, without having actually witnessed the phenomenon itself. If we have never seen perfection, where does this idea come from?
 
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On October 21 2011 03:35 Kukaracha wrote:
To atheists, believers sometimes answered: but how could God be a pure and simple invention, since we never invent anything? The impression of novelty is after all an illusion since everything is nothing but an evolution, and this question actually speaks of a deeper problem: what is this hole we need to fill up?
What is spirituality? It seems to me that it's the only thing man could've really made up. Or was it?"
I don't quite understand this passage. Why can't humans invent anything new? New Ideas aren't always an evolution of an old thought.
On the last question, I think imagining something perfect isn't actually possible. We just say that something is perfect but let's be honest. Everything you think of could probably be improved in some way. What does it even mean to be perfect, be without flaw? I could imagine getting a perfect score on a test, but that's about it. What's the perfect women, meal, song, book, game etc.?
The idea of perfection probably stems from the fact that we often think of the world in opposites like good and bad, black and white. So if there is something which can be improved there should be something which can't be improved, something perfect.
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Canada33091 Posts
On October 21 2011 04:15 surfinbird1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 03:35 Kukaracha wrote:
To atheists, believers sometimes answered: but how could God be a pure and simple invention, since we never invent anything? The impression of novelty is after all an illusion since everything is nothing but an evolution, and this question actually speaks of a deeper problem: what is this hole we need to fill up?
What is spirituality? It seems to me that it's the only thing man could've really made up. Or was it?"
I don't quite understand this passage. Why can't humans invent anything new? New Ideas aren't always an evolution of an old thought. On the last question, I think imagining something perfect isn't actually possible. We just say that something is perfect but let's be honest. Everything you think of could probably be improved in some way. What does it even mean to be perfect, be without flaw? I could imagine getting a perfect score on a test, but that's about it. What's the perfect women, meal, song, book, game etc.? The idea of perfection probably stems from the fact that we often think of the world in opposites like good and bad, black and white. So if there is something which can be improved there should be something which can't be improved, something perfect.
I'll have to disagree with your view on "perfection," to some degree. It seems to me that we CAN have flawless ideas and we CAN have flawless thoughts and postulates (IE, look at mathematical arguments), however I'll agree that anything perfect or without flaws does fall heavily when we try to make it real, since every government has risen and fallen, since every idea has been under scrutiny, and since many laws of nature written by men have been undone.
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Well mathematical arguments aren't necessarily flawless considering they are built on axioms 
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On October 21 2011 04:31 IntoTheheart wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:15 surfinbird1 wrote:On October 21 2011 03:35 Kukaracha wrote:
To atheists, believers sometimes answered: but how could God be a pure and simple invention, since we never invent anything? The impression of novelty is after all an illusion since everything is nothing but an evolution, and this question actually speaks of a deeper problem: what is this hole we need to fill up?
What is spirituality? It seems to me that it's the only thing man could've really made up. Or was it?"
I don't quite understand this passage. Why can't humans invent anything new? New Ideas aren't always an evolution of an old thought. On the last question, I think imagining something perfect isn't actually possible. We just say that something is perfect but let's be honest. Everything you think of could probably be improved in some way. What does it even mean to be perfect, be without flaw? I could imagine getting a perfect score on a test, but that's about it. What's the perfect women, meal, song, book, game etc.? The idea of perfection probably stems from the fact that we often think of the world in opposites like good and bad, black and white. So if there is something which can be improved there should be something which can't be improved, something perfect. I'll have to disagree with your view on "perfection," to some degree. It seems to me that we CAN have flawless ideas and we CAN have flawless thoughts and postulates (IE, look at mathematical arguments), however I'll agree that anything perfect or without flaws does fall heavily when we try to make it real, since every government has risen and fallen, since every idea has been under scrutiny, and since many laws of nature written by men have been undone.
What bothers me about this is that I can't come up with anything perfect on my own. Everything I (myself) can imagine is somehow flawed. Can you name something perfect? Or do you mean perfect only as a concept without concrete realizations like the idea of freedom/love is perfect (or soemthing to that nature)?
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On October 21 2011 04:57 surfinbird1 wrote:
What bothers me about this is that I can't come up with anything perfect on my own. Everything I (myself) can imagine is somehow flawed. Can you name something perfect? Or do you mean perfect only as a concept without concrete realizations like the idea of freedom/love is perfect (or soemthing to that nature)?
