In the Beginning ….
Human beings created God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of Heaven and Earth. Originally, human acknowledged only one Supreme Deity, who had created the world and governed human affairs. Human yearn toward God by prayer; believing that he is watching over them and will punish wrongdoings.
There had been many theories about the existence and creation of God, and its origins. Yet it seems that creating gods is something that human beings have always done. When one religious idea ceases to work, it is simply replaced by another.
It is a crucial role in our history and one of the greatest human desires of all times to understand and see what people are doing when they begin to worship God, what he meant, and how he was conceived. To do that, we need to trace back to the ancient world where the idea of God gradually emerged about 14,000 years ago.
By nature, human have always wanted to get in touch with the divine power. Then they personalized the unseen forces and made them gods, associated with the universe and the elements but possessing human characteristics, humans were expressing their sense of affinity with the unseen and with the world around them. This sense was the basis to religion and it preceded the desire to explain the origin of the world or to find a basis for ethical behavior.
When people began to devise their myths and worship their gods, they were not seeking a literal explanation for natural phenomena. They seek symbolism and attempt to express their wonders and to link this pervasive mystery with their own lives. These myths were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way. The dramatic and evocative stories devised to explain the natural phenomena helped people to articulate their sense of the powerful but unseen forces that surrounded them. Indeed, human believed that by participating in this divine actions in life, they would be able to share to some degree their greater power and effectiveness. Everything on earth was believed to be a replica of something in the divine world, a perception that informed the mythology, ritual, and social organization of most of the cultures of antiquity and continues to influence more traditional societies in our own day.
An awareness of the mysterious and the invisible one spirit is the very core of religious vision. Human beings are able to conceive and organize religion because of their in-built intelligence. Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation. They had to fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning in life. The problem is human beings will always create a faith that will suit themselves, and to cultivate their sense of the wonder and ineffable significance of life.
Even in religion, one group sets itself above another with its claims of knowing the truth. Religion has often been regarded as exclusive organizations and systems of belief. This clouds our minds and leads to self-pride which prevents us from attaining the state of perfect understanding. It takes a strong sense of self simply to observe the world with insight and precision, without bringing the ego into the picture and claiming ownership of your ideals.
But, there are some for whom the religious option is a way of escaping responsibility. For many others, a slavish interpretation of the rules of their religion is what life is about.
We are far from the serene acceptance of the divine virtues. In the climate of extreme insecurity, political policies derived from the One World Ideology have made a great impact on the world landscape. Wholesale destruction of mankind springs from a hatred that is rooted in buried anxiety and fear. Instead of making God a symbol to challenge our prejudice and allow us to contemplate our own shortcomings, it had been used to endorse narcissistic hatred and make it absolute. As long as the “enemy” stood at the gate, the political masters would rage at his people in God’s name.
It is because religions can stop one from thinking for oneself that they can mislead, turning people into zealous, even into terrorists on occasion such as those actions we have seen or heard of late. Times of violent religious controversy have generally been times of equal violent political faction.
Religious prejudice is so great that some people think it is an honor to be one of God’s poor. Others are dubious of the idea that it’s hard to be rich. At such, these poor had to comfort themselves in the belief that ‘those rich will find nothing but sadness and emptiness at the top’.
One of the reasons why religion seems irrelevant to many today is that these people do not have the sense that they are surrounded by the unseen. Our scientific cultures educate us to focus our attention on the physical and material world in front of us. The consequence is that we have edited out the sense of the spiritual which pervades the lives of people which was an essential component of our human experience of the world.
Human being is a privilege creation. His soul has the divine gift of intellect which makes him kin to God and a partaker in the divine nature. This godly capacity of reason puts him above plants and animals. As body and soul, however, human is a microcosm of the whole universe, containing within itself the basest materials as well as the divine attribute of reason. It is it’s duty to become immortal and divine by purifying it’s intellect. Wisdom was the highest of all human virtues; it was expressed in contemplation of philosophical truth which makes us divine by imitating the activity of God himself. Contemplation will not be achieved by logic alone, but will be a disciplined intuitions resulting in an ecstatic self-transcendence. Very few people are capable of this foresight and intelligence.
