The Existential God

The atheistic existential viewpoint is that faith in God is "bad faith" since we are asserting that our essence is of God and thus our existence is determined on that belief, rather than the existential creed of "existence precedes essence." For Sartre, God is a copout and you will not experience your existential freedom if you latch onto the religious dogma manufactured by others and that has for so long predetermined your choices. Faith for the existentialist is faith in yourself alone and NOT God, since God is an obstacle to freedom ("the opiate of the masses").

The existentialist would argue that your "faith" is indeed NOT yours at all, but a conditioned factor of the social order you have been indoctrinated with (and Freud would agree, although Sartre disagrees with the concept of an 'unconscious,' while Freud claims that even if you were to surrender all your conscious conditioned beliefs you still would never actually access the conditioned beliefs of the unconscious). You have no free-will since essentially you are a 'robotron' following in lock-step the beliefs of your societal-cultural conditioning.

If you are a "Christian," although you may deviate by degrees, you are victim of the indoctrinated teaching of your socio-cultural conditioning. Your choices are NOT your own and neither is your "faith." Although you may revel in your fantasies of free-choice, you are what you were taught to be, based on the choices provided through the cultural-religious dogma and nothing more than that.

The existentialist would ask, do you really have a thought in your head that was NOT GIVEN TO YOU? You have no free-will, only the delusion of freedom is the foundation of your life since fear of the dread of "nothingness" attends you and you avoid it at all costs. What if you were to completely detach from the expected beliefs of your society? Who would you be? What would you do?

To the existentialist this is the dread and angst of the free fall into "nothingness" that you must finally allow yourself in authentically creating your 'essence' from free-will and NOT from conditioned thoughts, beliefs and values. Thus, the existentialist will completely reject all of what the world provides and shape the self free of all belief systems and, in essence, formulate beliefs based on free-will.

Problem is if one is to reject all values of society, choices must be made from what is available and this makes the project of creating an 'essence' very difficult and always highly suspect. Nevertheless, this is what Sartre advocates in his recommendation that you stop playing the role of 'Christian' and 'Jew" and 'Muslim,' etc, etc, (this is similar to Kierkegaard's "Christian in Christendom") and all the other roles you were taught to be and make your essence your own. Otherwise, you are simply a "role" you play in the belief that it is 'real' and this is a very inauthentic way to live, don't ya think?

My point in defining the existential perspective (w/ emphasis of Sartre's gloomy perspective) is that we are inevitably bound by cultural conditioning and culture/society is the origin of all our core beliefs. Core beliefs are the springboard for every thought we think and, although we would like to believe we are free from cultural dictates deeply stored in the subconscious 'container' and that we freely choose who we are, the existentialist claims that this is a fantasy also perpetrated by the culture. Unfortunately we may never be capable of deprogramming from such an all-inclusive indoctrination and this is relative to the culture through which we were, and are, immersed.

Integral Theory is a purely western phenomenon which attempts to provide such an integrative, worldcentric perspective. However, I believe the theorists have not yet plumbed the depths of their own cultural conditioning which has enabled this ideology to develop. The western paradigm seeks to include the eastern, but fails to recognize that it only distorts the core beliefs of the eastern view in making it conform to western ideology, like a square peg forced into a round hole.

I believe Judeo-Christian conditioning will be amenable to integration and this allows the western mind to more effectively apply the integral perspective to the cultural conditioning it has been flooded with since birth. We need to stop chasing eastern paradigms and seek to change the paradigms that make up our own thought patterns. This is because there can never be a worldcentric view free from cultural conditioning that is inclusive of all cultures. However, each culture can more adequately adjust their own paradigm to allow for greater integration within that culture, but NOT outside of it.

The problem I see is that integral has fairly decisively trashed the Judeo-Christian paradigm and is off chasing Chinese dragons. Certainly, the Judeo-Christian view has become distorted through the centuries, so does that mean we simply dump it even though the values and beliefs fill our hearts and minds at both the conscious and unconscious levels?

I think NOT...

BUT ISN'T INTEGRAL THE ABILITY TO SEE BEYOND ONE'S CULTURE?

Is that even possible? The content of mind is based on learned conditioned beliefs and I sense that seeing "beyond" how one was taught to see may be impossible. The very organization of the psyche is theoretically composed of id, ego and superego where the superego is composed of cultural dictates and norms. The ego must moderate between the primitive impulses of the 'id' and the restraints of the superego. The point being that the structure of the superego is deeply embedded within the mind and we are not necessarily conscious of our attachment to culture, but the very structure of the psyche is constructed from it.

However, the need to get to a place where we can see all of it as equally valid with no predominating perspective and possibly no hierarchy of perspectives is entirely desirable.

But so much of Judeo-Christian ideology involves archaic myth like the idea of a savior appearing on earth to take us to heaven

The idea that a savior will arrive on earth, to my mind, is patently absurd and is a distortion of the message that all religions have in common. The "savior" will be a perspective or vision of unity which will override and virtually overcome all perspectives that are NOT inclusive of oneness, wholeness and completion (i.e., 'love'). In other words, the less conditions applied to who is included, as opposed to excluded, will be a revolutionary and highly radical perspective. This seems to be a "practical solution" and I feel that when all minds seek primarily to 'include' rather than to 'exclude' (judgment) we should experience peace on earth, or at least come closer to such an experience.

As pessimistic as I often seem to be, I am actually quite optimistic that we are on that path and even the most restrictive of the Judeo-Christian religions seem to be moving toward progressive inclusion of all perspectives. People seem weary of division and separation and are slowly moving toward embracing a more comprehensive world view without leaving the culture through which they were indoctrinated.

Maybe we need a return to existential ideology based on that 20th century western philosophy. In this way we need to strip away what is inauthentic and inessential to Being. However, the "nothingness" that we finally achieve will be God or closer to God than has ever been experienced before by a large group of minds.