Article 29:
A Brief History of God
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal
God", Copyright, W. Krossa)
It all began with an explosion | Out of God | God and Creation | Order and Freedom
Distorting Reality | Angry Gods | Nasty Gods Make Nasty Societies | Summary of main points
It all began with an explosion
It all began with an explosion, a really big explosion. The rest is history. Lets try to rough out an outline of why that happened and what has happened since and see if we can make some sense of it all. Why? Well, because more and more people are now seeing the fallacy and the damaging consequences of some of the mythology handed down to us by ancient people. This is especially true of mythology regarding the origins, purposes, and trends of matter and life. Therefore, we will touch on some notable trends or features of the emerging universe and life in an effort to better understand what is really happening. These features are perhaps the most important things of all for understanding human existence and the meaning of human life. They are things that have defined and profoundly affected life. Wrong perceptions of these things, found throughout history in human mythology, have distorted emerging reality and led to much confusion and needless human misery.
Also, we need some sense or notion of the actual purpose of emerging reality and the direction of life, because a deep drive inside us demands some meaning for it all. That drive for meaning keeps us pressing on for better answers.
In looking for a clearer understanding of reality, we will note insights from the history of human intuition or wisdom, as well as from science.
Regarding the big explosion out of nothing, ancient religious texts say similar things regarding the origin and the moment of creation, about God speaking and everything coming forth out of nothing. They point to God as the origin and source of all creation. (sources to follow)
"We are here approaching the Ultimate Mystery, something that defeats our attempts to probe and investigate. There was no fireball, then the fireball erupted" (Brian Swimme, The Universe Is A Green Dragon, p.37).
Science is of little help on this point of origin out of nothing because it has no framework for going back that far. Science simply can not discern the origin or purpose of emerging reality because it can not step beyond physical reality to God. It can not know more of reality than that physical element which emerged out of the big bang. Science therefore can not answer the why questions- Why did the universe emerge in the first place? Why is there reality instead of nothing? Why did the universe emerge with the set of laws that it has and not with others? These laws or elements of the universe are essential for life and they emerged through extremely rare (some argue impossibly rare) chance events. And why, for instance, is order and life emerging out of randomness and chaos? Why is human consciousness emerging? It is recognized that human consciousness and emotions do not fit the dominant trends of evolution.
In saying the above, we are not trying to disparage the contribution of science, which has been profound, but simply noting what the contribution of science really is. It is limited to only a small part of a much greater reality.
Science is limited to perceiving emerging material reality which must be discerned basically through the physical senses, measured and quantified by empirical methods, understood in a rational system (rational as defined by science), and then explained in mathematical formulas (the laws of emerging matter and the universe). The ideology and laws of science limit it to dealing only with what it calls material or physical reality. That means science offers a very limited understanding of reality and of only a small part of reality- the so-called material world. As Capra says, "scientists do not deal with truth; they deal with limited and approximate descriptions of reality" (The Turning Point, p.48). Griffiths says, "The whole scientific world, the world of stars and galaxies and electrons and protons and so on, all that is the outer fringe of reality" (A New Vision of Reality, p.200). That limited reality is all that science can access and understand in a very limited way because its rigidly governing parameters do not allow it to discern the source of reality or the sustaining energy of God behind that reality.
In trying to understand a reality much greater than the physical universe, let intuition and imagination be your guide and do not feel in the least intimidated by a rationality that would belittle your sense of the way things are and why they are that way, or demand that you subject your mind to its logic as the only proper way to knowing truth.
Let us state frankly that this universe emerged out of God and is God's reality. This statement is based on all we know about God throughout human history. It is a judgment based on all the cumulative insight and intuition of people since god consciousness first emerged. Our intuition, insight, feeling, and 'gut instincts' about God (god consciousness or sense of God), tell us it is so. We are therefore on just as safe ground as anything offered by science.
