One God?
I have posted previously that I believe that we all worship the same God, no matter what religion we practice. I’d like to expand and *hopefully* clarify what I mean by that. I’m not asking you to believe it as well, and I am certainly not saying that I am absolutely right about everything–this is simply what I believe. That’s the funny thing about faith: you can’t prove it. Once it’s proven, it’s not faith anymore.
So anyway, back to the one God thing.
Or, perhaps, I should say “the Divine” instead of God. Using theh term God is loaded with all sorts of Christian assumptions, like the Divine is a male.
So anyway, back to the Divine thing.
It doesn’t make sense to be that there are many Divine Creators who have created the many peoples of the earth. I’m not talking about monotheism versus polytheism. I mean, I don’t think we’ll die some day and there will be a Christian heaven and a Jewish heaven and a Hindu heaven and etc, etc, etc. (I’ll save my discussion about if I think there is a heaven for another day, so bear with me). I think there is one Divine being(s)–one way in which we were created.
So, that means ONE of the world religions is correct and the rest are wrong…right? No. I refuse to believe that as well. Here’s why.
If the Divine created the human race, the Divine would see that diferent cultures in the world evolved differently. If the Divine is all-powerful (which I believe the Divine is), Divine love could be shown to different people in different ways, according to specific needs.
Let me explain farther. For those of you who practice a religion, why do you do it? I mean, beyond the whole “get to heaven thing”. This may not be true of everyone, but most people who practice religion take comfort in the Divine and feel happy celebrating the Divine.
Some people in the world need the fatherly figure to feel that comfort and happiness. Others may only feel comforted and happy when they have eliminated suffering. Still others feel that way by believing in savior figure.
Why can’t the Divine be appearing to peoples of the earth in different ways, according to their needs? If you take a look at the fundamental beliefs of any religion, you can strip away the rosary beads and elephant-headed figures and prayers (all man made things), and find love, comfort, and hope.
So, what I meant when I said I believe in one Divine being worshiped by all the peoples of the world, I meant. The way I find God is through Jesus Christ, and I believe strongly in spreading the word about Jesus so that if it is the right way for you, you can find it. HOWEVER: if the concept of Jesus does not make sense to you, I simply will show you God (the Divine)’s love and wish you well on your spiritual journey.
Does that make me a bad Christian? To some, yes. But to those who would wag their fingers at me, I simply smile–because if I truely am being “bad”, then it is something me and God will confront when I reach the pearly gates. That’s not for you to decide.
That’s my general policy concerning religion: I want to talk to you about it. I want to help you, if I can. I want to give you hope.
But if you have your own way that works for you, that is fine with me. Who am I to judge?
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:13 am
I see what you are saying, but it is not as though only the people of one faith need a savior, and only people of one faith feel happy and such. There are people interspersed through all faiths that need/want different things.
There are people in the Christian church who would probably be more comfortable in another religion due to their beliefs and feelings. Should they convert to the one that suits them? Well they can, but you don’t get more “pick and choose” than that.
Different religions is the most obvious form of “picking and choosing” not only are you disagreeing with some things in your own religion, but you are passing on who idea of other religions in the process of your faith as a whole.
You may feel that simply believing in God for whatever reason that suits your needs is ok, and that all religions are the same in this way, but I do not. The faiths are different, and the beliefs that they entail are different.
If you feel that all of the man-made “things” are to be thrown out, and all that is to be embraced is love and happiness and such, then what is the point? Why are we here if all we should be feeling is love? What is the point of creating humans in the first place? That is a rather large point where religions have different viewpoints, and therefore another case of how the Gods of all religions are different.
Most religions have an underlying theme that connects them in one way or the other, but they are still different, whether via man or not. And because people follow these different religions, their forms of worship and their Gods are different. I believe their is one God as well, and it is not as though I feel that one relgion is right and all the others are completely wrong, but they are certainly not all completely right.