Modern life are characterized by depersonalization and exploitation and reducing God to a thing to be manipulated and made use to serve their particular purposes. There is always a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and the faith that enables us to put our trust in them. Salvation could only be gained through purification of the mind and gaining wisdom and not by inculcating blind faith or fear of god and man-created commandments in the name of God.
Human life contained a transcendent element that are essential and they are crucial to the development of men and women as full human beings which help people to rise above themselves. Religion could only offer a second order certainty, that is, an assurance that there is a purpose to our lives. It cannot offer any first order certainty or any prescription of what that purpose should be. The first order of certainty should be our own individual responsibility”.
Properly understood, religious approach offers us ways to get in touch with our true selves, with the good that lies in each of us. Religion is a great aid to self-responsibility and might even be essential. But it is must be the religion without the creeds and without the hierarchies. It is the religion without doubt and uncertainty, and which offers one the strength to persevere, and to find one’s own way in this world.
Spiritual knowledge is awareness of the heart. When our heart is open, we will know things we didn’t understand when our heart was closed. There is an intelligence of the heart, a knowing that comes only when you are capable of profound compassion. Human minds are capable of intellectual thoughts and should not be blinded by emotional fervour and religious ecstasy.
All good things come to those who strive with patience.
Reference materials & Additional Readings:
In Search of Life's Meaning
Karen Armstrong; A History of God; Ballantine Books; 1993
Karen Armstrong; The Batle For God; HarperCollins publishers; 2000
Human beings created God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of Heaven and Earth. Originally, human acknowledged only one Supreme Deity, who had created the world and governed human affairs. Human yearn toward God by prayer; believing that he is watching over them and will punish wrongdoings.
There had been many theories about the existence and creation of God, and its origins. Yet it seems that creating gods is something that human beings have always done. When one religious idea ceases to work, it is simply replaced by another.
It is a crucial role in our history and one of the greatest human desires of all times to understand and see what people are doing when they begin to worship God, what he meant, and how he was conceived. To do that, we need to trace back to the ancient world where the idea of God gradually emerged about 14,000 years ago.
By nature, human have always wanted to get in touch with the divine power. Then they personalized the unseen forces and made them gods, associated with the universe and the elements but possessing human characteristics, humans were expressing their sense of affinity with the unseen and with the world around them. This sense was the basis to religion and it preceded the desire to explain the origin of the world or to find a basis for ethical behavior.
When people began to devise their myths and worship their gods, they were not seeking a literal explanation for natural phenomena. They seek symbolism and attempt to express their wonders and to link this pervasive mystery with their own lives. These myths were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way. The dramatic and evocative stories devised to explain the natural phenomena helped people to articulate their sense of the powerful but unseen forces that surrounded them. Indeed, human believed that by participating in this divine actions in life, they would be able to share to some degree their greater power and effectiveness. Everything on earth was believed to be a replica of something in the divine world, a perception that informed the mythology, ritual, and social organization of most of the cultures of antiquity and continues to influence more traditional societies in our own day.
An awareness of the mysterious and the invisible one spirit is the very core of religious vision. Human beings are able to conceive and organize religion because of their in-built intelligence. Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation. They had to fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning in life. The problem is human beings will always create a faith that will suit themselves, and to cultivate their sense of the wonder and ineffable significance of life.
Even in religion, one group sets itself above another with its claims of knowing the truth. Religion has often been regarded as exclusive organizations and systems of belief. This clouds our minds and leads to self-pride which prevents us from attaining the state of perfect understanding. It takes a strong sense of self simply to observe the world with insight and precision, without bringing the ego into the picture and claiming ownership of your ideals.
