What Do We Believe *ABOUT* God...?

Everything depends not on whether we believe in God, but in what we believe *about* God. Our belief about God is crucial.

In fact, the condition of life today, filled with crisis, violence, killing and war -- is due to what we believe about God. ("We" meaning collective humanity, particularly those in exclusive religions -- not necessarily each and every individual.)

So, let's look at some of the beliefs about God that create crisis, violence, killing and war:

~ We believe that God needs something.

~ We believe that it's possible for God to fail to get what God needs.

~ We believe that God has become separated from us, because we have not given God what God wants.

~ We believe that God still needs what God needs so badly, that God now requires us, in our separated state, to give it to God.

~ We believe that God will destroy and torture us, forever, if we do not meet God's requirements, by giving God what God needs.

Given these beliefs, we think it's both appropriate and commendable to treat others AS we believe God treats us. So, crisis, violence, killing and war are being done to meet God's requirements. We think we are helping God get God's needs met.

For all of human history, disasters, wars, crises of all kind have been called "the will of God", or "acts of God". We believe in a God who does bad things.

For millennia, mankind has imagined that the powers that be were angry, and had to be appeased ... rites and rituals were created to placate and appease the gods, and to get them to bless us. Myths were created to make sense of the inexplicable events of life. The myths became true for them ... and when myths become true, it turns into organized religion. Most religious humans today continue to believe that God is angry, and must be placated, appeased and worshipped - or ELSE!

The wrath of God seems to be the one thing that most religions can agree upon.

But ~ what if there is no such thing as the wrath of God..? What if it's just one of our most pervasive false beliefs about God? How much damage has been done, human on human, due to believing that God is wrathful, and therefore, we must be, too ...?

Quoting Neal Donald Walsch:

It is your understanding of God that is the main problem ... You do not understand who you are. You do not understand who God is. You do not understand how the world works. You do not understand that love is the basis of all of life, nor can you comprehend a love that is unconditional.

You imagine that God is a small, petty, jealous deity who says to people bowed in prayer, 'Sorry, it's my way or the highway. Your prayer I hear. Your prayer I don't, because you didn't do it right. You did not please me. In other words, you turn me into a replica of the worst of humanity.

You claim that you are striving to be God-like in your lives ... and if this is the God you are striving to be like, you have succeeded brilliantly.

You may thank organized religion - the ones that teach a doctrine of exclusivity ('Our religion is the only true religion') - for teaching you how.

Next - five fallacies about Life ...

Shalom, Dena