November 4th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
This is an incredible generalization of the writings of Joseph Campbell, in my opinion. He postulated that all the religions of the world, all the rituals and deities, to be “masks� of the same transcendent truth that is “unknowable.�
“Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names.” Campbell tried to summarize the main spiritual threads of the world, in support of his ideas on the “unity of the race of man.â€? He believed all spirituality is searching for the same unknown force from which everything came, in which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return. He referred to this force as the connotation of what he called “metaphors”, the metaphors being the various deities and objects of spirituality in the world.
I agree with David, however that you may strip the trinkets away and still find very different things. It can’t all be reduced to “peace and love.” There are different methods to achieve said “peace and love” and different ideologies that shape those beliefs.
While there may be some common metaphors within religions, casually amalgamizing faith into the worship of one God is a very tricky thing to do…might take years of research to build up that rationalization…not just a quick summative article.
November 6th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Gee, I love philosophy
I believe that is what all religion is; a natural outgrowth of the human mind’s perennial search for meaning, at least since the human brain became capable of abstract thought.
We people have been asking “unknowable” questions for a long, long time, and since they are, by their very nature inscrutable, our “answers” throughout that great march of time, have evolved. (For those who might be offended by use of the word, ” evolved,” and yes, I’m serious, please excuse me. It simply seems the most accurate and succinct. Beware: I’ll be using other “controversial” metaphors in just seconds.)
During that remarkable expanse of time – from a strictly human point of view – today’s sundry religious structures and adherents are embryonic, practically single-cell organisms. It remains to be seen whether they will come to term, miscarry, mutate or be stillborn.
The religious faith and philosophy we know today, according to all known records, i.e., bibles, scrolls, tablets, hieroglyphs and pictographs, only coalesced within at most, the last five to ten thousand years. Various offshoots continue to issue from the human mind.
As we people became more and more adept at “controlling” our environment, our “religions” became less a way of quelling our fears, and more about justifying our existence. “Peace and love,” as a common theme for “God,” – and the story of many modern gods is anything but – is a very recent development, indeed.
It is, however, a perfectly understandable, even commendable progression. Unfortunately, it is still quite common for people and societies to justify much unloving and non-peaceful behavior in the name of “their” God, just as many faiths interpret their tenets in such a way as to keep a portion of the population subservient and disenfranchised.
In any event, peace and love do represent a relatively recent focus of human interest (staying alive took up most of our available time for a dog’s age; caution: do not spell that word backwards ;-)).
The real shame about the God=Love/Peace concept, however, is its concurrence with human beings’ construct of “sin,” “fall from grace,” “imperfection,” etc.
Here we finally begin to “understand” that the essence of God is peace and love (requiring “the devil” or other dark forces to account for the tremendous chaos, pain and abomination all around us), but use that same token to bring us to downtown Perpetual Misery, because we can never fully embody our God here on Earth.
What I do not understand is, what’s wrong with reason?
Like I said, I love philosophy. I really, really do. I enjoy metaphysical pondering as much as anyone I know, including exploring the concept of “God.”
Although the very nature of philosophy (and by default, religion), is the study of the “unknown” or “unknowable,” it nevertheless becomes manifest in the endless variety of Joseph Campbell’s “myths,” common law, politics, cultural identity and societal order.
Whether God intended for us to have free will or not isn’t relevant. Having it, and using it, is.
We can, because it is in our capacity to understand concepts such as “love” and “peace,” act accordingly of our own volition. By imposing an additional construct , which, depending upon the history, culture or location, is often divisive in its application, we regularly defeat our original goal: behaving in a loving and peaceful manner.
Religion then becomes just another wedge, irrespective of its intentions, separating people from each other, and reason from enabling human beings’ journey away from their primitive origins to continue.
Allison, I guess all I’m really trying to say is:
I “THINK” in the long run, the world and all its people would be better served if the word of “love” and “peace” you share were your own love and peace, and not that of a particular, or even diverse, deity.
Personally, I haven’t a clue as to “the nature of God,” but I know peace, and I know love, and certainly wish them, and all good things to be yours.
November 6th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I def agree with sharing our “own” love and peace with the world–I suppose that I simply see myself as a funnel for the love from God. More on this later.