Tag Archives: divinity

A Mission Statement for Seekers Seeking to Grasp Divinity

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Is the following a heretical hypothesis, is it anathema and blasphemy or is it, well, … common sense?

First Postulate: That one single anthropomorphic, omnipotent, eternal, ubiquitous, omniscient and omnibenevolent divinity exists is extremely unlikely given, in mundane terms, the proof of the pudding, i.e., the history of humans on earth. 

Second Postulate:  That multiple non corporeal entities superior to us exist, limited as to when they came to be and that they are neither omnipotent, nor eternal, nor ubiquitous, nor omniscient nor omnibenevolent seems as likely as life existing or having existed outside of the earth, which is not to say that such entities or such life exists.

Third Postulate:  The foregoing is something on which it is worth speculating, on which it is worth reflecting and concepts concerning such “possibility” seem worth putting to the test, even if the principal postulate of the scientific method makes proof the existence of superior non-corporeal beings difficult, but not as impossible as proof of their non-existence.

Fourth Postulate: The Third Postulate almost applies to the much less likely proof of a single anthropomorphic, omnipotent, eternal, ubiquitous, omniscient and omnibenevolent divinity, the difference involving proof of its purported distinctiveness.

A mission statement for a society of seekers sending out an S-O-S to the multiverse?

I wonder how Richard Dawkins, the atheist prince and putative father of memes would react to the foregoing; memes, in a sense, being incorporeal beings possibly meeting quite a few of the requirements set forth above, as may be the case, in the future, with human created artificial intelligence.  As to the Dalia Llama; the Pope or the leaders of the thirty three million bickering variants of Abrahamic creeds (or are those Hindu gods, the one equals thirty three million avatars version), I’m pretty sure I know how they would react, although Pope Francis I might have found it interesting.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Bit of Reciprocity: a sort of prayer

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If he or she or it or even they exist, the divine, they and I are, I think, friends.  Mainly because I dare to interact with them as a sort of equal.  Not in terms of power of course, but in sensitivities and concerns and perceptions, seeing in divinity those same traits, albeit not easily admitted, especially to “believers” who insist that divinity is perfect: eternal, omniscient, ubiquitous, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, when the divine has or have, in all probability (assuming probability is relevant), doubts of his, her, its’ or their own, and perhaps quite a bit of guilt and remorse.

The divine, if the concept exists, desperately need someone with whom to communicate and not in prayer (which probably generates divine migraines) or devotion, but openly and honestly, without fear of being judged, but rather, hoping for empathy, in much the same way as humans should hope to relate with whatever concept of divinity they individually have.

Of course, the likelihood that divinity exists is rather slight but, all the same, even if imagined, it can be comforting. 

Or, terrifying. 

Terrifying if he, she, it or they are really, to any extent, omniscient, ubiquitous, and omnipotent but not omnibenevolent (eternal is irrelevant).  Given the world as it is and as it has seemingly always been, omnibenevolence obviously cannot coexist with the other attributes traditionally associated with divinity by purportedly modern humans.  The ancients, even the purported descendants of Abraham, knew that.  Their divinities were selfish, self-centered, prone to outbursts and as frequently wrong as they were right, regardless of what their sycophants wrote. Which explains why they were terrified of their divinities and sought to appease them, rather than to understand them.  Interestingly, similar fear seems to infest most Abrahamic religions, despite the love on which they are purportedly premised.

But I like my concept much more.  Ours is a hubris free relationship involving imperfect, perhaps insecure divinities that need us as much as we need them.  It is more comforting, more reflective of the best in us as humans (or is it we?).  Thus, I cater to the divine generously, open to whatever they need to get off of their metaphorical shoulders without expecting all that much in return, other than a bit of reciprocity.

Hmm, reciprocity. 

Isn’t that the essence of the so called “Golden Rule”?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Divine Quandaries

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Divinity, at least according to followers of Abrahamic religions, involves five essential attributes: eternal existence, the divinity must have always existed and will always exist; omnipresence, i.e., the divinity must be ubiquitous, concurrently everywhere; omniscience, the divinity must have permanent and eternal knowledge concerning absolutely everything not only with respect to the past and the present, but also the future; omnipotence, the divinity must necessarily be all powerful, capable of anything and everything without reservation; and, the divinity must be omnibenevolent, all good without a trace of evil or negativity.

Other religions, more ancient religions as well as contemporary religions have been more realistic.  Deities, where they existed, were just more powerful than humans albeit not omnipotent, especially when they were plural.  If not ubiquitously omnipresent, they were perhaps not bound by the rules concerning time and space that apply to us and could show up when least expected.  Omniscient?  Not at all, although perhaps they, or some of them, were more cognitively gifted, at least sometimes.  Eternal?  Nope, they somehow came into being, usually sequentially, and in most cases, eventually expired, although the expiration was sometimes temporary.  And omnibenevolent?  Hell no!  They were willful and selfish and prone to emotional outburst.  Hmmm, that all sounds a great deal like the Abrahamic YHWH.

Still, to be fair, omniscience and ubiquitous omnipresence would seem possible if one eliminates time and space, treating them as illusions.  If time did not exist, then eternity would be either irrelevant or merely a natural state.  Perhaps in that context, since nothing would really exist, omnipotence might also be possible although not all that potent. But omnibenevolence is subjective although, in the absence of time and space and anything at all (other than perhaps, a sentient singularity), it might well be either irrelevant or natural, there being no choices to make.  In the foregoing context, an idealized divinity such as that imagined in Abrahamic religions might be possible, but only until time and space arrived, only until decisions became, not only possible, but necessary, even if any such decisions were merely illusions.

So, where does that leave us? 

Perhaps pondering on the nature of quantic phenomena and how they might impact the foregoing.  As I understand it, everything and anything is possible at a quantic level, sort of like the concept of chaos where, rather than consider it a negative, chaos is merely the confluence of every possibility; however, quantic activation would require an observer which would create a sort of bootstrap cosmogony.  Kind of like the ones were it is the worshippers who create the worshipped.

Or would that involve cosmology?

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.