Perfection lies in the eyes of the beholder
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Canada33091 Posts
On October 21 2011 04:44 Cruncharoo wrote:Well mathematical arguments aren't necessarily flawless considering they are built on axioms
Definitely true, however the process of logic is distanced away from the thinker. Sure different mathematicians have made mistakes in their axioms, but this abstract idea of math can be argued (at least in my case) to be perfect.
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Canada33091 Posts
On October 21 2011 04:57 surfinbird1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:31 IntoTheheart wrote:On October 21 2011 04:15 surfinbird1 wrote:On October 21 2011 03:35 Kukaracha wrote:
To atheists, believers sometimes answered: but how could God be a pure and simple invention, since we never invent anything? The impression of novelty is after all an illusion since everything is nothing but an evolution, and this question actually speaks of a deeper problem: what is this hole we need to fill up?
What is spirituality? It seems to me that it's the only thing man could've really made up. Or was it?"
I don't quite understand this passage. Why can't humans invent anything new? New Ideas aren't always an evolution of an old thought. On the last question, I think imagining something perfect isn't actually possible. We just say that something is perfect but let's be honest. Everything you think of could probably be improved in some way. What does it even mean to be perfect, be without flaw? I could imagine getting a perfect score on a test, but that's about it. What's the perfect women, meal, song, book, game etc.? The idea of perfection probably stems from the fact that we often think of the world in opposites like good and bad, black and white. So if there is something which can be improved there should be something which can't be improved, something perfect. I'll have to disagree with your view on "perfection," to some degree. It seems to me that we CAN have flawless ideas and we CAN have flawless thoughts and postulates (IE, look at mathematical arguments), however I'll agree that anything perfect or without flaws does fall heavily when we try to make it real, since every government has risen and fallen, since every idea has been under scrutiny, and since many laws of nature written by men have been undone. What bothers me about this is that I can't come up with anything perfect on my own. Everything I (myself) can imagine is somehow flawed. Can you name something perfect? Or do you mean perfect only as a concept without concrete realizations like the idea of freedom/love is perfect (or soemthing to that nature)?
The latter. That's why I said that there can be perfect concepts and that everything we've done has some flaws.
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On October 21 2011 05:38 IntoTheheart wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:44 Cruncharoo wrote:Well mathematical arguments aren't necessarily flawless considering they are built on axioms Definitely true, however the process of logic is distanced away from the thinker. Sure different mathematicians have made mistakes in their axioms, but this abstract idea of math can be argued (at least in my case) to be perfect.
I don't understand how something that is built on an axiom can be described as perfect. Sure, everything works 'perfectly' but that is only because there are conditions that we must ASSUME to be true.
That's saying
Assume for this proof that I am a god
Proof:
I am me implies I am a god
QED
Of course all the things we prove will be true but we cannot (or have not yet) proven the assumptions that we use to make these proofs.
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On October 21 2011 04:15 surfinbird1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 03:35 Kukaracha wrote:
To atheists, believers sometimes answered: but how could God be a pure and simple invention, since we never invent anything? The impression of novelty is after all an illusion since everything is nothing but an evolution, and this question actually speaks of a deeper problem: what is this hole we need to fill up?
What is spirituality? It seems to me that it's the only thing man could've really made up. Or was it?"
I don't quite understand this passage. Why can't humans invent anything new? New Ideas aren't always an evolution of an old thought. On the last question, I think imagining something perfect isn't actually possible. We just say that something is perfect but let's be honest. Everything you think of could probably be improved in some way. What does it even mean to be perfect, be without flaw? I could imagine getting a perfect score on a test, but that's about it. What's the perfect women, meal, song, book, game etc.? The idea of perfection probably stems from the fact that we often think of the world in opposites like good and bad, black and white. So if there is something which can be improved there should be something which can't be improved, something perfect.
Well, what have we truly invented? Every idea comes from another one.
And as said before, concepts are defined through a set of commonly accepted axioms. No concept is perfect!
Is the common conclusion that we simply have the idea of perfection... by contrast to the imperfection of all things? But then, how come we qualify the world as "imperfect" if there is no true contrary? It has to be imperfect in comparison to something, no?
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EPT
