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Making sense of suffering

Written by Juliet Bennett
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How does one make sense of large scale suffering, like that of global disasters, Auschwitz, or even cyclical poverty? Is that God’s not-so-fine handiwork?

This TED Talk by Rev. Tom Honey, introduces a different idea about God that is well-known in intellectual theological circles, but not so well known outside of this.

Rev. Honey challenges the traditional conception of God as a “male boss”… a “celestial controller, a rule maker, a policeman in the sky who orders everything, and causes everything to happen.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wdkxdiOFJA[/youtube]

Honey poses some interesting questions:

  • Is God “‘The wind and waves obey Him.’ Do they?”  … “Is God in control?” … “if God can or will do these things — intervene to change the flow of events — then surely he could have stopped the tsunami.”???
  • “Does God demand loyalty, like any medieval tyrant?  A God who looks after His own, so that Christians are OK, while everyone else perishes? A cosmic us and them, and a God who is guilty of the worst kind of favoritism?… Such a God would be morally inferior to the highest ideals of humanity.”
  • “But what if God doesn’t act? What if God doesn’t do things at all? What if God is in things? The loving soul of the universe. An in-dwelling compassionate presence, underpinning and sustaining all things. What if God is in things? … In presence and in absence. In simplicity and complexity. In change and development and growth.”
  • “Isn’t it ironic that Christians who claim to believe in an infinite, unknowable being then tie God down in closed systems and rigid doctrines?” Could ‘I don’t know’ “be the most profoundly religious statement of all”?

I think this notion of God is sweet like honey 😉

Peace, ,

What is Fundamentalism?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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The word “Fundamentalism” might make you think of people with unwavering beliefs who refuse to consider alternative views. You could be thinking of people committed to a political ideology on the far left or far right, or maybe a form of religious fundamentalism.

The word is often used interchangeably with “Extremism”, which may make you think of suicide bombers, hate crimes against gays, sexual discrimination against women—anyone who use a “Holy Scripture” to justify violence. Yet you might be interested that its origins were much more specific.

Origins

The term “Fundamentalism” was originally coined in 1920 in reference to a Protestant Christian movement that spread from the United States via a short book entitled The Fundamentals: A testimony to the truth (financed by two Christian laymen to be distributed to ministers and missionaries around the world in 1909).

This series acted as a ‘new statement of the fundamentals of Christianity’ which condemned ‘Darwinism, Higher Criticism, liberal theology, modern philosophy, socialism, materialism, atheism, spiritualism, Romanism, Mormonism, and Christian Science;’ and affirmed ‘the virgin birth, atoning death, bodily resurrection, miracles, and a second coming of Christ, together with Scriptural inerrancy.’[1]

This movement spurred the “Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy”, as Modernism was imagined to be a descent from Christianity to Atheism:

Descent_of_the_Modernists,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922

Why does it continue?

In The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong examines fundamentalism in Christian, Islam and Judaic religions, describing a perceived ‘terror of extinction’, a fear that secularists are trying to wipe them out.

Feeling as though their identity is under attack, fundamentalists have undertaken a campaign to ‘re-sacralize’ society, a cause that has become ‘aggressive and distorted’, initiating a ‘dialectical relationship with an aggressive secularism which showed scant respect for religion and its adherents’. This has essentially trapped secularists and fundamentalists in the ‘escalating spiral of hostility and recrimination’ that is visible today.[2]

Alternatives to Atheism and Fundamentalist Religion

It can often seem like one has a choice to believe in a literal interpretation of a Bible – be it the creation myths or the miracles of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension, or to live in a Godless world. Yet religion and theology is not so black and white. Good and Evil are ideals that are interpreted by different cultures to be discerned in different ways.

Many fundamentalists are not aware that their unchanging truth is in fact a new interpretation of a truth shaped by theological debates and politics over the last two millennia. Most are unaware that their interpretation of the Bible has been distorted by the modern paradigm from which they see it.

Fundamentalists do not realise that by adopting a simplistic literal interpretation, without regard for Jewish midrashim and the role of mythos, prevents an understanding of the “more-than-literal” meaning that embedded in the Bible.

There are many ways that people understand God without believing “He” [sic] is a supernatural God that is separate from the world. Many such understandings fall into the theological category of “Panentheism” (click to learn more about this natural philosophical theology).

Modern fundamentalism

Now the word fundamentalism, rightly or wrongly, is used in a much broader sense. It is easy to observe fundamentalist approaches not only within Christianity, but also within Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and some say even Atheism.

