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Posted June 4, 2011 by John Chuchman in Beyond Religion
(inspired by a day with Bishop Spong in Tempe, Arizona)
What does the idea God mean to me?
Is God beyond religion?
Have I created God
in my own image?
A theistic God
is one that answers my prayers,
fills my needs.
It is a god
that athletes use to succeed,
that politicians use to sanction their actions.
How do I escape
the boundaries of religion,
to get a sense of True God?
If my prayers are not answered,
if my needs are not met,
Is my god
immoral?
impotent?
uncaring?
How do I find a way to move beyond
my human view of God,
beyond Theism?
In the 3.8 billion years of life on earth,
my family of humans appeared
only 250,000 years ago
(though human-like creatures roamed the earth
beginning 4 million years ago)
The gift/burden we’ve been given is
self-consciousness.
No creatures before us
were ever-self conscious.
None had an idea of the past;
None had thoughts of the future;
None asked about their purpose in life.
No creatures before us
thought about their death.
All simply lived as part of creation,
connected to all.
None felt alone
or separate from or unique in
Creation.
None experienced the anxiety of self-consciousness,
the anxiety of living
and knowing I am going to die.
None wondered as I do,
Why I’m here.
I, as all humans,
live in the trauma of self-consciousness
and that takes
Courage.
Have I used religion to Cope
with this anxiety?
Religion seems a coping mechanism for us humans
with self-consciousness.
Has my religion enabled me to cope
with the human anxiety of knowing I am to die?
Has religion helped me find purpose in life
beyond myself?
Human beings throughout our history
seemed to have created religion(s)
to serve our needs,
to help us cope.
Religion seems to be a human creation
to manipulate God.
We’ve used ancient ideas of a Spirit World
just beyond us,
gods and goddesses of fertility
as well as male gods who would
judge and defeat our enemies
while protecting us.
The gods we’ve created to serve our needs
generally have been viewed as
External,
Invisible,
Available,
All-powerful,
Needy of our praise,
Needing to be pleased,
Helpful.
The gods we have created are
Everywhere (omnipresent,)
All-powerful (omnipotent,)
All-knowing (omniscient,)
Eternal (infinite,)
All we are NOT.
They help us to Cope!
God gives us purpose
helps ease our anxiety.
I have grown up with a God
(as has much of humanity)
that needed to be PROPERLY worshiped,
and that needed for me
to fulfill God’s Will for me
(purpose.)
I have grown up
(as has much of humanity)
trying to win God’s approval by flattery,
putting myself down as a wretched sinner,
and following what I thought was
God’s Will for me.
The God of my creation,
the God of human creation,
the God of mankind’s religions
is
a Consciousness SEPARATE from me.
I think it’s time I grow up.
I don’t need to be born again,
I need to
Mature.
The security found in religious fundamentalism
is an escape from reality.
I need to mature in it, not escape from it.
I am a part of God
and always have been.
I am a part of a God of Universal Consciousness,
part of One single Unfolding Whole.
A touch of the Divine is in me.
I do not have a relationship with God,
I AM a relationship OF God.
God is the source of all life
flowing through the universe
of which I am a part.
A religion must allow that Divinity within me
to grow.
I sense
that worshiping God entails
Living Life Fully Awake, Aware, Alive,
in the Precious Present Moment,
by Loving All Constantly,
and by striving to be
Who God Created Me to Be.
There seems to be many pathways
to God,
with mine being the Experiences
of my own life.
The Divine Call
seems not to make me religious,
but instead,
to help me be Fully Human.
I cannot glorify God
by denigrating myself, my humanity.
I am not wretched;
I am a beautiful Creation of God.
I do not want a religion
that removes the anxiety of self-consciousness
which is reality.
I want a religion that gives me the Courage
to embrace reality.
Each religion seems like a well
seeking the Living Waters of the Divine.
Each is different,
but if they go deep enough,
they tap into the same Universal Source
Water of Life.
So how does my idea of Jesus
fit into this non-theistic view
of the Divine?
Jesus seemed to worship God
by being fully aware, awake, alive in the present moment,
by loving all constantly,
(even those nailing him to the cross)
and by having the courage to be
Who He was created to be.
I know we really cannot talk about God adequately.
God defies human description.
We can only really talk about
Our Experiences of God.
Our experiences in life live on,
but our perceptions and explanations of life’s experiences
can change.
An epileptic seizure was explained Biblically
in a way far different than it is today.
The New Testament
is not one book;
It is 27 different books
written during the period from 50 to 135 AD,
at least 21 years after Jesus’ death.
They were not all written at the same time.
Paul’s was the first, written around the years 51-64 AD.
He said, God was in Christ.
(Explanations of that abound.)
Paul said God is in Christ at Resurrection.
Mark’s book (70-72 AD)
describes God descending on Jesus
at his Baptism in the Jordan.