But, there are some for whom the religious option is a way of escaping responsibility. For many others, a slavish interpretation of the rules of their religion is what life is about.
We are far from the serene acceptance of the divine virtues. In the climate of extreme insecurity, political policies derived from the One World Ideology have made a great impact on the world landscape. Wholesale destruction of mankind springs from a hatred that is rooted in buried anxiety and fear. Instead of making God a symbol to challenge our prejudice and allow us to contemplate our own shortcomings, it had been used to endorse narcissistic hatred and make it absolute. As long as the “enemy” stood at the gate, the political masters would rage at his people in God’s name.
It is because religions can stop one from thinking for oneself that they can mislead, turning people into zealous, even into terrorists on occasion such as those actions we have seen or heard of late. Times of violent religious controversy have generally been times of equal violent political faction.
Religious prejudice is so great that some people think it is an honor to be one of God’s poor. Others are dubious of the idea that it’s hard to be rich. At such, these poor had to comfort themselves in the belief that ‘those rich will find nothing but sadness and emptiness at the top’.
One of the reasons why religion seems irrelevant to many today is that these people do not have the sense that they are surrounded by the unseen. Our scientific cultures educate us to focus our attention on the physical and material world in front of us. The consequence is that we have edited out the sense of the spiritual which pervades the lives of people which was an essential component of our human experience of the world.
Human being is a privilege creation. His soul has the divine gift of intellect which makes him kin to God and a partaker in the divine nature. This godly capacity of reason puts him above plants and animals. As body and soul, however, human is a microcosm of the whole universe, containing within itself the basest materials as well as the divine attribute of reason. It is it’s duty to become immortal and divine by purifying it’s intellect. Wisdom was the highest of all human virtues; it was expressed in contemplation of philosophical truth which makes us divine by imitating the activity of God himself. Contemplation will not be achieved by logic alone, but will be a disciplined intuitions resulting in an ecstatic self-transcendence. Very few people are capable of this foresight and intelligence.
Modern life are characterized by depersonalization and exploitation and reducing God to a thing to be manipulated and made use to serve their particular purposes. There is always a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and the faith that enables us to put our trust in them. Salvation could only be gained through purification of the mind and gaining wisdom and not by inculcating blind faith or fear of god and man-created commandments in the name of God.
Human life contained a transcendent element that are essential and they are crucial to the development of men and women as full human beings which help people to rise above themselves. Religion could only offer a second order certainty, that is, an assurance that there is a purpose to our lives. It cannot offer any first order certainty or any prescription of what that purpose should be. The first order of certainty should be our own individual responsibility”.
Properly understood, religious approach offers us ways to get in touch with our true selves, with the good that lies in each of us. Religion is a great aid to self-responsibility and might even be essential. But it is must be the religion without the creeds and without the hierarchies. It is the religion without doubt and uncertainty, and which offers one the strength to persevere, and to find one’s own way in this world.
Spiritual knowledge is awareness of the heart. When our heart is open, we will know things we didn’t understand when our heart was closed. There is an intelligence of the heart, a knowing that comes only when you are capable of profound compassion. Human minds are capable of intellectual thoughts and should not be blinded by emotional fervour and religious ecstasy.
All good things come to those who strive with patience.
Reference materials & Additional Readings:
In Search of Life's Meaning
Karen Armstrong; A History of God; Ballantine Books; 1993
Karen Armstrong; The Batle For God; HarperCollins publishers; 2000
5 comments:
True religion is not repressive as life itself is not. In terms of time evolution, mankind had come to the point where it delighted so in distinctions and differences, those even in small geographical areas - multitudinous groups, cults and nationalities were assembled, each proudly asserting its own individuality and worth over others.
In the beginning in those terms, man’s emerging consciousness needed the freedom to disperse itself, to become different, to originate bases for various characteristics and assert individuations.
