Epitheology

What is Epitheology?

Epitheology is the study of that which is above gods. Entry into this study is accomplished simply by acknowledging that gods are created by humans, and thus humans and their creations are inherently divine. Humans must then exist, in a manner, above the gods they venerate, through the miracle of creation and connection to a higher understanding.

Still, there is strong reason to maintain the existence of deities, gods, saints, devils, and their ilk. Faith compels the strongest movements of all, giving each of us the ability to welcome adversity and suffering with open arms, knowing that our purpose is absolute and meaningful. Because we give our belief and soul to these gods, they inherently exist. Their reality is as equal to us as that of a sunrise or a loved one. In ecstatic symbiosis, the gods we create recreate us, and fashion us into stronger, purer versions of ourselves.

What better way is there, then, to harness the power of faith than to create and venerate your own?

Gods exist within their own infinite dimension, one where our mortal laws can be broken. There, what we consider miracles and perfection are simply the result of any possibility being existent at once. These gods are able to connect to our universe through the holy force of our creation of and dedication to them and are able to perform spectacles our mortal laws cannot explain.

Through the holy force of devotion, we are able to connect to them in return. Focus and commitment will allow you to cross back and forth to a perfect world that may become your sanctum and safety in the face of an unbearable reality. This heavenly world is, like the gods that grant you this enlightenment, created by you. You need only devote to it.

Through these acts of devotion, you will learn what it means to be above gods by creating and benefiting from your own. In many cases, one of your greatest gods will be yourself. Higher than above all else must be the pursuit of individual self. To emulate others is easy, but to know what drives your heart in full honesty is a difficult journey. This journey, however, opens your eyes to the full extent of your divinity by focusing on the interpretation of this universe that only you can have, and the creations that only you can conjure.

Why Does Epitheology Exist?

There isn't much room in this world for those that feel divinity in their spirit and in the world, yet follow no known religion. Many of us have been drawn to, or forced into, established covenants, only to find their doctrine suffocating. It seems, in many cases, that there is little room for acknowledging the beauty of oneself in the context of the vastness of a universe that has granted, despite all odds, the glorious and enigmatic notion of life. You have survived thus fair and maintained this gift. This is nothing to ignore. This is nothing to throw away in favor of yearning for deities that may never know your name as you know theirs.

Epitheology argues that true divinity is human, and no god is greater than another, including that which one creates for oneself. All religions have had human hands bowed over them to whisper them into existence, their interference a beautiful extension, not a muddying of unreal ideals. To have faith is inherently a human act, one that drives us to our greatest selves. Is that not divine?

You are divine, and you have a purpose, even if yet undiscovered. Life and its meaning are simply what you make it. You can make it beautiful. All it takes is practice and dedication.

Faith can be a weighty commitment for many. It is difficult to ask miracles from a universe which rarely allows phenomena such as those that scorn the laws of nature. Decades of prayer may never make the rain fall from the Earth to its sky, but it may almost certainly move you to ascend from the pain of emptiness to the joy of purpose, creation, growth, and peace. That, itself, scorns the laws of nature. For an animal fighting in a callous world, it is godly to be joyous, to shine so brightly in a universe naturally desperate of light. Much like romance and hope, faith is simply the act of committing to that which you love.

It makes sense, then, that you have felt that bright godliness in your heart when you have felt love or elation or peace. You've glimpsed past this universe and into one that allows you to see the glimmer of divinity that surrounds you.

So what is there to do with this knowledge? How does one with the potential for godliness in their soul truly reach enlightenment and find a lifelong bond with that perfect internal universe?

You create your own faith.

The Universes

In order to structure your faith, it will aid you to understand the context in which your faith will be most effective.

We will consider that there are three universes that exist within reach of every person.

The first universe is the particulate universe, that which you could call the objective reality. This universe is composed of particles and wavelengths, governed by absolute rules. Gravity never turns relinquishes its hold, protons are always the quickest of all particles, and upon laws like these, existence arose. We can call this The Incomprehensible, for there are aspects of it we may never understand due to the simple limitations of the human body and soul.

Nevertheless, we are granted sensory organs and complicated synapses that take in the information of the Incomprehensible and strive to make sense of it. We cannot understand it, but we can interpret it. The Interpretation is the second universe; that which is your reality. Everything you know of the world, every meaning you make of it, is part of this interpretation. You may never be able to easily see colors in the UV spectrum, but you can interpret the difference between red and yellow, sitting comfortably in the spectrum we can absorb and understand. This interpretation is necessary and valuable, but it is where the true torment lies.

A tiger does not mourn the deer it consumes, but the human may see sadness in the act. The Incomprehensible is heartless and neutral, and no atrocity serves any purpose but to be the effect of predictable factors. It is the way we see, or interpret, these events, which causes us to suffer. In our eyes, the universe can seem cold and evil, but it simply exists. As do you. Attempting to seek meaning from a soulless universe is futile.

Suffocation

There is, within the restraints of reason, no practical justification to want to die. Yet countless of us suffer from the feeling that we are better off experiencing nothing rather than experiencing the unbearable hurt we shoulder. Where does this pain come from? Often, human constructs and the interpretations that follow.

We suffer hunger because we do not possess symbolic shreds of paper or discs of metal. We are driven away because our hearts do not follow the rules created by other humans. We suffer a callous reality and feel it to be representative of what we deserve.

These pains begin to blot out our passions and desires. Our hope fades until each day becomes a punishment to be endured. We lose ourselves, the things that make us, and the things we live for. This is called suffocation.

This spiritual experience is very close to its physical counterpart. Pain and torment gradually black out every ability to live, until we are left at the bottom of a pit that seems impossible to climb. So many of us resign ourselves to never seeing the sun again, and some of us close our eyes, never to open them.

This pit is as constructed as anything else inside your soul. So you must use your soul to ask for help from your gods, and layer the dirt from them until you can climb over the lip of what was once impossible.

This futility not so hopeless as it sounds. The incomprehensible universe may not have a soul, but something else does.

Perhaps that makes you something that exists above the universe as well. You are a miracle, an act of defiance against a thoughtlessly hostile existence. The act of love and growth in a universe governed by predictable chemical and physical reactions, the act of having a soul that exists above chemistry and physics.

So you must already acknowledge that your spirit exists somewhere other than the incomprehensible or interpreted universes. Where does it reside?

The third universe is the most vast, because it is infinite. It is the infinite in which impossible gods find home, because all ends are possible at all times. Red becomes the same as yellow, every outcome of your future plays out simultaneously in the blink of an eye, a summer day or winter night lasts eternal. Anything is within reach.

This is the internal universe which you feel when you are moved beyond the ability for words. When you witness something that could not have happened, or survived something that should have taken you. When you relearn love, or uncover a lifelong passion. When everything in your life changes, you graze The Infinite. Anything becomes possible. It reasons, then, that the infinite is within reach. You need only unfurl your wings and reach for it.