Rationalism, with its emphasis on the mind and logical processes, first gained prominence with early Greek thinkers and was a useful corrective to elements of irrational mythology. The Greek passion for logic and reason was passed on into Western thinking and consciousness to eventually dominate Western thought systems and worldviews. This rationalism reached it pinnacle in the scientific revolution where it displaced intuition and imagination as irrational and not credible faculties for perceiving and understanding truth or reality. Consequently, God consciousness was pushed aside as irrational fantasy. It was viewed as belonging to a class of phenomena similar to the psychic or paranormal.
Rational science claimed it was dealing with the 'solid substance' of material reality and therefore with the truth, while God belonged to an immaterial and ethereal realm of wispy, shadowy spirits. The material universe was viewed as the sole reality because it was observable (provable) and everything else was not real- only make-believe. It was believed that the make-believe realm was the proper place for intuition, feeling, and fantasy.
With increasing understanding that material reality is not really solid substance and the increasing discovery of great mystery behind physical matter, the one-sided emphasis on logic in the past few centuries is now changing, and intuition and imagination are now being accepted once again as fully credible human faculties for understanding what is now known to be a much greater reality than just the observable universe. It is increasingly recognized that there is much more than just physical reality, there is a much greater 'spiritual' reality that we can only apprehend through the faculties of intuition, imagination, and feeling. These faculties are essential to perceiving God and much more than just physical reality.
More and more people are now coming to understand that logic and reason informed by a scientific method are not infallible guides to all truth and they are in fact a very limiting approach to knowing truth or reality. We need intuition informed by the cumulative insight and wisdom of all humanity to know the reality that exists behind the observable universe. This cumulative insight is found in the mythology and conventional wisdom of all cultures, as well as being informed by the science of various cultures.
Based on that cumulative insight of humanity, we can state that the reason why all reality emerged out of nothing and now exists is because of God's love. A loving God chose to express love in creation. All material creation exploded out of love, and exists to know love, to become aware of love, and eventually to return to the fullest experience of God's love. The emergence of life and consciousness is to know God and God's love. This is important to remember because the universe has too often been portrayed as a nasty, brutal place, even evil. But it is ultimately a friendly and loving place. It exists because of and for love.
We will also argue here that there is no cosmic battle between good and evil, between God and Satan. That sense of conflict in the universe arises from the introduction of predation into animal existence (see more on this below).
Humanity, in particular, emerged as the species through which God wants to express his own image or likeness. That image consists of love, forgiveness, unconditional acceptance of all, sharing and serving. This is true humanity which originates with God and is expressed through human beings. So while God is everywhere in creation, he especially reveals himself in human love, forgiveness, and service.
All fighting, greed, selfishness, separation and domination are then a total denial of the purpose for which we have been created.
We should add that the dominance of the scientific viewpoint in the past few centuries, with its emphasis solely on material reality, has sidetracked the spiritual development of humanity, especially in the West. The essential human drive to know and relate to spiritual reality has been neglected as many people have been encouraged to focus intensely on material reality and finding meaning in that reality. This has been extremely damaging to emerging humanity.
The focus on the material and consequent gain or success in relation to the material, has led inevitably to neglecting the humanizing values of love, sharing, and serving. It has resulted in a materially oriented existence characterized by selfishness, hoarding, domination, and the insanity of fighting over material things.
Also, if there is no spiritual realm, then why develop values that relate to that realm?
Here we want to note God's ongoing relationship to created reality, because some people have taken God's relationship to his creation in distorting directions.
We live within an existence where almost all of our relationships have some element of control or interference in relation to others. We therefore have difficulty with the idea of someone supporting something or someone else and yet not having control over them. But that is exactly how God relates to his creation and creatures- supporting all in existence, but doing so in true freedom.
Due to an improper perception of reality and God's relation to created reality, people distort the nature of God creating and sustaining all things. The distortion takes several directions. For instance, one form of distortion occurs when people merge created reality too much with God, to the point of saying that God and creation are the same. This is known as pantheism. In response to this, it can be said that while God creates all, he remains separate from all created reality, in the sense that he is qualitatively different from it. While everything is held in existence by God every moment, created reality is not God.
