The absurdity of the External God

At the core of most religions is a fervent belief in a personal God, the ultimate creator, but external to his creation. This God is viewed as intensely interested in human affairs on Earth, and possessing strongly biased views about those affairs.

The gist of the typical religion is to placate and supplicate to the external God, by following the rules and commandments set forth in whatever source of divine inspiration is accepted (Bible, Quran, etc.)

The role of religion is to perform a service to the faithful, in interpreting and expounding on scripture, and acting as intermediary to the mysterious and unpredictable God.

This is all well and good, as long as the fact is acknowledged that the entire system is a human contrivance. If despite this, the belief persists that this fulfills a legitimate need for the members, far be it for me to take issue with that.

The problem I have is when believers attempt to proclaim the views of their God and impose them on others. In an incredible act of self-centered egomania, most religions tend to believe that their own contrived version of God is the ultimate, pervasive, and all-powerful God, which all should tremble before. Thus, acts of violence and cruelty are often carried out, with God's sanction or even explicit mandate.

As mentioned previously in this space, one of the primary problems caused by religion is the displacement of true spirituality that recognizes the primacy of the soul. While it is the vague longing to connect with a deeper aspect of our existence that initially draws the seeker to the religious fold, the end result is often disempowerment. True spirituality points the way toward enlightenment and realization of the soul's potential, while religion discourages inquiry and offers a canned version of "universal truth".

A recent item in the news offers an illustration of these precepts: John McCain rejected the endorsement of Dallas MegaChurch pastor John Hagee, which he had initially sought. Some of Hagee's outrageous views had begun to circulate, resulting in embarrassment for McCain.

Hagee informs us that God raised up Hitler against the Jews, to cause them to collect in Palestine and reestablish the Biblical state of Israel.

Hagee bases this teaching on the belief that God (as in the Almighty, universal external-from-creation God) actually established Israel and selected the Jews as the "Chosen Race". This would be the same God, then, which commanded hideous acts of barbarism against the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, and which instituted an arduous list of required ritual practice for Jews on penalty of damnation.

Thus we have violence and cruelty in the name of God, racism in the name of God, and suffocating ritual and regulation in the name of God. We also have innocent animals slaughtered for "the remission of sins". These sins, of course, have been already conveniently contrived and enumerated by this particular religious system.

Never receiving mention is whether the poor Hittites and Amelekites could have conceivably called upon the same Almighty God for their deliverance from the genocidal Israelis. Or, in more modern context, what about the Palestinians that were forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands in 1947 - did God not belong equally to them? Oh, but they were not of the chosen race. And how does this rate better on the ethical scale than Nazi ideology?

Being able to invoke an Almighty God in favor of your pet intolerances is quite dangerous - thus we have:

-Hurricane Katrina was God's response to homosexual sin

-Under Muslim Sharia law, women must be maimed or killed for the most inconsequential offenses - even the "offence" of having been raped!

-The United States must unconditionally support Israel because it is "God's Chosen Nation", despite the consequences to the surrounding nations and people. War must be threatened against Iran for supposedly building a nuclear bomb, while Israel has at least 600 of them already deployed. But - they are God's chosen people.

This all seems so petty and ridiculous, but these views are taken seriously by millions. Hopefully, the collective consciousness is being stimulated by the rising tide of Ascension. Hopefully, this will cause more to question the supremacy of religion and begin to seriously seek out truth for themselves.

Ultimately, we are all responsible for the wellbeing of our planet and its inhabitants. There is no external God to either condemn or save us - only ourselves.