Is there a God? (13)

Practise senseless acts of beauty.

For anyone wondering how Christians can attempt to grapple with the issue, it's worth reading some of the writings of Revd. G. A. Studdert Kennedy MC, who was an Anglican padre on the front line in the First World war and knew horrors more than most. The biography by William Powell is good. For an example of his attitude to certain sorts of glib Christianity, and his attempt to resolve the difficulties in belief in an omnipotent and loving God, have a look at the poem "High and Lifted up" on page 35 of http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/dasc/TUB.HT...

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("Tree" here of course referring to the manner of his execution)

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For a more sophisticated expostion, you could try Jürgen Moltmann's work "The crucified God" (which I haven't read properly myself, but understand to be excellent on the subject).

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/posts/226772/

Edited 9 Oct 09, 3:31 PM by wonderer

If one feels a need to believe in a 'God figure' or the more dodgy option - a man made religion, please don't read further. For In a few small rational steps , if one is intelligent and accepts a logic flow you will be comelled to change your opinion.

Only those with no intellect will be closed to change of opinion, but that is the nature of our society. Few truly debate or look at argument for benefit and change- most will simply argue their existing case and see merit in an inability to question their position based on new data or insight. Before reading on you need to decide which is you.

Few in regigious challenge ( and let us differentiate between religion and spirituality) do other than wed themselves to the blinkers of their childhood programmed and established mantra - usually the mantra of faith in childhood teachings as fact... in short a mantra of received ignorance..

Why would any do that? Unfathomable to me - but I suspect it comes down to fear.

The simple facts that erase the God myth are these, and please enter this with an open mind.

1: We Must all be in accord that since prehistory man has believed in Gods. In time past and including thiusands of small unconnected tribes that past from existance unrecorded - Gods lay in legion.

2: We must also be in accord that most of these pertained to what was once beyond our understanding - the volcanoes that destroyed our crops, the tides that sank our ships, the storms that did both and so forth.

3: We recognise that basically for evything we had no understanding of - we looked to 'supernature' to find comfort - to find an explanation. M

ore so - we found that supernature in the form of Gods and religion offered us a means to influence that which formerly we felt beyond our control... and gave us terror. In supernatural explanation of events later fully resolved by science - we generated a religious faith and belief to offer us a sense of control or comfort.

4: So every God we have ever had has been to fill a hole of scientific undertanding, and with every scientific explanation has with some embrassment been put behind the western world. We n ow think in th west that we are beyond the offerings of sacrifice to a volcano and so mush more wise. We look at primitive tribes who still believe in such things with 'body-shop' respect. Respect? Oh a misprint - I meant misplaced and patronising superiority in place of education.

5: So we have to recognise that the human condition is one that is given to insert supernature - however surreal and fantastic -to plug teh gap of the scientifically unknown.

What is unknown and unexplained to us today. Bugger all. Basically The origin of everything, the concept of infinity, and our own vain fears about death being a simply end ( although when we squish a misquito we tend not to think further of its subsequent passage to a nirvana. We think huimans in some way different - why - maybe because we are humans! Oh the vanity!

6: So we still feel at a loss to even conceive of the origin of everything, infinitity an the fears of death as an absolute end. What do our remaining God myths and religions focus on? The origin of everything, infinitity an the fears of death as an absolute end.

Do the math!

Let us look further...and having found that the Gods are false let us look deeper at 'faith'. What is faith. WHen we look closely we disciover it is for teh most part faioth in maintaining a flawed belief structure indoctrinated into us in childhooo , and like our comfort blanket of that infantile state - we will fight all attempts to remove it - even when shown that it is not a comfort shoeld of great strength but simply a blanket that we were allowed to believe brought us comfort and an ongoing temporal sense of the continuance of the familiar.

Those who might still clammer in support of faith... what is faith? Generally it comes down to believeing what Father McManus says over every synaps of ourt minds telling otherwise.

Consider the immaculate conception. The scriptures do not say Many was a virgin - they simply say that she was a married 'young woman'. 'Young woman' was mistranslated as 'virgin' just that. Shoudl we have faith in a human mistranslation? Should we believe what the scripture actually said ... a Young married woman who gave bith or a married "virgin" ( alrady looking suspect) who then gave birth - what??? Human error. Should we use faith to deny a mistranslation?

Should we accept the fusion of Abrahmic old testament) vengeance religions with that of Christianity wherein Christ the protagonist ended up on a cross precisely for fighting the old testament philosophy?

Don't get me wrong - I am very pro-spiritual, but in thr west we have become blind to the difference between spirituality and theism and what our prophets actually sought and what the antithesis that religions claiming to act in their name then preach.