W H E N . Y O U . H E A R . T H E . T E R M . ” G O D ” . . .
Not having been brought up in mainstream Christianity, I always felt ‘God’ was an absolute term denoting perfection and goodness to the Nth degree as my best Friend and confidant. Needless to say, hearing anything less attributed to the Eternal was unsettling at best.
Recently more and more heavily prejudiced notions have been swirling around the appelative that used to afford me such a warm and fuzzy feeling in a cold and lonely world.
Synonyms for God have been coming to the rescue as mankind remembers that we’re only talking about terminology: “Spirit” fits rather nicely, at least until the overly-religious sounding word shakes off some of its shackles!
So, while privately cherishing the true meaning behind the “G” word, my writing of late has been leaning more towards “Spirit”, “Infinity”, “Eternal”, “Allness” and “Oneness”.
Stan Tyra, a prolific writer on keeping the airways clear, has much more to say on this critically important topic:
“I often think my purpose is not to teach or add anything to anyone, but simply to pull the rug out from under our ideas about God. We are seemingly blind to the fact our ideas about God and the subsequent belief systems, have done little to demonstrate love, eliminate suffering, reduce poverty, or even end hunger and starvation. What drives me bananas is how religious organizations will spend millions upon millions of dollars on buildings, staff and programs, and then spend a few hundred dollars on turkeys to give away for Thanksgiving and call themselves generous, loving and concerned about people and hunger.
The church will denounce the killing of babies in abortion clinics, and it should, and yet seem uncaring that six million children die every year on Earth from starvation.
How much money does fundamentalist organizations spend to send missionaries all over the world to convince others to believe what they believe, while turning a blind eye to the fact 684 children per hour die of hunger. And we actually call this “Gods work?” 🤮
Upsetting the religious apple-cart is not appreciated. No one wants somebody else tampering with their sacred beliefs or ineffective systems. Even if those beliefs clearly and demonstratively don’t work, we will cling to them with both a stubborn and stupid rigidity that I personally now find shocking and appalling.
People believe what they want or need to believe in order to support their point of view. End of story. It’s truly a case of “don’t bother me with the facts.” Or “why let truth mess up a good belief system?.” We know what we know about God and we really don’t want to know anything more, bigger or outside that box. It seems that the only thing that upsets agnostics, atheists and the Christians equally is truth. We would be outraged if our children spent twelve years in school and then graduated with a first grade education. Seemingly the church finds a religious first grade awareness worthy of sainthood.”
DrRobinStarbuck