Whether it is called fundamentalism, or something else, it seems that any ideology – political, religious or other – that holds a one-dimensional perspective as absolute, with a refusal to see that an idea or issue looks different from different standpoints, is dangerous.

Does that makes me a fundamentalistic multi-dimensionalist?

References:

[1] Stuart Piggin, Evangelical Christianity in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press
Australia 1996)., pp. 79-80.

[2] Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

(London: HarperCollins, 2000)., pp. 370-371.

Picture:

“The Descent of the Modernists”, by E. J. Pace, first appearing in his book Christian Cartoons, published in 1922.

Source=*File:Descent_of_the_Modernists,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922.jpg Date=2011-07-17 04:3

Academic, Truth,

Panentheism: Reframing the God debate

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Rather than debating “Is there are God?” shouldn’t it first be clarified “what exactly one is referring to by this word “God”? Can Panentheism provide a new slant on the God debate between New Atheists and Fundamentalist Christians?

I am having a mini thesis crisis – overwhelmed by wanting to say too much on too many things, referring to too many theorists, so I thought I’d share part of it with you and see if that helps. Some of the questions I ask myself:

  • Does “God” need to be understood as supernatural king-like deity that is an all-powerful separate being intervening from outside?
  • Must the theory of evolution and the scientific worldview need to bring us to the conclusion that “we are flukes” and life is rather meaningless?
  • Might the worldview of eastern religions, process philosophy, panentheist theology, spiritual ecology etc. more conducive to peace with justice (i.e. a sustainable global social and ecological well-being for humans now and future)?

Given the supernatural understandings of God came from a people who thought earth was flat, and angels carried the sun and moon around the heavens, maybe it’s time to revisit old metaphors, and the worldviews that resulted from their rejection…

Based on a talk by Alan Watts (of course), let me (try to) explain what I’m talking about.

Two worldviews dominate western culture:

1. POTTER & CLAY: Based on the creation story in Genesis: earth is an artifact, created by a separate king-like supernatural God (in yellow), who deems man (who is also separate from nature) its steward, yet dominates over it.

2. MECHANICAL CLOCK: Based on the rejection of the Genesis story: the universe is a machine that started with a Big Bang: life is random, meaningless, a bunch of balls on a billiard table. Yet the assumptions from the first model remain: man stole the king’s crown, but continues to be separate from nature, continuing to dominate, divide and conquer.

Is there another way to tell the story?

3. COSMIC DRAMA: In the “dramatic” model of the universe, life is seen as a game, a dance, a play, with God manifesting Itself in acting different roles. In this sense “you” are God, and everything else. This idea can be seen in Eastern philosophies, in deep ecology, spiritual versions of western religions and process theology or panentheism (all is God).

Panentheism is the idea that everything (pan) is inside (en) a macrocosmic entity some refer to as “God” (theism).

Panentheism is considered by many scholars to be a natural, rational and ecological alternative to the polarized classic theism and atheism.[1]

While the term is not widely recognized, the philosophical ideas proposed by panentheism underlie many religious and scientific understandings of life. It is inherent to most Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, Neopaganism, Indigenous worldviews, and the more liberal Christian, Islam, and Judaic theologies.[2]

The widely quoted Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church define panentheism as:

“The belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him, but (as against Pantheism) that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe.”[3]

Watts says:

“You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate “you” to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real “you” is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For “you” is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.” [1]

For me, positing your “self” as part of a bigger “Self”, as you are a temporal expression of God (as is everyone else), is an exciting story that decreases feelings of separateness and alienation, fear of death and provides an impetus for Care of the Other.

I want to know if using different metaphors and developing process understandings of God might lead to something more meaningful than the frustrating debates like between Dawkins and Cardinal Pell? Clearly these people are speaking different languages!

I want to know if a “dramatic” worldview can affect one’s actions to play a more active role in bringing about a society of peace with justice:

  • Does understanding the “other” as your self—including the planet and other life forms—increase your care for other people and the environment?
  • Does such a narrative increase your sense of purpose, feeling of wholeness, help come to embrace uncertainty and life’s adventure?

I realise panentheism doesn’t immediately bring about peace with justice, i.e. I realize one cannot say “because Japan is Buddhist (which could be seen as panentheism) and because India is Hindu (which could also be seen as panentheism) they are more peaceful and just then western societies” – not at all…. Maybe that’s why I feel lost. Then I add my narrative theory into the mix, and various field texts, and I feel dizzy….