The other major distortion of reality occurs when people separate God from created reality to the extent they end up with a vacant mechanical universe, just a machine which God has left to run on its own. In such a view, God is said to be far away somewhere, having abandoned his creation. But this is simply not true because God is present in all reality, sustaining every atom in existence. There is no existence aside from God's sustaining energy. God is the true reality behind all that is visibly apparent to us. God is not separate and distant from his creation.
And all reality, both so-called material and so-called spiritual- is God's reality.
We would also add that God is not just neutrally present to hold all in existence. God is present in love, because that is his essential nature. God is present in celebrating joy. That is just the way he is. This may be why all matter is a dance of energy (Capra, p.92). It is a great dance, alive with life and love. Love is constantly around us, inside us, close and intimate- vibrating with the life of God. And no one person has any more of this love than any other person.
The fact it is a loving God holding all in existence, makes it even harder for many people to understand God's free relationship to his physical creation. If he created all in love and upholds all in love, then why does he not intervene to prevent suffering? There are no easy answers to such age-old questions, though freedom is fundamental to any understanding of these issues.
Our problem is that we still understand so little of the true nature of reality and how God holds it all in existence. And we know so little of how God actually relates to his creation. Material reality, for instance, is now known to be energy forms or shapes, and not solid substance (Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point, Chapters 1 and 2). The fact that all we see is just vibrating energy, makes everything appear to be more intimately related to God's sustaining energy than we have yet imagined.
Visible material reality (the universe and its matter) is really what we might call a shadowy reality with no existence of its own. It is a shadow of true reality- God- who is behind or beyond it all (beyond not in distance but in a realm or presence that we can not yet fully perceive). That realm of God is far more real than this one we exist temporarily in.
God alone is 'real' and all that emerged out of God is vibrating energy from God- a shadowy universe of energy. In using the term shadow to describe this material universe of energy shapes, we are not downplaying the reality of our existence, but simply placing it in contrast to the much greater reality of God.
Since the initial explosion out of nothing, the progressive emergence of matter and its development has been in the direction of more complex organization. Yet this trend of cooperation of all matter (i.e. atoms) to organize into larger systems is also characterized clearly by the continuing emergence of disorder or dissipation, known as entropy.
This is the miracle of life. It increasingly forms ever greater order and cooperation out of a concurrent basic trend of energy toward apparent chaos. You can sense here an intelligent creative impulse and purposeful movement toward ever greater consciousness and development. But be very clear that this purposeful organizing is not the rigid order and organization of human social order and organization, which is often rigidly conforming and closed to spontaneity and sudden change of direction. That human created order too often reflects domination and control, not the freedom of life's systems, processes and organisms.
The organization, order and movement of life is free, open, and moving toward increasing diversity and complexity. It is creative in a free and spontaneous manner. This reflects the mystery of love. God created all in love and gives all life, matter, systems, and organisms true freedom to develop in any way they choose.
In that freedom, early emerging animal life chose to use predation for survival. It was a free choice. James Lovelock says that early life, in making choices to draw nutrients from the surrounding environment, moved toward a new type of existence where "some species may have found it more convenient to gather their essential components by feeding on the living" (GAIA, p. 22). Out of such choices, the idea of predator and prey and food chains first evolved, says Lovelock. Consequently, all interrelating between species, and even within species, became competitive. That led to inferiority, superiority, fighting, and domination characterizing all animal relationships. All relating became vertically oriented in a brutal animal food web or chain.
Subsequently, all animal existence and relating is characterized by suffering- by fear, domination, greed, fighting, anxiety, isolation, alienation, loneliness, separation, and death.
It is extremely important to note the origin of suffering because it clearly shows that suffering is not a consequence of human disobedience or badness or a consequence of the gods being angry with us. It reveals suffering to be simply a consequence of a free choice made by early life forms.
