God is an evolution of human thought; because of historical developments,God is a social construct of human time. In other words, we have created God into the image of man and woman, and we have defined him so.
By no means do I mean to say that God does not exist. He does. But we have to be wary of how we make him exist. We can create an historical lineage of God connecting Jesus to the house of David. By doing that, we are damaging God and forming merely a human bond in Christianity that Christians desire for historical purposes. The Book of Matthew creates this relationship between Jesus and the various fathers of the Old Testament, even though Judaism bases itself on a matriarchal lineage. You are Jewish—in the orthodox sense—by your mother.
The apostle Paul creates the existence of God in a different route altogether: a mystical vision. Paul, who saw the stoning of Stephen, later rebukes his antithetical views of Christianity when a light from heaven is revealed to him. That mystical experience and not seeing the resurrection of Christ persuades Paul that Christianity is real. Likewise, we can speak about Muhammad's mystical visions, too, as Gabriel speaks directly to him and provides Muhammad with an oral discourse founded on the principles of monotheism.
The above paragraphs demonstrate the historical dimension of religion. First, the book of Matthew clearly argues that Jesus is the son of God merely by historical lineage, yet little do we really know about an exact lineage of a God. And, why create God within a system of birthrite? He is God because his lineage deems it so? Would we make that argument now in the United States? We are a democracy and shun lineages for the most part, even though we have Presidents whose sons also followed in the footsteps. Clearly, if Christ were born into the United States, the Gospel of Matthew might make a different argument for his authenticity; he would need to be endorsed by Oprah.
The idea of a mystical vision is a dangerous one to understand. Christianity and Islam may not have survived without the powerful personalities of Paul and Muhammad. Moreover, the mystical vision gives them a driven purpose for responsibility and success. Yet, what makes their vision any different from the quiet vision of a child, whose purpose may never be known? Or, does the vision itself create the authenticity of purpose and clarity to change reality?
I ask these questions because I, too, have visions, but they are quiet, personal visions that I share with my creator. They do not require death and destruction, as Constantine permitted Christianity to act as the official religion of the Roman Empire. So, visions can lead many people astray, so how do we trust one vision over another? Paul focuses on the vision of Christ as the Roman Catholic Church is established across the empire. Were we wrong to trust Paul? Are we wrong to trust one person's vision for an entire religion, as some do in many religions, including the Mormans and Sikhs?
My point, then, is simple. We do not know God any better than our definitions from centuries and millennium of searching for him. We do not know for sure if he is our father or mother. We do not know if he exists within this universe or beyond the universal laws. If he exists, he seems to be beyond history and mystic revelations--antithetical to them—for many reasons.
1.If he is confined to history, then why do we continue to define him with history? God cannot be a pantheist in an earlier time and then transcendental in a different time within a specific religious practice. These are guesses of people and reacting to God according to these guesses, which become inherently livable, active, and real to the people as traditions are passed from one generation to the next. Therefore, a generational God—the God of the Gospel of Matthew—cannot exist historically. Otherwise, he ends historically until another history overtakes his existence and re-plays the vision in a different context.
2.There are too many religions. Why would God allow this concept, unless human beings have attempted to reveal the idea of God locally instead of universally. The God of Christianity is a Trinity; the God of Judaism is an ethical monotheistic one; and the God of Islam is a distant God. The God of Hinduism looks polytheistic, although many Hindus will state that 333 million Gods ultimately equals one God/Goddess. The God of Buddhism is ignored, although many deities arrive on the scene, particularly in Mahayana Buddhism. Dante established the various levels of heaven in hell in his Italian epic, The Inferno, and levels exist in most religions in one form or another, although none of us have experienced these places, unless reincarnation exists, and in another form, we have identified them before being born only to forget them. Which of these God-views are correct? None of them? All of them? Who knows? Does one believe that God allows us to experience him differently according to cultural context? Either one religion is right or all of them are right or some of them have elements correct? It is a difficult task to define God!
3.If God decides to reveal himself locally to some human beings, why not show himself to everybody? We can argue that he shows himself, but we must constantly reach out for that revelation. Don't we, though? Am I not as spiritual as the pentecostal preachers who hear God's voice in their ears and then say, “God has revealed this or that to me.” King David was a man “after God's own heart,” yet as a King and politician, he sent people into battle to die, lusted after a married woman, and married the woman in the end. No person is perfect, not even Jesus or Muhammad. Nor Paul. Nor the Pope. Nor the Dalai Lama. In fact, Buddha, according to legend, did not want to allow women to first participate in the monkhood; only after his aunt continued to persuade or push the great and enlightened Guatama did he relent and allow his un-enlightened viewpoint change to an enlightened one. Why, then, does God reveal himself to such imperfect people and their viewpoint carries on the great histories of these religions? Why, then, does human record tone down the imperfection of men and woman and create a glorious, idealized viewpoint of human being's interaction with God?
Since people are imperfect and act upon their own behalf most of the time, why should we trust a mystical translation of God? Put ten people in a room, whisper in one person's ear a secret that God revealed, and by the time it gets to the tenth person, that original vision completely changes. Try it in your spare time. We used to do this often as children and change the original words on purpose, just as all humans tend to do when they are acting in their own self interest or an interest in their communities part of the time. If I had a mystical experience, please run the other direction and do not trust it. A mystical vision taps into my own brain and perhaps if I am lucky the area where God resides. Unless God places his entire form upon me as I write out the vision, there are people who will read it with their own interpretation. The vision becomes literal instead of symbolic, and all of a sudden, like the Book of Revelations, people are calculating the exact year Jesus will return to the earth to brutally murder the evil ones who do not believe in his kingdom. Of course, “the brutally murder” concept could be simply a metaphor and not to be taken literally, but people believe the literal over the metaphoric, even when the Bible clearly states that Jesus will return “like a thief in the night,” a simile.
That is all I have today. I have now officially attacked every religion in the world. I expect hate mail, even though I heard that God is Love. I am not trying to be angry toward religion; I am simply trying to understand God in this time period. And, I will not because history gets in the way of a clear photograph of the great being we do not know completely.
--Jinglett
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