I am pretty sure it is my panentheist/dramatic worldview that inspires such care and purpose in me, but I’m not sure it’s of value to anyone else…

Thoughts?

References:

[1] Eg. Birch, Charles (1999). Biology and the Riddle of Life. Sydney: UNSW Press. Griffin, David Ray (2001). Reenchantment without Supernaturalism : A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, Tucker and Grim. (1994). Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment. New York: Orbis Books.

[2] Cooper mentions the works of Martin Buber (Judaism), Muhammed Iqbal (Islam), Sarvepalli Radhakrishman (Hinduism), Alan Watts and Masao Abe (Zen Buddhism), and Starhawk (Wiccan Neopaganism), among others. For example see: Johnston, Mark (2009). Saving God : Religion after Idolatry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Borg, Marcus J. (2003). The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith. New York: HarperCollins. Smith, Huston (1991). The World’s Religions : Our Great Wisdom Traditions. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco. Rinpoche, Sogyal (1992). The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Sydney: Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd. Stockton, Eugene (1995). The Aboriginal Gift : Spirituality for a Nation. Alexandria, N.S.W.: Millennium Books.

[3] Clayton, Philip and Arthur Peacocke, Eds. (2004). In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Inner sleeve.

[4] Watts The Book : On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are. p. 118.

 

 

Academic, Truth,

Are the laws of science and “God” the same thing?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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”Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist… The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science?” that you could meet, and ask questions.” [1] he [Hawkings] said. ”I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God

This is a quote from Stephen Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design, quoted by Laura Roberts in today’s Sydney Morning Herald in an article entitled “God did not create universe: Hawking.”

While some of the commentary on this newsarticle focused on the lack of newsworthiness of the story (for example, “Shock, horror, leading scientist doesn’t believe in God…really, this non-story is a glib plug for a new book, well done to the publicisit who somehow got this treated as news.”) I still enjoyed the article. And it got me thinking…

I do align God with the laws of science, BUT I’m not so sure that the story begins or ends there…

I think it’s important to recognise the limitations of our knowledge, for example, that we can never know what lies outside the boundaries of our universe. There could be an entire universe of universes we are unaware of. Not to mention the universes within our universe that our senses may not have evolved to sense. Just because we can not see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. I’m thinking of the sounds that bats hear, the electrofields that the platypus beak senses, etc etc. We simply cannot know the things we do not yet have a means to sense.

So, while I know it may well be ridiculously arrogent to think I can criticise someone as smart as Hawkings, I do question his statement “you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions“.

When I think about the aligning of “God” with the laws of the universe and the idea of a “personal God” – I’m not so sure that the two concepts are incompatible.

In my mind, this aparent contradiction seems completely dependant on your language. It depends on your framing. It depends on your understanding of the universe, and of the connection between the macrocosms and microcosms that lay within it.

You can describe the awe-inspiring force of creative expansion of our universe using mathematical formula, chemistry, and universal laws; or, you can take the whole intricate system and personify it as “God”. And these two ways of describing the same thing, in my mind, are not mutually exclusive conceptions.

Just because you choose to personify the universe as “God”, and speak to it and (possibly) hear answers through your intuition and by reading the omens surrounding you… doesn’t mean that you can’t equate this peronified force “God” to the laws of the universe.

You may wonder:  How can anyone feel  comforted by a force that they are pretending to be a person? Why would anyone bother to personify it? And talk to it? How deluded! What a waste of time! …. Well I disagree.

Firstly, I don’t think anyone thinks God is actually a person. Even the most radical religious followers don’ think that – do they? I’m pretty sure that while groups may claim ownership of God, and may ascribe their own versions of historical or non-historical events to this God, I don’t believe any actually claim that God is a person. Religious believers (as far as I’m aware) would agree that the question of exactly WHAT is God, is beyond the limits of our knowledge; just as scientists (as far as I’m aware) would admit there are elements of the universe that they do not and may never come to know or understand.

Secondly, I do actually see some benefits of personifying it and talking to it. Largely due the connection that seems to appear between microcosm and macrocosm, there is a need for us to communicate with the whole that we are a part of.

Let me use an analogy:

When I twisted my ankle earlier this year, and ignored the injury for a week of waterskiing and partying, my brain decided to stop communicating with the spacial sensors located in the ligaments of my ankle. A few weeks later I twisted it again. And then again. And then again. It took a lot of time and money on physiotherapy to help reconnect my brain with my ankle, and even now every now and the communication channels are rusty and I almost go over on it.

