Symbolatry is a curious term and means the idolization/idealization of words and ideas in contradiction, denial, or rejection of the basic processes of nature. To commit an error of Symbolatry is to empower words with values that occur nowhere in nature, then defend these values as if they were real. While some contend this is especially true of religious terms like ‘god’, ‘heaven’, ’soul’, ‘afterlife’, and ’sin’, the argument should not stop there. All words—including scientific, technical, political, critical, even the words of this web site—are abstract and artificial constructs of the inner mind.Being such, words cannot exist outside this mental abstraction and are not real. All religious doctrines, political ideologies, and scientific theories—because they are word based—are artificial. Reality begins and ends in the absence of language, and anything dependent on words and symbols to make itself known is artificial. Anything that exists only by means of definition is unnatural.
Reality is not something that is quoted, cited, practiced, taught, or discussed. Reality is an unmediated and wordless experience, prior to the invention of language, papyri, scrolls, paper, and books. Reality is what remains when all words have been removed, which makes for a remarkably easy test. If you can experience a thing without first having to refer to words, then it is real; if you cannot, then it is artificial. All language is counterfeit, all writings are fictional.
The Nature of the Game
Someone has drawn a line in the sand. On one side of the line stands a man. On the other side stands a woman. They enter into a discussion, cordially at first, although each thinks the other’s stance to be founded on faulty reasoning and therefore grossly in error. In time their talk warms up and they begin to debate, but this soon degenerates into a heated argument. Eventually they come to blows and without intervention from a third-party might have injured, maimed, even killed one another.
It makes no difference what they were disputing, whether it was Liberalism vs. Conservativism, Theism vs. Atheism, Creationism vs. Darwinism, Christianity vs. Islam, Good vs. Evil, Morality vs. Immorality, Lawfulness vs. Anarchy, and so on. What is important is that line in the sand and who—or what—first drew it, why and when it was drawn, and what it means by intention.
The line itself is an abstraction. It is a man-made symbol that does not exist in nature, a mental construction existing only in the mind. It is completely artificial and the dichotomy or duality it promotes also artificial. The two sides that make up the divided halves of the line are brought into existence only because the line has been endowed with imaginary existence and the purpose of the line is to divide, to generate confrontation and conflict. Both sides of the line hinge upon people accepting this division as real since neither side of the line could exist without it. In other words, if the line were to be swept away the notion of ’sides’ would instantly disappear.
Of course, this begs these questions: Where did the line come from? Who or what empowers it? Why is the line permitted to exist and thrive for all the destruction it causes?
To understand these questions is to awaken to the very nature of the game, because empowering the line and its sides is the game. The line is not real, its two sides are merely imaginary constructs, and the sand simply sand. To argue otherwise is to succumb to unreality, to be flim-flammed and bedazzled by the artifice of words.
Magritte’s text reads: “This is not a pipe.” In the interior world of language
this appears to be wrong, because it looks like a pipe, yet in reality it
is not a pipe, but an image comprised of various shades and colors. If
you’re looking at this online it is not even a painted image but a series
of pixels constructed of digitalized ones and zeros.
Faith and Language
The faith of theists (those who espouse a belief in a personal deity) isn’t about faith in God but faith in a particular set of words and traditions theists use to define, describe, and extol their notion of God. Faith is actually the accepting of a restricted set of supernatural /metaphysical / magical writings to be true despite physical evidence to the contrary. The theists’ issue isn’t about believing in God, it’s about their empowering a narrow compilation of words to exert greater authority over their lives then they themselves allow, by esteeming abstract language in possession of greater ”meaning’” than the meaning impressed by physical existence. Faith is based on a belief in language, because without language the notion of religion is impossible. In other words, would anyone have reason to believe in God or the Soul or Heaven if he-or-she never heard/read of God or the Soul or Heaven? In the absence of language religion disappears, so faith is simply faith in artificial words—nothing more, nothing less. Of course, this is also true of historical writing, political writing, and scientific writing, since all these too are comprised of artificial words. Faith is imagining language to be ‘real’ across the board.
Magritte’s text reads: “This is not an apple.” No matter how realistically
an artist or writer portrays a thing, the thing portrayed is not real. Only the
medium is real: the paint or ink, the canvas or paper, the stone or clay.
The word ‘Art’ is an abbreviation of the word ‘Artificial’.
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