F.: Examples of hypostatization often come from those who have fixated at the third of seven steps to Realization. One illustration of hypostatization can be found in the statement, “I can’t believe that a perfect, loving, all-powerful god that has created humans would put us here and not control us in order to prevent rape and murder and war and torture. It must be the fault of humans who are abusing free will and not the fault of any ineptness on the part of god.” Review the definition: “Hypostatization is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist. It inspires even intelligent persons to consider abstract concepts to be real.” One abstract idea that the speaker above believes to be real is that there exists “a creator-sustainer-destroyer god.” [Actually, that modern version of god came about when Abraham disputed the common belief of his day in multiple gods, including some that created, some that sustained, and some that destroyed. When he began to announce that "there is only one god," those who believed him said "Okay" and then merely rolled all those gods into one, resulting in the schizo god of Abraham that will create you, will sustain you if you have faith, but will destroy you and make you suffer pain and misery for eternity if he chooses.] So is that god in charge of sustaining or in charge of destroying or, dualistically, in charge of both? The speaker's inability to reason also inspires him to believe that an omnipotent god that supposedly has the power to stop rape, murder, war, and torture—but does not do so—is still “perfect”; thus, the speaker finds another object to blame, thereby enabling him to sustain the image he has of his god as being "loving" even as he allows his creations to suffer in spite of the fact that he has to power to stop the suffering...but doesn't. Other concepts include “all-powerful” which evolved into the concept of “Higher Power.” An abstract idea is given human traits and considered to have a real human-like form, right down to its male gender. Where humans have mentally created a god in their image, they claim that a god “created humans” in his image.
Another example of hypostatization can be found in the statement, “I believe that the universe is guiding me in all that I do.” Review the definition: “Hypostatization is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist. It inspires even intelligent person to consider abstract concepts to be real.” The “universe” can refer to “everything that exists.” Does everything that exists care about you? If some care that you live but some could not care less if you die, which determines your fate? The “universe” can also refer to “the sum total of all galaxies, suns, planets, outer space debris, and the mostly empty space in which they move.” Are galaxies and suns and planets and outer space debris and mostly empty space guiding you? How is that happening, exactly? If the galaxies were able to determine what you and all others do, would they? Why would planets and suns and mostly empty space care about you or about others or about anything? Only WHO’s care, and the universe is not a WHO. Of course the comment is usually spoken by those who are actually assuming religious roles but who want to appear to be "so evolved beyond religious people" that they no longer speak of “a male god” but talk in a way that they believe is more cerebral or spiritual. In fact, all WHO’S are false. WHO’s are the imaginary ego-states that are assumed by personas to define who they are. Their personas are the WHO's that have agendas and that care about their imagined desires and imagined fears. [The next time you're upset about something or someone, pause to ask, "WHO really cares about this?" and you'll find which ego-state is experiencing anger over some offense or slight.] Furthermore, a related type of reasoning fallacy, reification, also prevents Realization from happening.
Reification is the treatment of an analytic or abstract relationship as though it were a concrete entity. It is that which inspires persons to believe that an abstraction can actually have concrete or material existence. Some have spoken in this regard of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” whereby the abstract is mistaken for the concrete. Of course, all concepts about “relationships” are false, based in the dualistic notion that there is not One but that there are multiplicities of things and people and that “A” can relate to “B” rather than realizing that there is only “A,” really.
Another example of hypostatization can be found in the statement, “I believe that the universe is guiding me in all that I do.” Review the definition: “Hypostatization is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist. It inspires even intelligent person to consider abstract concepts to be real.” The “universe” can refer to “everything that exists.” Does everything that exists care about you? If some care that you live but some could not care less if you die, which determines your fate? The “universe” can also refer to “the sum total of all galaxies, suns, planets, outer space debris, and the mostly empty space in which they move.” Are galaxies and suns and planets and outer space debris and mostly empty space guiding you? How is that happening, exactly? If the galaxies were able to determine what you and all others do, would they? Why would planets and suns and mostly empty space care about you or about others or about anything? Only WHO’s care, and the universe is not a WHO. Of course the comment is usually spoken by those who are actually assuming religious roles but who want to appear to be "so evolved beyond religious people" that they no longer speak of “a male god” but talk in a way that they believe is more cerebral or spiritual. In fact, all WHO’S are false. WHO’s are the imaginary ego-states that are assumed by personas to define who they are. Their personas are the WHO's that have agendas and that care about their imagined desires and imagined fears. [The next time you're upset about something or someone, pause to ask, "WHO really cares about this?" and you'll find which ego-state is experiencing anger over some offense or slight.] Furthermore, a related type of reasoning fallacy, reification, also prevents Realization from happening.
Reification is the treatment of an analytic or abstract relationship as though it were a concrete entity. It is that which inspires persons to believe that an abstraction can actually have concrete or material existence. Some have spoken in this regard of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” whereby the abstract is mistaken for the concrete. Of course, all concepts about “relationships” are false, based in the dualistic notion that there is not One but that there are multiplicities of things and people and that “A” can relate to “B” rather than realizing that there is only “A,” really.
For example, “I am a husband.” Only in the most recent days of the 14-million-year history of human-like forms did humans dream up the concepts of “marriage,” “wife,” and “husband” (the concept of “marriage” and the accompanying roles having first been mentioned only recently in the annals of “human history”…around 1200 A.D.) In the quote above, see the fallacy of reification as an abstract concept (“husband”) is treated as if it were a concrete entity. The delusion is this: “What I looked at yesterday in the mirror and took to be ‘me’ before my wedding is very different from what I am seeing in the mirror today. Today, when I look in the mirror, what I really see now is...a husband.”
Further examples can be seen in all of the dualistic “relationships” that mark this culture: employee-employee; parent-child; the governors-the governed; the rulers-the ruled, ad infinitum. Are there dualities that you believe to be real? Are there personas that your culture has assigned to you that you have unquestioningly accepted as definitions of who or what you are? Do you speak of external, conceptual, abstract powers or forces as if they are real? Do you still believe in some supernatural entity and, in spite of its contradictory nature, still believe that entity can be real? Do you believe that an authority that would be willing to make you suffer forever is, at the same time, “loving you, unconditionally”? Are you identifying some fallacies in reasoning that have led you to take as fact the nonsense that you've been exposed to in your culture? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