So let’s apply this to our place within our universe, well to my limited understanding of my place within our universe…

From what I have learned in various books and lectures, every atom that exists as a vibration – electrons and protons moving at different speeds. Einstein showed us that matter IS energy (times the speed of light, squared)… what does this mean?

The line where our body appears to end and that which we sit on or touch seems to begin, is a boundary we perceive because our senses have evolved for us to see the world in this way. It’s like everything that exists is all part of the same piece of fabric, and the appearance of separateness is like a design weaved within it.

Our thoughts are not separate from this permeating fabric. From what I understand (yes it is probably due to books about The Law of Attraction and thought experiments), when we think the vibrations of our thoughts travel into the universe, and like an ankle talking to a brain, those thoughts play a role in the manifestation of the reality we experience. It seems that if you are “on the same wavelength” as someone else, so to say, if you are tuned in correctly you can pick up those vibrations and hear each other’s thoughts. Or maybe “hear” is not the right word. But you can sense them through an intuitive sense inside you – not in a sound, but in the mind.

Similarly if you “pray” to a God, or to The Universe, these thoughts connect to something that maybe similar to the “brain” of the macrocosm we are inside and generally acting within the laws of science, these thoughts attract your requests, your “prayers” are answered.

Maybe this doesn’t work for everyone, but it in an uncanny way it pretty much always works for me. Whether it’s putting in a request for a sunny winter’s day, or a rockstar carpark, and for much larger requests too. Ask and receive. Knock and the door will be opened.

Does this provide me comfort? Sure it does. It is rather like the analogy Christians give of a father’s loving embrace. When you don’t see yourself as separate from the universe, if there is no “other”, then you don’t fear it.

Does it matter whether or not you personify the macrocosm as “God”? I don’t think so really.

It helps me, but maybe that’s because I was conditioned this way since birth. Maybe it strengthens one’s relationship to the macrocosm, helps you sense vibrations at a different frequency, streamlining the communication channels amd making them more personal, or maybe it doesn’t, I’m not really sure.

I guess it’s not so different to an ankle ankleifying the brain. The ankle could say “Dear Mr Ankle that lives up top, there is a stone to the left that I need you to respond to”… or the ankle could try to communicate more abstractly with the Laws of the Body that it has experienced in the past. Maybe I’m taking my analogy too far…

Anyway, it seems that whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you personify “god” or sciencify “the universe”, in my mind we are all referring to an ecosystem of macrocosms within macrocosms and microcosms within microcosms… we are all part of the repeating patterns that (including ourselves) are all expressions of some an energy that is both nothing and everything at the same time; we are all part of something that we will never fully be able to describe or understand.

Maybe anklifying the brain if you are ankle, or personifying the universe if you are person, is a useful tool for communicating with the whole… or maybe it’s not. What do you think???

– Is the idea of a divine force compatible with spontaneous creation?

– Might “God” refer to a personification of what scientific laws attempt to describe?

– Is it possible (and useful) to communicate with this “personal God”?

Is the question on the Sydney Morning Herald poll too limited? Should there be an option that reads:

“None of the above – spontaneous creation IS a divine force itself, whether or not that divine force extends beyond it.”

That’s the one I’d vote for.

References:

Laura Roberts, Sydney Morning Herald (3 Sept 2010) quoting from Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design – an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times.

Picture:

A Sydney Morning Herald poll – to vote go to this site:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/god-did-not-create-universe-hawking-20100903-14rva.html#comments

Truth, , , ,

Richard Dawkins and WHAT is God?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Interesting interview on SBS with Richard Dawkins last night. Stream it at this address:

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/600352/n/Interview-with-Richard-Dawkins

I left this comment and thought I’d share it with you:

There is a God VS there is no God.. haven’t we forgotten to define WHAT is it we refer to as “GOD”???

I was a fundamentalist Christian for 20 years but now having rejected it I am getting closer to “God”.

In evolution I see “God”. In intuition I hear “God”. God is not a man in the sky (I think even fundamentalists agree with this) “He” is the personification of creative energy behind life. Atheists prefer not to personify it.

Can we please just expose the manipulative dogmas and seek truth?

I would love to hear YOUR thoughts on this stuff…

Below are personal reflections written a couple of years ago when I was searching for answers.

Monotheisms

All monotheistic religions believe there is only one God. One transcendent being that is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and omnipresent (present everywhere.)