The entry of predation with its consequent suffering has had a profound effect on all subsequent life and especially on emerging consciousness. It has caused great confusion to emerging humanity in its search for meaning and understanding of reality and life. In trying to find meaning, early people mistakenly thought the suffering caused by predation was from God. They therefore made such brutality into a divine reality. They believed it was the purpose of God to punish or to teach lessons through suffering.
However, in denying God's involvement in suffering, we are not saying that we can not use suffering to experience God and God's presence or love more. We are simply trying to point out that suffering is the result of a free choice made by early life. It is not due to God's will (choice) or some predetermined plan.
The entire history of mythology and religion has in many ways been the effort of people to understand and explain suffering (both the suffering that comes from predation and the suffering that comes from the forces of nature). Mythology and religion reflect the effort to alleviate suffering and to appease the gods who it is believed cause suffering. All this effort is based on a wrong read of the origin of suffering. It does not come from God, but is from the freedom that exists in matter and in life.
Suffering, then, did not just emerge a few millennia ago as the result of an act of human disobedience. The myth of such a Fall due to Adam and Eve's sin is just that- a myth that severely distorts reality.
Not understanding this, can lead to the all too common confusion and misery experienced by the following man- Michael Baker. Note his story: "His mother was found to have lung cancer in 1984 and got radiation treatments. When the disease returned in 1988, 'when it was hopeless', she fled back to the Southern Baptist roots of her childhood. The hellfire sermons and finger-pointing bothered the 15-year-old Michael, but he felt they might be worth it if God cured her. One morning, 'at about 2:45', her coughing was loud enough to wake him. His father told him 'it was nothing'- that he would just take Michael's mother to the hospital. When she never came out, Michael was furious- at God: 'a bastard. This woman had run back, saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' and now he had killed her" (TIME, October 12, 1998, p.115).
"Baker is back in the chaplain's sleeping room, a monk's cell with a TV on gimbals. He left the Southern Baptists but eventually found God again in Methodism, which he felt downplayed sin in favor of God's grace..." (Ibid, p.115).
Like far too many people, Michael believed God controls all events (accidents, disease, disaster) and all matter with some sort of predetermining will. This wrong perception of God's relation to his creation means that God is wrongly blamed whenever something goes wrong.
Central to this belief of God's involvement in all events and being responsible for all suffering, is the idea that suffering or misfortune is due to God being angry with disobedient people. Therefore, any misfortune is viewed as punishment from God (we will note more on this below).
This punishment assumption has become so tragically fundamental to all human thinking and consciousness. If something bad happens- usually material loss or sickness- then people assume God is trying to teach the suffering person a lesson or warn them regarding bad behavior. There is a reason for it, people say. Good religious people will offer warnings to suffering people that they had better listen to what God is saying to them. Their authoritative interpretation of what is wrong and what God demands to appease his anger, usually means a return to regularly attending church services and submitting to whatever the religious group's dogma and practices are, such as praying more or Bible reading more. After all, God is very religious, isn't he?
I have heard tribal people in Southeast Asia say, "When someone in the village is sick, then we know they have sinned (broken the taboos of the gods)". This pagan idea of being punished by gods through misfortune is no different from the Christian teaching I grew up with in North America. Michael Baker (above) labors under the same burden as many other religious people.
God, out of genuine love, gave freedom to all matter and that means spontaneity, randomness, uncertainty, accident, disease and natural disaster. God does not predetermine events or control things according to some fixed will. There is great mystery here but that is the nature of God's love and his relation to creation. Whatever our confusion here, it is certain that accidents, disaster, and suffering are not from angry gods or punishment for sin. Such ideas have caused more misery and despair than any other ideas in human history.
