This is a subject that has been years in the making for me. I have pondered and questioned the very existence of god and his intentions for us. While the subject of god could go in a thousand different directions, my intent here is to only focus on one. I will not support my stance on this subject with biblical references (even though I could if you so desire). This is a very dogmatic subject for me, and one that agrees with how I see and define god after all these years. My intent with this is only to put on paper how I feel about it and to perhaps probe additional thinking on the reader's part.
First let me clear a couple of things up. Whether you "believe" in god is irrelevant to my subject. I think strong, clear intellectual thinking can embrace the idea that something greater than ourselves is with us. I have a harder time accepting that I came from a monkey than accepting the idea of god. I also do not practice nor support the belief system of modern day christianity and the practices of the church (whole different subject). I certainly understand the need for god and the developing idea of why religion was created and is still practiced today.
Secondly, I am approaching this subject from the christian belief angle, for it is what most people understand. I am basically going to give my thoughts on an idea that the church would oppose harshly, for if people were to accept this idea, it would financially wreck the church.
Thirdly, I understand the idea of the holy spirit in you and the trinity concept. My point here is not to debate this.
The church propagates the idea of the necessity of god for each individual person. It is this one driving message that keeps people coming back each Sunday. Within this message is the idea that god is external to you and I. That he is somewhere "out there" waiting for us to look up or outward in order to find him (or her). This is the very nature of the co-dependent god concept. That there is something outside of us that we need in order to find our lives acceptable to ourselves or to this god. Preachers spew this concept each week in order to keep people searching. Have you never found it odd that god is never really found? It is more on an imaginable level. This experiential god. This disconnected deity that we can never really embrace until death. Understand that this is a needed message from the church in order to keep people coming to the church.
Here is my thoughts on this, having come from the rank and file. The bible states clearly ( for all you literalist) that we are made in the image or likeness of god. If made in his likeness, if made to be similar, than we must continue to follow this line of thinking. If god is not in need of anyone's assistance, if he doesn't need our help, if he doesn't need someone telling him each week that he can do better if he keeps searching, than why should we?
Here it is-- God is self-sustaining.
If this is true of god, than why cannot it not be true of ourselves? Again, the bible states that we are in his image. It can be. Sure preachers never want you to know this. They do not want you going around applying the very things they teach you and becoming self-sustaining, because then you would not need them and they need you money (another subject). I digress.
Why do people go to church. In my time in the church, I narrowed it down to a few reasons. There are the occasional unique individuals, but for the most, these are the reasons:
Their lives are so unmanageable, that they cannot function correctly.
This deep need we Americans have to be accepted and affirmed by someone other than ourselves.
Fear of death or eternal damnation.
Social group.
Self-gratification- it makes them feel good that they are in church and that for this reason god loves them and they can go thru the rest of the week feeling pretty damn good about themselves.
Now don't get me wrong, organized religion has and will continue to help people with their lives and the feelings they need to get thru their daily living. If it works for you, than great.
However, my point is that you can actually be self-sustaining. That god's intentions for you and I are not to be co-dependent on him or the church, but to move to a level of maturity that we can actually sustain our own decisions, feelings, emotions, etc. It is here that most people struggle, because most people never learn to solve problems. They never learn the devices needed in the mental arena that will allow them to manage life's difficulties. Life will always be difficult, it is by design because we are free will beings allowed to make choices and design our own lives. You have been given the greatest of all gifts, the one thing that separates us from our animal friends. The cognitive ability to be objective and learn ongoing skills that solve the problems in our lives.
It is not only the problems that we have to deal with, it is the emotional ties that go with the problems. With every problem you encounter in life, you have learned or developed an emotional response to this unique problem. Many times it is not the actual problem that plagues us it is the emotions that rip our lives apart. Why does god not have this problem? Is it because he is god? Because he is perfect and has no problems? I doubt it. It is because not only can he solve his external problems but his has the mental skill sets to deal with any internal problems. God has designed us to be mentally stable. We are the ones who make ourselves unstable, because we do not know how to deal with our problems. So we medicate ourselves, we intoxicate ourselves, we lose ourselves in our jobs, social life, television, whatever…in order to shut down the mental torment that is associated with our problems. We don't know how to solve it. So we turn to this external god to look for help. While the initial search for god is fine, god's ultimate intention for you is not to always be looking for him and trying to find him or some miracle, but to learn the devices needed to not only solve the external problem but the one that is raging inside of you.
It is this useless searching we do that has created another religious co-dependent problem- miracles. A miracle is god intervening into this dimension to solve your problem. Whether or not you espouse miracles, whether or not you know someone who has had one or maybe even yourself, they are not the norm and can be debated ad nausea. If miracles are true and there are miracle workers around today, would they not be substantiated and would people not be going in droves to find this person? Searching or waiting for a miracle is another result of powerlessness on our part. We cannot not fix it therefore we look for someone who can. WE ARE NOT DESIGNED TO BE VICTIMS OF LIFE. We created that, not life. I cannot say this enough, we are the designers, the engineers, the artist of our lives. We are a victim because we have chosen powerlessness instead of power. We would rather be the victim than learn how not to be one. The victim in a crime is the result of one person overpowering another. If the perpetrator thinks for one moment that the tables will be turned, that the intended victim will not be victimized, the perpetrator will not engage. Stop looking for a miracle, be your own miracle.
There is a reason for god, but it is not to satisfy your own self-gratification of superiority or the guarantee that god will take care of you just because you give him a head nod once a week. The bible is full of universal principles that can be used for your life. Most of us today are so intolerant and judgmental of the bible that we use our superior smugness to thumb our noses at it. We see the bible has an afterthought of the previous generations weaknesses to understand the current state of our universe. While archaic in it's history and form of writing, and while not meant to be a literal dictation of what our lives are meant to be, it is a training tool that people learned thousands of years ago. I find this interesting-- the same problems that we deal with today, are the same one's they dealt with thousands of years ago, because the same principles apply. While the mechanics of the problems are different, the resulting emotional toll is the same.
I believe God has no desire to "take care" of you. His desire is for you to take care of yourself. But because the church has twisted this, we cannot grasp the idea that god has designed us to be self-sustaining. The only requirement god built into the system was learning. He even gave us the stimulus for learning. It is called "Life".
Problems will never cease. They are with us forever. What can cease, what can be learned is the way to stop the problematic emotional response to all problems. However, as god designed, you must learn them. Again, he loved you enough to give you everything you need to be like him. You just have to stop looking for him and start using what he gave us. God is bored with us, he is nauseous from the whining and victimization of ourselves.
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