Ascendency

“Inception, is it possible?”
“Of course not!”
“If you can steal an idea from someone’s mind, why can’t you plant one there instead?”
− Taken from the film Inception

Whether it is religion, philosophy or literature, ideas are a conscious, intangible, immaterial property. It was Karl Marx who famously said of religion that it was: “the opium of the masses”. Ideas are infectious, contagious, sometimes dangerous and sometimes life affirming and enriching; just as in the film Inception itself. From one generation to the next ideas transcend this material cosmos. Take, for example, Hinduism one of the oldest religions in the world – it is over 4 thousand years old; or the monotheism of Judaism, which again can trace its origin back thousands of years well before the Common Era. As one century passes into another, as one generation grows and passes on its tradition to the next ideas have moulded, shaped and sculpted the course of human history; and have given rise to a myriad of emotional, spiritual and intellectual expression though art, architecture, music, poetry and literature.

Many philosophers over the centuries such as Anselm, Thomas Aquinas and Descartes have put forward a very straight forward and intuitive argument commonly known as the Ontological Argument which deduces the existence of God from reason: 1. We can imagine a supremely perfect being 2. Necessary existence is perfection 3. Therefore, a supremely perfect being exists. This may at first seem like a very weak argument for the existence of God, but if there is such a thing as a non-material entity behind the creation of the universe it is not totally inconceivable due to the fact that we are all conscious beings who are able to create out of our consciousness. If we can design, build, manufacture and create using our imaginations and our conscious thoughts then surely this is proof that such consciousness exists. No-one doubts human consciousness, we see manifestations of it every day and everywhere. We have formed language to communicate our internal, conscious thoughts.

Individually our consciousness ceases to exist with the death of our material bodies in this reality. Yet our ideas can live on, well beyond our years. The arguments about the existence, nature and properties of God first put forward by the ancient Greek philosophers are still debated today among theists and atheists; the rights to Liberty, Fraternity and Equality first devised in France inspired the formalisation of the American constitution after their successful war of independence against Britain and led to the French Revolution that in itself inspired many other lesser revolutions. These rights have become the bedrock; the foundation to such international political bodies such as the European Union and the UN and continue to be manifested through the human rights each citizen of Britain enjoys. Certain ideas or ideals of how to achieve the perfect, peaceful human society are far reaching and profound. It is beyond question that ideas have a kind of transcendent quality to them that has allowed for the progression and advancement in human society.

Therefore I postulate (though this is not an original argument) that our very consciousness is proof that such immaterial properties exist and can have a physical impact upon our planet in space and time. I believe this has massive implications for the belief in the existence of God. The Bible teaches that God is Spirit. God by nature is not a physical being who is dependent on our material universe for His existence; otherwise by virtue of the very nature of the universe God would not be eternal and could not have created the universe. So God must transcend the material cosmos and therefore must be necessarily immaterial or to use biblical language ‘Spirit’. So immaterial properties do exist (i.e. our consciousness) and therefore from personal experience through the interaction with the manifestations of our collective consciences that have shaped whole civilizations both ancient and modern we can reasonably and rationally conclude that a Supreme Conscious or Mind does exist, which originally created the universe.