A theological roadmap represents my entire thought process behind my theory of God. This is my ontology. This is how I understand the nature of reality and existence, from my own reality and existence.
I was raised in a protestant Christian home. I want to prequalify a few things, and maybe expose myself a bit here. I went to this church growing up. If you read, the beliefs are quite sparse, and may leave some of you very wary. I want to let you know that this church has PLENTY more rules they are not exposing. There are a large set of bylaws that set up various levels of rules, from elder voting structure, to whether or not women could serve communion, to how to spend money inside versus outside of the building. I will boil it down for you: this was an Arminian church, with highly conservative and fundamentalist tendencies. This caused a lot of issues for me, and I will say right now that I would not attend a church believing as this church does today. I was very involved in this church and believed myself a Christian, but this changed after I entered college.
I went to Cedarville University for college, my parents not understanding the theological differences, and myself just wanting to escape my original life. It was here that I scraped together what I will lay out before you now.
I will likely want to cycle back to real-world topics I have something to say on. I will title these sections and backport new entries if needed. For example, LLMs will by discussed, as I believe they are significant in the story of humanity, regardless of your philisophical persuasion. Besides, I used one to generate the bear images for this site, so you have now definitely been affected by one, it's time to think about them.
I gave you a hint already, I say "I perceive". I go with Descartes here.
"cogito, ergo sum,"
"I think, therefore I am"
At a minimum, I am something and I want to know further what that is. I seem to perceive things, but I am told there are others who cannot assume to have certain senses. On top of that, I am not tetrachromatic so I know I already "cannot see" some colors. Some animals use echolocation, or have the ability to visualize infrared, or can sense EM waves as a geolocator. At any rate, my "am"ness is bound by some set of perceptions. All of these statements about animals are themselves bound by the abilities of perception available to a human. Can we be certain a dog sees no color?
It feels like a "brain in a vat" problem to consider this for too long, so instead I work to assume I "can" perceive reality through my senses in a sensible way. I recognize the senses and perception to be both limited and corruptible, so parity must be gained via introspection, thinking, and communication with other perceiving beings.
Did Descartes choose his wording as a cheeky nod to the name of God? If God is real, then did Descartes have a choice not to make this nod? I like to think it's a joke from on high. A reference to His word in Romans 1, that the thought of any being necessitates the "I am" of Yahweh.
I want to spend a second here due to the emergence of LLMs and the fears surrounding AGI. "Am"ness does not translate to "dignity". For me, "I" think, therefore "I" am. The only actor I can certainly make a statement for is myself. However, I accept extrapolation as an axiom of logic. The AI is thinking, therefore it is. My cat thinks, therefore it is. A rock does not think (as far as I know), but it is. Does an atom think? Maybe. Zoom back a bit again, but to the human cell. The cell is effectively an independent "being". An "am". Does it think? I go through this not to say it is profound, but rather the opposite. "Am"ness is common and prerequisite for conversation. If I were a brain in a vat, I still "am" and must reason with my "am"ness.