Eons later, after the first life forms had arisen, humanity began to emerge as something qualitatively different from all previous life- it had emerging consciousness. An essential part of that emerging human consciousness was god consciousness. But tragically, in freedom, as that consciousness emerged, it was overwhelmed by and therefore adopted surrounding animal reality and existence.
So when early humans began to create their earliest views of gods, they were strongly influenced by surrounding animal existence and relating. The result was pagan animal-like gods who embodied the forces of nature and essential features of animal relating and existence. For instance, patriarchal domination became the essential feature of early gods. People then related to gods as superiors- vertically in domination/submission relationships. The gods took on aggressive male features. And after early humans projected these features onto their gods, they then used those gods to validate the social orders they created, with male domination enshrined in hierarchical strata. The gods were used to support the ongoing use of domination and brutality toward others. All of this hindered the emergence and development of true humanity. Nasty views of gods inevitably make nasty followers of such gods.
In a natural response to the basic drive for meaning, early human beings constantly developed ideas (myths) and systems of belief to make sense of reality around them. For instance, it seemed obvious to their way of thinking that suffering and disaster (disruption of the normal patterns of life and health) must mean the gods were angry. It was understood that the gods controlled all forces- wind, water, fire, earth. So in looking for a reason for suffering, it was natural to find it in the anger of the gods who controlled all things.
Out of the understanding that angry gods were responsible for suffering and disaster, there also developed the corollary idea of angry gods punishing people for being bad through natural disaster, accidents and disease. People who suffered such ill fortune were seen as being punished for sinning, which meant they had broken the commands or taboos of the gods.
This belief is expressed clearly in the Christian teaching of a Fall which was supposed to have occurred some 6 millennia ago. In this myth, it is taught that God had revealed his will or command, but early people (Adam and Eve) disobeyed that will- they sinned. God therefore introduced suffering, pain and death as punishment for their sin. All suffering is then believed to be due to people's sin or disobedience.
Also, in response to people's sin, ancient mythology said that the gods eventually left people to move up and away into the skies, as far away from 'bad' people as possible. Here was the ultimate in rejection, separation and abandonment.
Then the leap was made to ideas of appeasing angry gods with blood sacrifices. These were animal and sometimes even human sacrifices. In these practices, we find early ideas of atonement. No one was ever sure if the atoning actually worked, so anxiety and fear remained central to all relating with gods. Suffering, accident, disaster, disease and death continued unabated.
If the Christian atonement had actually worked and the supposedly angry God had been appeased, then all the consequences of God's anger (suffering, death) should have ceased. If all this misery was due to human sin and that sin has been paid for, then why does suffering continue? This is simply responding to the logic of Christian theology.
These early ideas of atoning were subsequently refined in major religions and further supported with views of heaven and hell. All this elaborate theology was due to a horribly wrong read of the reason why suffering first emerged.
The more recent understanding that suffering arose from the free choice of early life for predation some 3-4 billion years ago, has blown the foundations out from under the Fall myth. It has also undermined many corollary beliefs built around the idea of a Fall, such as the anger of God, punishment for wrong behavior, rejection by God, atonement, and hell.
When you trace ideas back to their source and find they are based on myths that are simply not true, then you are safe in questioning and discarding the ideas that have developed out of that original mythology.
These myths of angry, punishing gods have severely distorted the original purpose of God- love- and made the universe and life seem to be a very nasty and inhuman place. People have become fearful of normal daily events as expressions of the whims of the gods. Many people still see the anger of the gods in natural disasters and personal suffering. It all makes for more human misery, piled on top of the suffering already existing from whatever misfortune has occurred.
It also makes for fatalistic passivity in the face of suffering. If suffering is from God, predetermined by God, then there is nothing we can do but passively accept it. This passivity hinders the responsible effort needed to understand and alleviate the origins or causes of much suffering.
