- Pants weighs in his measly opinion on terrorism and tragedy.
by E. Al Pants
The events of September eleventh have yielded what has been termed the best and worst of humanity. It has also yielded the best and worst of television. Wait, let me correct that, it has only yielded the worst of television. And I, like many others, can't seem to stop watching. In some kind of bizarre fit of masochism, I feel compelled especially to watch panels of "experts" discuss the nature of God. And boy am I baffled.
Of course I won't address the issue of why God would allow something so horrible. God has allowed much worse, if you want to use those terms, and the debate about God allowing evil is a circular and somewhat sophomoric debate that seldom informs and often annoys. This was an event engineered by people, not God. God has always allowed evil, if God didn't allow evil, we'd all be walking around in wide-eyed bliss humming Britney Spears tunes.
What has been more compelling to me has been the bold assertions about the identity of God. And I'm thoroughly and utterly confused. I thought I knew where the major religions stood on this, but I was wrong. There is now a World God and He is a God of Love.
Now first of all, if you're not Christian, Muslim or Jewish, we're not talking about your God, your concept of Divinity, your concept of Cosmos or anything related to your religion, philosophy or doctrine. According to the media after September eleventh, there are only Jews, Muslims and Christians (and a few Atheists, who are grudgingly mentioned occasionally to represent anyone who is not Jewish, Muslim or Christian). It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, there are other religions in the world. Jews, Muslims and Christians may or may not even represent a majority of the world population. Aside from the countless Buddhists and Hindus in the East and elsewhere, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of religious and spiritual traditions that have been completely ignored in any public discussion including Shinto, Baha'I, Jainism, Sikhism, Pantheism, Shamanism, Zoroastrianism, Wicca, Cao Dai, Confucianism, Tenrikyo, Paganism, Ifa, Humanism, Satanism, Voodoo, Deism, countless Native American traditions, African traditions, Aboriginal traditions, and of course those crazy people on cable access with the UFO's and the lady with the tiara.
So, ignoring all of those faiths, we're talking about Allah, Yahweh, and Jehovah, all of whom happen to be the same God, that is, the God of Abraham. Most Christians are aware that they share the same Old Testament Deity with the Jewish tradition (Jehovah is the Latin translation of the Hebrew "Yahweh", which is actually the abbreviated YHWH, signifying� well, it's all very involved, but anyway, same God), but not everyone is aware that, just as the Judeo-Christian heritage is traced back through Abraham's son Isaac, Islam traces its tradition back through Isaac's half-brother Ishmael. So while the media portrays theses three religions as the three great divergent religions of the world, they are all pretty much the same Yahwist religion with the same God. Allah is Yahweh is Jehovah is God.
And yet, traditionally, even among these religious half-brothers, or perhaps cousins, they seem to disagree as to who's got the right God. The ones that "debate" or "discuss" on informative television panels all say, very tolerantly and inclusively, that all our different (Yahwist) religions worship essentially the same God (which many would not assert before this happened). Yet the hijackers believed they were doing the will of Allah. So were they just psycho, or were they following a different Allah? Was their God the wrong God? A different God?
Most Muslims will tell you that their religion, just like Judaism and Christianity, is a religion of tolerance and peace. And their God, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, is a God of Love. Christians and Jews on endless "expert" panels have concurred. The God we all share, our World God is a God of Peace and Love.
Well, in my confusion, I double checked the Bible (which shares the same early scriptures and traditions as the Qur'an and the Torah) and there is no Hippie God of Love in there. There is only Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Father of the three religions in question. Now please email me if I'm missing something, but isn't Yahweh the same God that sent His angels to slaughter all the first born of Egypt? Visualize that for a second. Is it the same God that decided all people in the world but Noah were evil and unceremoniously drowned all of them? Again, visualize that, we're talking about old people and children, not to mention animals, all drowned for idolatry and evil. Is this the same God who specifically told Moses that a woman caught in adultery should be stoned? I could go on with specifics, but give your Bible a second read and check out the God of War and Retribution in the Old Testament (the Book of Judges is especially entertaining). He has a few anecdotal and individual instances of love and mercy, but this is a serious God of full-scale punishment in, quite literally, Biblical proportions. This God may love, but he also gets pissed off, jealous (by His own admission) and has no problem with personally killing on a massive scale, victimizing women and children and giving one tribe supernatural war power over another. This God is no flower child.
Ah, but that was the Old days. Perhaps, because we've changed so much, God deals with us differently. Oh, wait, I forgot, we're still a primitive war race with rampant crime, hatred and ignorance chewing through society like the Plague. We haven't changed at all. Well, maybe God has changed His personality. Well, it may seem so.
Within Christianity, the New Testament indicates that God has provided a new covenant, through the revelations and sacrifice of Jesus. So now we don't have to sacrifice animals ('cause that's nasty!) and we shouldn't collect concubines like beer cans, and we shouldn't stone adulterous women. But, then again, while Jesus changed (or maybe just relaxed) the Law of Moses (dictated to Moses by God, so essentially God's Law) there is no acknowledgement or assertion in the new testament that the nature of God, or the personality (if there is such an attribute) of God has ever changed or will ever change. In fact the opposite is claimed. Jehovah is the Alpha and Omega, Omniscient and Omnipotent, and the book of Revelation shows no indication of Him letting up on His thirst for vengeance.