God, most of us acknowledge, is of a complexity beyond our mind’s capacity to ever fully understand. “He” or it, is a power beyond words our language offers us, a mystery that will always surround us but which until death we will never fully solve.

God’s name

In Spanish the word for God is Dios. In French it is Dieu. In Greek Theos. In Hebrew, Elohim. In Japanese it is Goezur, in Italian Dio, Malay Alla, Latin Deus, Peruvian Puchecammae, Persian Sire, Russian Bojh, In Syriac, Turkish and Arabic, it is Allah. Just as we say cold, the Spanish sayfrio, and Japanese samui, all refer to the same thing. When Muslims call out to Allah, they are calling out to God, but in their language. If they were to pray in English, they could call Allah God, and if we were to pray in Turkish, we would call God Allah. Different words for God doesn’t mean we pray to different gods.

God is on my side

The words Allah and God cognate two very different images of God in our minds, but why? It is due to the fact that most people in Turkey, Syria and Arabia, have been brought up Muslim, and most people in England, America and Australia, brought up to be Christian, that Allah is thought to be the god of Islam, and God, the god of Christianity. But this is wrong, both words mean God. I’m not saying that the Muslim God and the Christian God are one and the same God. No. They are two different civilizations attempts to know the same mysterious power behind life, of which both there is only one.

Islam and Christianity are based on different interpretations of someone else’s God-inspired teachings. The discrepancy between the two religions comes down to the credibility Mohammed and Jesus, the credibility of the writers who documented their stories, the credibility of their followers that continued to spread their words, and the credibility and accuracy of theologians who have interpreted these narratives into the creeds many people so strongly believe today.

Different interpretations of God’s will for different people at different times has led to each religions’ different beliefs about how to communicate with God, our life’s purpose, ideologies about how society should be run, what constitutes good morals etc, and God’s eternal plan for who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Aren’t these differences simply reflecting different civilizations in different times focusing on this one transcendent power behind our existence: worshiping it, praising it, praying to it, being inspired by it, wanting to please it and gain protection and direction from it? Surely if we can just recognize this common goal, and humbly admit our own nature as fallible humans who cannot fully comprehend this power, we have a stronger base to think through our own conceptions and ideas about God, and learn from each other’s?

Dear Christians

Does it really make sense that your God would only reveal himself to the Israelites, one small group of people who exited Egypt around 3000 years ago? What about all the people that lived before the Israelites? What about the Sumerians and Egyptians, the Indian and Chinese, the Indigenous peoples of Americas and Australia? Does God not care to have a relationship with these people too? Why would he bother creating them then?

Does it make sense that the only way to have a relationship directly with God, is by believing in Jesus? Does it really make sense that God would make the condition of entering a relationship with him be based on accepting a number of statements only available to a small percentage of the population? Is God not powerful enough to forgive without creating aformula of sacrifice and forgiveness? Wouldn’t “he” want to have a relationship with all “his” creations?

When you think of God, what image come to mind? A king? A judge? A man or woman sitting on a throne in a golden castle? This is an image but is this what you really believe God is? Does God experience days, and time? Time on earth only exists because of earth’s rotation around the sun and on its axis, so how is it in heaven? Is there a past, present and future in Heaven? Does God sit on his throne reminiscing the past – those good ol’days when Lucifer was his right-hand angel? Does God think back fondly to the times when his creation was perfect, the times when we were his obedient human creations that had not yet sinned?

Does he think about what went wrong, and wonder how he could have allowed himself to be so betrayed? Does he wish he’d used his omniscience and omnipotence to stop it? If he is omnipotent then can’t he do that now? I know we explain this by saying he wanted it to happen, because he wanted us to have choice, does that mean he is disappointed in our choice? But, can you imagine God of most power, actually feeling disappointed and sad? If you were all powerful, would you really take things so personally? Or would your ego be quite ok without needing other’s praise and acceptance?

What would the point be for God to set up such a grand narrative: throwing Satan out of heaven, planning a battle between good and evil whereby we, his special human creations, must choose which side we want to be on? All this bother when he is already “all-knowing” and knows that in the end he will win – and those that chose good will be saved and live for eternity with him. Why did he do it? Why would he bother? Just so that he could have friends? Weren’t the angels his friends? Is it because he was bored?