The word "religion" means "bond" as in "binding with an oath." Religions are mostly static, living in the past, not open to change. I don't think we must forget what happened in the past (those events that actually DID occur), but not to relive them year after year.
I think if we haven't learned anything from the past, we have missed the lesson and may need to repeat it until we get it. But for those who get it - get on with your lives.
Once you had your own experiences with spirit and the Source or achieved realization, then you don't need a religion in order to find It, or please It.
The major religions of the world (not including paganism) began as a way to control the masses and gain power and wealth by instilling fear and low self-esteem, by warping the true messages from the Source by teaching that suffering and self-degradation were sacred and a super highway to the Lord.
Hypocrisy grew in religions to ridiculous proportions, and everyone vied to be God's chosen people.
The Crucifixion story represented, in your terms, now, the self-destructive aspect of the species at the time. And it represents the self-destructive elements of the species in this time for those who still accept it.
Many religions set up their methods and their dogmas, offering the hope of great knowledge, great understanding, and wisdom. There is only one catch: You must die first! Some of the basic tenants of Christianity were good, but for all of that, you still have the story that when you suffer and die you will go to heaven, gain knowledge and beauty and truth, and escape this ‘vale of tears.’
How your religious books might read, if the myth read differently. Supposing the story read thusly: Christ was not crucified at all. He was not persecuted. He was not chased. He was not scourged, and no one gave him vinegar to drink. Instead, they handed him purple robes, set him up in state at Rome, called him the Christ, the Son of God, but said that the kingdom of God is upon the earth, and salvation is now.
What would the priests do? For indeed, knowledge and joy and salvation would be within your grasp. Many religions believe that you must go through trials or walk through fire first. Now, in your terms, that is certainly the most severe trial of all, and a poor way to prove faith. For if you believe in life, you prove your faith by living it. You dare love it. You do not need suffering or trials.
Our particular society has set up such an artificial division between intuitional and intellectual knowledge that only the intellectually apparent is given credence. With all of their dire faults and distortions, religions have at least kept alive the idea of unseen, valid worlds, and given some affirmation to concepts that are literally known by the cells.z
wow mutidimid,
that's great erudition. Thanks for your opinion.
double wow to mutidimid.
wow to maverick to because i just discovered you have more than one blog. how on earth do you find time for all the blogs?
one of karen armstrong's book was banned in our country, right. forgot the name.
the phrase 'in search of life's meaning' sounds familiar to me. i think it is the title of a book by viktor frankl about his life in the nazi concentration camp. i always remember one line he quoted in the book - "for life to have meaning, there must be suffering".
and then we also have people asking if there is a god, why does god allows suffering?
of course this is a different topic from the religion topic, so sound like i'm going OT here.
Thanks Lucia,
Often, you have motivated me to write.
I haven't read about Viktor Frankl; the title In Search of Life's Meaning was my personal journey in life to search the meaning of life for which I was created by the Almighty.
I do have a few blogs and is listed in the sidebar.
Where the hell did I find Time to write??? Reduce social life, reduce teh-tarik, no more entertainment time for self, read a lot, and ponder what I read, then write it .... it is a form of joy and to occupy my time and space in life.
To say that "human beings created God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of Heaven and Earth" seems to be starting things off completely on the wrong foot. What is reasonable to say is that throughout the passage of time, human beings have created various forms of religion in efforts to understand/comprehend the mystery/purpose of human life. You correctly stated that human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation, and as a result, they decided to fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning in life ie various forms of religion. The problem here is that human beings were created ultimately as a vessel not to contain man-made religion, but as a holy vessel to contain the Almighty God Himself.
Human beings were created with three parts: the body, the soul and the spirit. It is not the soul which "has the divine gift of intellect which makes him kin to God and a partaker in the divine nature". It is by Man's spirit alone can he contact and have fellowship with God, ultimately to attain God's eternal will and heart's desire, which is to produce and constitute a corporate expression of Himself by dispensing Himself into our being to make us the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
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