God Beyond Religion: A Christ, Taoist, Idealist, Panpsychist Ontology

The lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine” is something to consider and even move toward. A siblinghood of humanity that is inclusive and not exclusive. This could be achieved without sacrificing various kinds of spirituality as long as the exclusive nature of them is eliminated. Whether it is religion, philosophy, or national division and divisiveness it is unnecessary with the simple addition of tolerance. Tolerance and acceptance should be at the heart of any ontology. Beating swords into plowshares is a noble goal. It is in this vane that I would suggest the above title. It is not designed to start another divisive religion, but rather to provide a way in which people can honor their traditions, by embracing the best and eliminating the worst of belief systems. Letting go of terms like dogma, orthodox, and heterodox, and further letting go of the ideas that exist behind the terms is the first necessary step.

Still, there is nothing wrong with holding onto spiritual explanations of the nature of reality. For example, the Christ concept is a reasonable one when considering that it is the Christ of the Logos, or in other words, the anointing of creative consciousness. Christ as Richard Rohr has so eloquently stated is not Jesus of Nazareth’s last name. It is important to realize what the terms meant within their original language and too their original audience. Christos was an anointing, a rubbing on of an ointment as done for anointing kings. Logos was a word but in the Greek philosophical sense it was creative consciousness. So, the universal or cosmic Christ is a description of the anointing or the presence of the Logos. Jesus taught that it was the natural state of humanity. While he acknowledged his Christ, he also saw it as being for everyone. He did not think it was unique to him but available to all. This is one of the main themes of John’s gospel.

A concept that fits well with the Christ of the Logos is the Tao. Simply stated, the Tao, pronounced Dao is the creative conscious source of the universe and is similar in nature to the Hermetic concept of “the-all.” It should be noted here that most all civilizations had in one way or another the concept of the universal creative source. Many of the indigenous tribes, especially of the Americas called it the great spirit. While it is easy in retrospect to romanticize the concept of the great spirit. The indigenous tribes certainly had their share of wars, violence, and inhumane practices it is interesting that the concept was essentially similar to the concept of pneuma or qi (chi.) The life force and breath have been ubiquitous in cultures over millennia in describing the prime source of life and energy.

For an ontology to be plausible it needs to have consistency in agreement across multiple areas. It must at the very least take account for previous spiritual traditions and recognize the truth that is embedded with all of them to one degree or the other. It must also take into consideration scientific thought, theories, and established data. However, it is important to be able to recognize that science too has dogma, and dogmatic factions that make it difficult for the non-scientist to easily filter out the dogmatic from the exploratory and theoretical. When one recognizes that within the scientific community, especially within quantum and astro-physics, that there is a wide variety of disagreement. Likewise, when it comes to the nature of consciousness there is equally a wide range of theories. While there is currently an effort to advance those aspects of science, consciousness itself is a difficult topic to study with mathematical precision. Some are trying, especially Dr. Donald Hoffman, but it is in the infancy stage, and most are locked into the dogma of physicalism and believe that consciousness is an evolutionary product of the brain. However, in so doing they simply bypass the hard problem of consciousness.

This in my view devalues the purview of logic and epistemology. There are things that can be knowable that are not mathematically provable or modeled. It is especially in this area that panpsychist idealism offers a more plausible explanation of reality than the materialist, physicalist explanation that stops short of explaining the why of existence. In a nutshell, the Panpsychism Idealist view sees consciousness as the foundational basis for reality. It is not completely out of the question given the nature of the quantum field of waves that collapse into particles based on observation.

Further, it explains the many paranormal and supernatural occurrences that are common over millennia that have been reported ubiquitously across cultures, eras, and among a plethora of reliable people. If you name the anomaly, Panpsychist Idealism explains it.