GOD & me

….....I finally figured it out!!!

God exists because I am too scared to face IT all by myself.

…. sure I’m smart on my own…. cocky with my own wisdom….. but when the going gets tough, I hear myself saying “God Help Me”…. not that it always works, but I have a buddy out there that no one can see that makes things easier….. And I am always grateful because I hear myself saying “Thank God” for this or that. When I can’t face the music alone, my inner-self talks to Him, “God is Kind – He is forgiving” and then I can proceed on my reckless way.

Atheists are truly brave people because they face the music on their own…no one to talk too, no one to ask for help.

Now that I understand my childish need for help, I can understand religion. God wasn’t always just one guy…people were more comfortable having many deities: one for everything that disturbed them. They worshiped thunder and lightning and guys that lived under the sea and guys that raped mortal women and begot demi-gods…. and to make it a level playing field, they even created Goddesses. … and thus the desert tribes created Allah, a cousin of the Jews, who had his own sheikdoms and called themselves Muslims. Indians looked to other spiritual forms, a single guy sitting on a throne was not enough…so they gave Him animal faces, trunks, many hands, snakes and all the other paraphernalia that scared ordinary mortals, these Gods sat on high pedestals and lorded over the hordes. And so they begot Hinduism. Other tribes wanted a more benign spiritual leader…one that was wise but didn’t lord over them…they made him fat and benign with a kind smile and called him Buddha.

Creation of Adam - Michelangelo’s fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted circa 1511

For the nomadic tribes, this was too much paraphernalia to carry around, so the Jews decided to have only one God…that was revolutionary and disturbed many of the other Gods. The Jewish God was an invisible being; no one could see him, so in due time, many people wanted to give him a face…. Naturally, the wise men created him in our own image…. Sitting on a cloud and dispensing his will through the tip of his finger…. (Michelangelo’s fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted circa 1511 depicted it very well.) But this God was too ethereal; people needed a man of flesh and blood that could guide them, so a splinter group gave us the Son of God and they called him Jesus Christ and named themselves Christians. Now we had a good person leading us out of trouble. The job grew too big and so he got a bunch of apprentices who were called disciples, to help spread the word. But unfortunately, these kind people were mortals and sooner or later died. But God is forgiving and allowed man to deify these wise men and we were given our saints, who are a little more human than God and we could turn to them for help. God was gender-free (something the church people have forgotten over the years) and created female saints along with the men!

Temples were built in their honor… Christians called their houses of worship Churches, Basilica, Cathedrals and for identity, named them after the saints. … Hindus called them Temples, Mandir, Pathi, and Muslims named theirs Mosques. They all had one thing in common, they were exquisite testaments to man’s faith.

Edifices built in the glory of God

Jewish Temple Jerusalem •Buddhist Temple Thailand • Monastery Tibet • Chinese Pagoda

Russian Orthodox St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow

Basilica in Rome Cologne Cathedral Chartres Cathedral

Hindu Temples in India Elephant God detail more temple details

Interior of Mosque Taj Mahal, a Muslim tomb Mosque

Very smart people codified man’s fears and gave them substance…. The Jews gave us the Ten Commandments, which were the rules to live by. These Wise Men wrote books of wisdom and called them the Torah, the Bible,the New and old Testaments and the Koran. But that wasn’t enough for the populace; (Less smart scribes have been laboring for centuries to interpret these elegant words…but in doing so have caused much confusion and havoc.)

Man was now on a good track and things seemed to be moving along according to plan.

But we forgot about tribal instincts. As man begot more man and spread over the planet, the world started to shrink and each enclave wanted its own identity. They existed because the world was large and people few, (now-a-days it has shrunk exponentially). For mutual security these disparate folks banded together into clans that in turn created mistrust and chasms of differences amongst each sect… But within each of these tribes there were the Alpha vs. Beta types that weren’t satisfied being a homogeneous family…they wanted to dominate…. and they became stronger and stronger until they begat Kings and their Kingdoms, Phyfe’s and their Fiefdoms. Sheiks and their Sheikdoms. To perpetuate their own authority, each leader latched on to his own deity in order to bolster their supremacy. They jostled for power amongst themselves and their neighbors and in their self-righteousness, shielded their evil doings behind their powerful religious potentates to launch cruel wars and crusades. Anybody who didn’t believe in their morality became an infidel worthy of destruction.

....But now I am getting over my head…. Theology and chronological history is not really my forte.

BUT now I do understand how all these wonderful people were invented…. They came about by weaklings like me, who couldn’t face the music alone.

Thank GOD that there is a GOD.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Great start and good points but a pitty - as I see it - that you threw it away at the end. I thought you were saying that all religions, in the final analysis, are systems to justify power of the few over the many. Let me add my own little piece of wisdom: behind every myth you find a little man scribbling some lines and wants it or needs it to be more than just his own bewildered self. Did you know that the priests in Delphi when they met the blinked to each other with one eye because they knew as little as anyone else.
I love your philosophical development and send my sincerest encouragements. Just stop thinking you are a weakling and you will see you are not alone to face the music. In fact, you will be in very good company.
Karl Sigmund Christ

Posted by: Christoph Hering | 02/13/2011 at 03:40 PM