The need for atonement has also introduced more anxiety and fear to human relating with God. What will appease an angry God and when is it ever enough and how do I appropriate it for myself? Even in religious belief systems which present a so-called infinite and sufficient sacrifice, there is ongoing uncertainty and fear. Religious people say that all that is needed is faith. But faith becomes a confusing and complex process of maintaining good standing in some religious group. The conflict with normal humanity only intensifies in such religiosity and so uncertainty continues. Religious authorities then blame people for not understanding all the confusing and conflicting theology deemed necessary for their faith.
It becomes a never-ending struggle. Even Christians are told they must continually offer their lives as living sacrifices to appease God. If they don't, then God will not be pleased. It is all part of the distorting fiction of needing to appease angry gods. Prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance become part of a never-ending treadmill to please a demanding God. And you can never be sure when it is enough. It all becomes a heavy burden and it is all simply the creation of religious authorities who have kingdoms to maintain. God has nothing to do with such bondage.
Let us offer here some genuine relief. The fact there never was a Fall, makes the whole religious edifice of complex theology and practice built around such myths, an unnecessary burden. If there was no Fall, then there is also no anger, no punishment and no need for atonement. God has never rejected anyone or gone away from anywhere to some other place. As we noted earlier, God is present everywhere or nothing would exist. And God is not punishing people through accidents, disease or disaster. While these things are often frightening and confusing, we can only remember that God is always still here in love, holding all in existence. That has never changed.
After millennia of having ideas of angry, punishing gods burned into our consciousness, it may be the most profoundly liberating news many people will ever hear to discover that there are no angry gods waiting to punish people for human imperfection (sin in religious terminology).
All these ideas of divine reality as angry and punishing, have profoundly influenced and distorted human thinking and behavior. This is because there has always been a deep inner drive in humans to replicate what they feel is the divine reality and order of things.
Nasty Gods Make Nasty Societies
Angry, punishing gods inevitably validate angry, punishing behavior toward others. Hence the vision of brutal gods has resulted in brutal human societies.
Emerging human consciousness has been devastated by all this threat, domination, punishment, rejection, separation, abandonment, lovelessness, and misery. It is nothing but abuse of humanity. It has led to the same reality being replicated in human societies and among human beings- separation, isolation, alienation, fear, enmity, domination and fighting.
Another devastating distortion arising from the choice of early life for predation was the radical reorientation of God's reality from a horizontal reality to a vertically oriented reality. This was a reorientation from relating horizontally to God (as free equals) to a vertical form of relating (superior/inferior, domination/submission). The idea of vertical relating emerged with animal predation. Predation had entered early emerging life and had become the essential nature of all animal relating and existence. The stronger dominated and controlled the weaker.
This animal relating was passed on into emerging human societies to become the dominant form of relating there also. Early humans then projected that animal reality (superior/inferior) onto their views of gods. It made vertical relating and existence into a divine reality.
But God has always related horizontally to all. This is the basic nature of true humanity which originates with God. There is simply no superior/inferior in relating with God. Jesus revealed this clearly. Such relating as free equals does not degrade God in any way but actually elevates God as it reveals him to be human and not animal.
The reorientation of God's reality from horizontal relating to a vertically oriented existence has been a serious distortion of God and his reality. Predation entering as a free choice of early life has brought much suffering and confusion to all life. The vertical relating of predation has been projected onto God, who is then used to validate such domination in human societies and relationships.
Emerging life should have expressed the love and the humanity of God. It should have become a horizontally oriented reality like God (with the relating of free equals), and not a vertically oriented animal reality (with domination and superior/inferior relating). However, God, in respecting the freedom of all life, would not force true humanity onto life or onto emerging humanity.
This tragic consequence of distorting God's reality, makes it absolutely necessary that we constantly re-evaluate mythology and constantly review our knowledge of the universe and life in order to see more correctly what has happened and what is going on. It drives us to try to see more clearly who God is and what God is doing, and what is his purpose for all life.