Jesus Humanity was not Compromised.
It was an ecstatic experience.
Mark knew nothing of a Virgin Birth.
(Jesus’ mother and her 4 sons and 2 daughters
thought Jesus was out of his mind.)
Mark writes of a risen Jesus
appearing to no one.
Jesus was raised into a Life in God.
Mark was the first ever
to ascribe miracles to Jesus.
There was no writing or evidence of miracles
before Mark,
not in the gospel of Thomas
or the Q writings.
Miracles were not original to the Jesus story.
Mark seems to have wrapped
the miracle stories of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha
around Jesus
using Isaiah’s
the blind will see,
the deaf will hear, etc.
In the 9th Decade AD,
Matthew tells the Virgin Birth Story.
Surprisingly,
his long intro genealogy
includes four (4) women—unheard of!
Women were non-entities of the time,
simple containers for men’s seeds.
Why were women included in Matthew’s genealogy?
Even more surprising is that
all four women were sexually compromised.
Was Matthew trying to respond to rumors
that Jesus may have been illegitimate?
Was he trying to show that God works among us
even through our misdeeds?
Was the Virgin Birth story created
to protect Jesus’ reputation?
Where did Isaiah prophecy a Virgin Birth?
Even Later,
Luke changed the wise-men, magi
into shepherds.
He changed the star at Bethlehem
into an angelic host.
Luke takes Joseph out of the picture
and emphasizes Mary.
(Joseph being told by an angel in a dream
is lost in favor of Mary being told directly.)
Luke adds Jesus’ appearances after resurrection,
walking, talking, eating, teaching,
having his flesh felt to prove his resurrection.
Luke adds the Ascension story
lest Jesus be walking the earth forever.
(Paul had no knowledge of an Ascension,
spoke of Transformation.)
Finally, John, 60 years after the death of Jesus,
dismisses the Virgin Birth Story
and writes that
God enters Jesus from Eternity,
from Creation,
The Word Enfleshed.
The Council of Nicea 325 AD
resolved the dispute about Jesus’ Divinity
by proclaiming Him
Human AND Divine
leaving little room for Jesus’ Humanity
in our thinking of Him.
On the cross,
Mark and Matthew’s Jesus
seems very Human,
My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me?
Luke’s Jesus seems a little more Divine,
Into Your hands, I commend my Spirit.
John’s Jesus, seems fully Divine from the cross,
It is finished
(the work of the new creation.)
Jesus experiences were Real.
The experiences of those who encountered Jesus
were Real.
The explanations and perceptions of those experiences
changed over time
and are changing over time.
In the 4th century AD,
Augustine proclaimed that
humans were infected with sin
and that the gates of heaven were closed to us,
opened by Jesus’ death on the cross
and that since salvation can only come from God,
Jesus is God.
To this day,
liturgies in many religions
are re-enactments of the crucifixion of Jesus,
a Sacrifice of the Mass.
I cannot really believe in an all-loving God
who demands a human sacrifice
to appease God?
Guilt pervades all bad theology.
Adherents go through life
feeling responsible for the death of Jesus.
Scripture has been used
to defend the divine right of kings,
unsuccessfully;
to defend slavery,
unsuccessfully;
to defend discrimination of women,
unsuccessfully;
to defend discrimination of gays,
unsuccessfully.
I am not responsible for Jesus death!
I do not have to live my life in unworthiness
and Guilt.
Hierarchists have tried to control me
by telling me How I must Worship My Creator.
I reject the terms
redeemer, savior;
I am not wretched!
I am worthy to receive Him.
Jesus showed me
how to love myself enough
to become Truly Loving.
Jesus was fully alive, awake, aware in the present moment;
Jesus was totally Loving of all;
Jesus was free to be Who He was created to be;
He was Free to give his life away;
Jesus brought God to all with whom He connected.
Nothing I can do
will remove God’s Love of me.
Nothing I can do
will increase God’s love of me.
Jesus demonstrated that Love.
Humanity has been set free!
As shown in the Acts of the Apostles,
the Holy Spirit descending on people
does not make them religious;
It sets them Free
to spread the Word
to the four corners of the earth.
Human Life could not birth the God-Experience of Jesus.
Jesus introduced us to
The God Experience.
I need to recover that Experience
and in the process
bring God to all
with whom I connect.
I vow to bear witness to My Truth
staying open to other ideas
while being willing to change.
I wish to share my pearls of Wisdom
with others
while being gifted with their pearls of Wisdom.
If horses had a god,
t’would be a horse.
How can a horse envision more?
How can I envision God as God?
I must move beyond the god
created by religions
in my image.
Thanks, Bishop Spong. Love, John
Tags:
God, Jesus, Religion, Creation, Cope, Anxiety, Worship, Humanity Sinner, New Testament
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