Of the Origins of Life …
Big bang? Evolution? Creation? As a staunch believer in Creation, I have to admit that bits and pieces of the former two theories are very very compelling. But what if they are not incompatible with creation? Anyway, I am better off starting from the beginning …
All religions (Traditional African Religions, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) believe in the existence of a supreme being/beings. Furthermore, they all purport to have been created or originated one way or another from their supreme being/beings.
According to the teachings though we know that:
Murungu (Kikuyu God) ≠ Enkai (Maasai) ≠ Allah ≠ Jehovah …. And the list goes on …
Would anyone doubt that based purely on physical characteristics:
A Kikuyu, Maasai, Arab, Jew, White, Chinese ALL came from the same source? I am taking this as a given. I will also take it as a given that God exists.
If that be the case, how meaningless are the squabbles about whose God is the true one and what not? The fact is this. THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD. Out of this realization emerges two and only two possibilities:
Only 1 religion is right in their perception of God ( I highly doubt)
All religions are wrong (In one way or another, I’d say this is a certainty)
But alas! Religion is a human construct. It is the logical product of the inability of humans to fathom infinity. Put in other words, it is the active manifestation of the vice-like shackles of time and space on the human mind. “In the beginning there was God” How about before the beginning? How about before God created. What was there? How can nothing exist? What is forever and ever? The answer is God.
Because we were created in the context of time and space, and clearly God is not confined by these rules, how then is it possible to understand his works?
Conjecture.
It is the reason we have so many religions, each purporting to understand God, yet arriving at vastly different conclusions with fellow beings about the nature of God.
It is the reason we have the evolution theory
It is the reason we have the big bang theory
Of the existence of God, I have no doubt. It saddens me that throughout human history, we have slaughtered each other in his name. Today, we are doing so ever so subtly. Yet deep down, because we are afraid to confront engage in “God debates” we have failed to come to the stark realization of our commonalities of origin and the intertwinement of our fates. Do we need an alien invasion to jolt us to this reality?
Oh we foolish beings of earth
May God show his mercies on us …
posted by jm at 1:32 PM
13 Comments:
Personaly i believe in the big bang theory and being a christian here is my explanation .God said let there be........and there was.each time that happend there was a bang as it happend lol
yeah right ... i don quite think so but nyce try though ...
Perhaps the reason "we are afraid to confront engage in God debates" is because people like you begin with statements like "Of the existence of God, I have no doubt" and then build an entire theology around it ("The fact is this. THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD"), disregarding scientific and historical evidence.
Scientific and Historical evidence ? On what ? On the non-existence of God? Please. It is called conjecture, best guess...
My conviction is a function of my faith, and even in the absence of that pure logic.
Fact is (and for argument sake), like it or not, there are only two possibilities here:
1] There is no God
2] If there is God, there is ONLY one God.
I believe that Scientific evidence corroborates rather than undermines the latter possibility.
As for teh historical evidence ...
WHAT EVIDENCE?
Historical evidence mainly referring to the fact that majority of human religion has not been monotheistic. I fail to see the logical necessity of a single God (if one even accepts his/their existence).
It is easy to make statements such as "I believe that Scientific evidence corroborates rather than undermines" God's existence if one does not have to prove them.
"[no] logical necessity of a single God (if one even accepts his/their existence"
A very interesting perspective indeed. I hadn't thought about it like that. Still, it doesn't quite sit right. Let me mull over it and give an apropriate response in due course ...
Gathara. You are right. I concede there is no logical necessity. But why do fight each other to asert our claim to the true God ... yet we the warring parties believe in a God ? Doesn't this suggest a material necessity for a single God?
God is only the arena for a fight over other things. Mostly the wars are about domination and access to recources. If it wasn't God, people would find other excuses to go to war!
I think the use of religion is more perverse now than in the past. If you go back far enough in history, you will find instances of conflicts that were purely motivated by religious fervour.
Still, I accept that it is somewhat in teh nature of man to fight ...
I think the use of religion is more perverse now than in the past. If you go back far enough in history, you will find instances of conflicts that were purely motivated by religious fervour.
By definition, no wars can be of a religious nature. Even the jihads don't qualify. They can be claimed to be religious but because of the personal nature of religious belief (as opposed to the public nature of observance) it is impossible to impose religion through war. These were just wars of conquest and plunder.
"une foi, un loi, un roi "
one faith, one law, one king.
In feudal EUROPE, religion was certainly the basis for social consensus. 16th century France coined terms like "The Most Christian King" and no religious discourse was tolerated.
What I wonder is:
Can we separate political rulers from the populus ? That is, when ordinary citizens went to war, they went to war believing they were fighting a just cause , God's cause ... but the rulers preyed on the same religious sentiments to plunder and conquer their rivals.
From the outside looking in, as we are now, it is easy to conclude therefore that the conflicts were not religious, but rather for resources and power - which is only partially true !
interesting post - especially in these times...
it would be so easy if we could all agree that there is only one God, but that we use different names (in the same way different ojbects have different names depending on language)
You may be right that the people "went to war believing they were fighting a just cause, God's cause." But the wars were mostly declared by the kings, not the people. And these wars were fought to achieve political objectives. And even in cases where there were so-called religious uprisings, faith was just a cover for fights over unjust governance.
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