We believe that purpose is love and true humanity. We exist in love (love-energy in Griffith's terms) and are all returning to love. And ultimately, we are all moving on from this 'energy-shapes' reality to an infinitely better reality where God and true humanity will be fully expressed and experienced. We are just passing through this realm of vibrating energy toward an infinitely greater reality- God. We need to focus on that and see it more clearly in order to be inspired and energized to be like God, while still living here in this reality.
There is no need, then, for anyone to feel bad about missing out on affluence here, for a generous God will freely give an infinitely better existence to everyone in his true reality. There will be no elites, and no special favors or opportunities for the few in that realm. This is no excuse to tolerate poverty and injustice here. It is only to encourage the many who miss all comfort or suffer the worst here, that much better is coming.
In the next reality there will be no threat, no hell, and no judgment or punishment. There is no need to fear being with God. Often we are terrified of death and we miss the point that it is a release to an infinitely better existence. We fear such liberation because of the frightening things we have been told about hell and angry gods waiting to punish us with everlasting torment, all because we refused to sell our souls to religious authority and domination.
No- be certain of this, God is waiting in incomprehensible love for you.
Knowing and understanding this reality will influence human beings to replicate the same in their societies and relationships. It will inspire people to be like God and to imitate what they feel is the divine order and divine relationship.
God and God's reality is characterized essentially by humanity. All true humanity originates with God, with a God who has always been truly human and never had anything animal-like in his nature. The human God has always been loving, merciful, endlessly forgiving, sharing, generous, and egalitarian. These features were expressed magnificently in the life of people such as Jesus.
It is fundamental then, to all understanding of created reality and consciousness, that we come from and are sustained in existence by a loving and truly human God, for the purpose of love, and we are returning to that love. This must be understood if life here on earth is ever to improve and become more radically human. There will never be freedom from fear, separation, isolation, or from all human misery, until we grasp this love of God as the basic reason for all created matter and life.
It has been said that we will never have truly human societies until we have truly human views of God. This is the essential reason why we are re-evaluating ancient mythology and religious beliefs. These beliefs are at the root of many modern social ideas and practises.
It is time to 'rescue' God from distorting religious mythology and set God free of all ideology and institutionalism. In reality, God has always been free, and every person's God involved in everyone's life. God has never been religious or limited to religious ideology. He has always been fully human, free, tolerant and accepting of all, a God of normal daily life, available freely to all. There is absolutely no need for special religious faith or any other requirement to know God.
1. All created reality emerges out of God and it is all an expression of God's love. God is everywhere present sustaining all matter in celebrating love. But while God sustains all, he is qualitatively different from his creation.
2. The purpose of all created reality is to know love and to return to infinite love. Hence life and consciousness emerge to become aware of love.
3. Humanity emerges especially to know God's love and to express the image of God as loving, forgiving, sharing and serving. Human beings exist to experience love and show that love to others.
4. God, in love, grants freedom to life, matter, and organisms in order that they may develop creatively and spontaneously in ever increasing diversity and complexity. Creation moves constantly forward into a non-determined and open future.
5. Early life, in freedom, chose predation and hence there arose suffering with its competition, fighting, fear, isolation and domination.
Predation later passed on into human society and became a defining feature of human social orders. It was also projected onto early ideas of gods and thereby made a divine reality. God then became a dominating, punishing reality. The consequence of predation- suffering- was then believed to be from God.
6. Suffering is not due to the anger of God or the gods. Suffering is not punishment for sin or mistakes. And there is no sacrifice, payment or requirement of any sort to appease a supposedly angry God. God has never left, rejected, or been angry with anyone. And there is no hell or threat of punishment in the future. There is absolutely no reason to fear God or the universe.
7. What is the standard by which we can know what is true? We simply follow our intuition which is informed by the cumulative insight of all humanity. This insight is found in mythology (religion), science and normal human discourse. Truth is not limited to rational science or religious dogma.
God is not religious or institutional, but is involved in all daily life, freely accessible to all persons.
From the series 'Taking The
Vertical Out Of God'
copyrighted material.
