A Declaration of War on God — Part I

This is the source material behind spirit in physics and ghost hacker. How I met God, how I doubted, and how I decided to fight. The first of three.

Raised in the Kingdom of God

I was raised in the kingdom of God. As an individual — as “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes, 1637). That was the free will God had given me; it was freedom toward God.

But in Japan, the country where I was born and raised, there was no God. There was no absolute being there. I was bewildered.

I was a Christian, and a Jehovah’s Witness. As you know, that is a slightly unusual kind of Christian. It was started by Russell, a lay Bible student, and hardened into an organization — and given the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” — by Rutherford, a lawyer and later judge; so perhaps it cannot be helped (Penton, 1997). Naturally, I was ostracized and bullied.

Which One Is True

I stood before a simple question. Which one is true?

Across the whole world, those who believe in God are overwhelmingly the majority. But in Japan, God is not an absolute being.

If God truly exists, I will suffer forever in the burning Gehenna. I do not want that. And all of my classmates will suffer forever too.

But if God does not exist, then it is absurd to fear such a thing.

From there I doubted. Does God exist, or not. Everything. Why is one plus one two? Doubt. Doubt everything.

Family, or Society

There was another anguish. Would I choose my family, or would I choose Japanese society?

In Japan, to believe in an absolute God meant being bullied and shut out. But to say God does not exist meant losing my identity as a Christian, losing my family, losing my brothers and sisters.

I did not know which was right. I could choose neither. Family, or society.

So when I turned fifteen, I left home. Carrying the doubt of whether God truly exists, I set out for the place said to hold the oldest church in the world.

In the end, I could believe neither. Neither could be proven certain. So I abandoned my family and I abandoned Japan. To this day, I feel it was a good choice.

The power of existence begins with letting go.

Kunisaki — Land of Syncretism

Kunisaki is a strange land. Centered on Usa Hachiman, it is one of the earliest places where Shinto and Buddhism fused into one — the Rokugō Manzan culture (Teeuwen & Rambelli, 2003).

I cast off the faith of a Christian, my family, and my identity as a Japanese person, and I set out. I decided to live alone. I found my own work and entered university. I began working as an engineer, which had been my hobby.

The Declaration

When I set out, at seventeen, I made up my mind. I declared war on the great God, the absolute God.

“God does not exist,” I shouted, alone in my home.

This was a letter of challenge to God. I accepted the prospect of being cast into the eternally burning hell. And it was a declaration of hostility against those who believe in God — those who live under the protection of Yahweh.

Philosophy Cannot Kill God

The department I entered was, of course, philosophy. I majored in the philosophy of science. I attended university while earning my own living and tuition.

But what I had hoped to find there was not what I had wanted. It was only a debate at the level of metaphysics.

You can tell a believer on the street that “metaphysically, God exists, or does not exist” — and still you cannot kill God. To kill God is to kill faith. Philosophy might kill God within my own mind, but that is not victory over God.

Searching for the Sword — Technology

So I became interested in engineering, in startups.

Linux, GNU, vim, emacs… and then Google, Apple, Facebook. They were using technology to change people’s consciousness, to change the very form of their lives.

With technology and craft, perhaps a new faith — and God — could be killed.

From that feeling, I threw myself into startups. A startup is no easy thing either. I began one with friends from university. The crazier the better. But that story I will set aside for another time.

In Search of the God-Slaying Sword

I was searching for a tool with which to kill God — a god-slaying sword.

Self-organization, complex systems… even wielding science, I could not finish the kill.

So, to understand religion itself, I tried several religions. Religions not aligned with Yahweh, of course — not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam.

And so I turned my eyes to the Shinto and Buddhism native to Japan since ancient times.

The sword was there.

References

Descartes, R. (1637). Discours de la méthode（方法序説）.
Penton, M. J. (1997). Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses (2nd ed.). University of Toronto Press.
Teeuwen, M., & Rambelli, F. (Eds.). (2003). Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm. Routledge.

To be continued — Part II, “I Cannot Die.” Mount Hiei, ayahuasca, and the terror of samsara.