I guess eternal life of peace might get boring. In a place free of conflict – a place of pure peace and tranquility where every day you feel safe and happy – I think I too would eventually pick a fight with someone, fire things up, just make life interesting again… Could the narrative of a battle between Satan and God be a mythological representation of this ongoing conflict between yin and yang? Did “God” “create” each of these opposites simply in order to write a more exciting story fo the world? The universe is constructed with protons and electrons, which combine together in different combinations to create different elements which combine to create different forms of matter. + and -. It’s like binary code of a computer 0s and 1s. Necessary opposites. It is the balance of opposites that make up for me the wonder of life.

“God” created this myriad of experiences available to us, so that life can be experienced to the full, in whichever way we want. God is more creative, clever and powerful than we give him credit for. In my mind “He” is not some ego maniac king demanding praise and creating hard-to-belief formulas with the requirement for us to believe it, so that when we die, we can meet him and become his servants in heaven. This image sounds like something people living in these type of conditions on earth would have imagined. Think about it, does it really make sense?

How can we believe God is omnipotent if we believe Satan to be a serious threat to our salvation? How can we believe God is omniscient, knowing already who will be in heaven, yet simultaneously believe we have free choice? The only way this can make sense to me is through the omnipresence of “God” when freed from human-constructed conceptions of “His” form.

How I imagine “God”

If God is present everywhere then isn’t “he” in every cell of our body and every spec of matter in our universe?And hence if we are in God and God is in us, can we not derive that the universe IS God. God may be bigger than the universe too, we can never know what’s outside our universe, but we can know that God is everythingin this universe.

I see “God” in the middle of “His” process of self-creative evolution. We humans might even be God in his most creative and dynamic expression to date. More recent developments in this creation process have led to an individualistic self-awareness, whereby we have developed complex minds that construct and deconstruct the realities around us. This is a magnificent part of God’s creative expression, yet in the process we have taken an interesting turn. We are born into a world that teaches us we are separate: separate from each other, separate from nature, and most important, separate from God. This separateness has led to creation of an ego. Our ego has positives and negatives. It allows a greater breadth of feelings, yet is also the cause of loneliness, fear, and confusion. Through self-analysis we have lost sight of what we are and what is our purpose. Our separateness feels like an eternal separateness, and most of all we fear what will happen when we die.

Our purpose in life, as an expression of God, is to continue our collective godly process of creation. To do this we must reconnect with our true self, this means listening to the voice deep within each of us and taking comfort in the fact that all of us are separate yet one. We are all expressions of God, and together we are God. God is you, me, humanity, all life, and the entire universe and beyond – we are all God.

When we realize this, we will realise that peace is possible. This paradigm shift is consistent with all religions, and sciences. Ultimately we are all matter, and in a reality that mind-body-spirit between man, animal and plant, all connect in ways we do not yet understand. Developments in quantum physics, in discovering your intuition, connect to Buddhism, connect to mysticism, connect to the teachings of Jesus, Mohammad, Abraham, Buddha and all the other spiritual gurus of the past and of today.

If we open our minds to an image of God that is not the symbolic one we have grown up with, if we recognise our interpretations are fallible, if we accept that “God” is an incredible entity of which we are a part of even if “He” is not a person and exists in a form that no words can describe – then I think we can truly discover a relationship with God/Our Universe, that so many wise teachers have described.

If we wish to forego our egos, we can return to the oneness of God – just as Buddhists do when they meditate into blissful enlightenment. But egos are also a source of pleasure and competition which spurs creativity. Maybe egos are also good, as long as it’s kept in perspective of the oneness which we are more deeply a part of. I don’t know – what do you think??? (comments??)

Ego or no ego I believe we are simultaneously God’s creation and God’s creators, and we have a purpose: to create! This means we can transform this world and universe to the one we want it to be. How? Well we can start by reconnecting with each other, increasing awareness of our egos, and designing a vision, a blueprint, of the reality we want to create.

Oh, and if you are interested in the comment from Pat Robertson (a leading evangelical in the US) that said Haiti experienced the quake because of their “pact with the devil”, I found the snippet from his interview on youtube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5nraknWoes[/youtube]

Arghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

And when it comes to Atheists – don’t you think they have a right NOT to personify this power if they don’t want to? What difference should it make to anyone else if some people personify it while others talk about it in the scientific terms they decide to delegate to it? Richard Dawkins may be a little derogatory in his approach but he makes a good point – at least he is going about his pursuit of truth through words not war.

When it comes to the crunch we are all incredibly complex beings inside an incredibly complex universe constructed by an incredibly powerful creative energy – personified as God or described as a series of Supernovas – aren’t we all just using different words and conceptions to describe the same thing?

 

 

Peace, Truth, , ,