The Iron Triangle: God, Suffering, and Death

God is a placeholder name for the Great Unknown. Ancient peoples understood that they didn't understand most of life, so they created placeholders for things they didn't know. There was the god of the sun, the god of the moon, the god of rain, etc. Almost immediately after creating gods, they started giving them human characteristics. But I would encourage you to separate the two things. A belief in God is a deeply held belief that there is much in the universe we do not know. There is a kind of humbleness that goes with this that feels awkward to modern man. But our relationship to the unknown forms a critical part of life. We create explanations for those things, either using science or just making stuff up. We share these stories and beliefs. Man's relationship to the unknown begins at birth and is probably his most powerful driving force.

Immediately after birth, our tiny brains realizing there is a vast amount of unknown, we experience suffering. Indeed, suffering remains with us throughout life. Buddhists tell us that suffering is a response to being too attached to things in life. Some people become atheists because they can't understand how a God would allow so much suffering in the world. Some sects view suffering as a part of purification. Some religions tell us that our relationship with God determines in some way our experience of suffering.

Suffering, like God, is an irreconcilable part of life, of existing. (All of these concepts are meta-concepts) So we're stuck with it. Like the Great Unknown, there are folks who try to completely ignore or run away from suffering using things like drugs. Usually these efforts end very badly.

Finally there's death, or the end of our life. Every living being will end at some point. Existentialists tell us that how we deal in the present with our impending death is a critical part of the value of our life, and I agree. Many religions have sprang up to connect God with Death in various fashions.

I believe these three universal concepts, God, Death, and Suffering, will continue to exist long after I am gone. In fact, I believe they exist for all beings, human or not. If 2 billion years in the future aliens in some hive mind finally harness the power of a galaxy, they will still deal with God, Suffering, and Death.

That makes these concepts very cool. We can make several observations. For instance, for most of mankind's history we have been struggling with these concepts. Science attempts to make the unknown less and less. Religion gives us answers about Suffering and Death. Medicine address Suffering and Death. People die for God. People suffer to make other people's deaths easier.

Some folks have tried to completely deny these concepts. Some believe there is no such thing as the unknown in a deep sense: either we know most everything now and/or we will at some point in the future. This is the religion of science. Some folks say we can beat death -- machine intelligence will make our lives effectively last forever. Some think life can exist without any suffering at all.

I don't know, but my guess is that there are deep flaws with these positions. For instance, even a machine intelligence living for a million years could cease to exist as a result of an accident. The idea that death can come for us will never disappear, even if we radically change the 80-year life span. There's a yin and yang part of suffering in life that makes the happy parts mean more because of the sad parts.

But I don't know, I'm not sure.

And I'm happy with that.