As mentioned previously, I have just returned from Syria and during the tour visited Palmyra and the great temple of Baal. For much longer than Christianity has been around people worshiped Baal and made sacrifices to him for better harvests, more sons, success in battle etc.
There is the niche, still standing but now empty, where the image of the Great God stood, and broken on the ground and carved in stone, are the images of the lesser Gods of the Sun and Moon, now tourist attractions. These gods were regarded as immortal at the time. They were either real or unreal. Which? If they were real and immortal surely they should have some influence now? If they were bogus figments of the imagination, what an awful lot of sheep and cattle were sacrificed for nothing! Go to http://www.hanrott.com/musings.html for the transcript of an interview with the Gods of the Sun and Moon.
Those who believe in extraterrestrial god/gods who gaze into the very souls of man do not have the intellectual courage to address the fact that, humans being fickle, dance from one god to another. Who is to say that the present God , who apparently runs the minutiae of the lives of millions will not be relegated to a tourist attraction by future generations? Already in the last few decades you have Paul Tillich suggesting a God above the God of theism. I quote, “The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.” (Paul Tillich “The Courage to Be”). Is this a new god? I cannot claim to understand Paul Tillich, but maybe some kind person will explain in plain English.
P.S It is stupid and narrow-minded to deny the existence of some sort of distant deity. Nobody knows or will ever know. But I much prefer the ideas of Epicurus: there is a collection of gods who waft around the heavens, taking no interest in the affairs of men. Who can blame them?
You see, there ARE no comments! Do you out there think I’m a nut? Were the people who worshiped Baal and his deputy gods nutters? No! Come all you religious people who believe in the Testament of the Hebrews, if you believe in the blood and thunder of the Old Testament, why not also acknowledge that the majority of people were not Jewish at the time and worshiped perfectly respectable gods, Baal among them, and probably looked down on the Jews and their interminable warfare and their sinful lives.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/paul_tillich.html.
Paul Tillich is referring to those who, in despair of ever finding out who God really is, at last jettison the god of their own creation, and meet at a very deep level the true God. This is very rare indeed. Nowadays people don’t bother because it isn’t relevant to them, but thinkers like Tilich wrestled long and hard about this and the ‘meaning of life’.
No doubt, non-nuts like you and I are going to ask “How do you know if the ‘true God’ is not still that of your own creation.?
Non nuts should remember that ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE…..God is experienced with the heart not the head.
P>S> Experience of God and ‘being religious’ is not necessarily the same thing
Interesting point. Would you say that being religious requires you to belong to an organized religion, e.g Roman Catholic, whereas experience of God does not, and is this invariably so?
It seems to be a fact that, start talking about the multiple gods that ruled the world before Jesus and Mohammed (may peace be upon him) and no one will engage with you. I can only think it must be a deeply embarrassing to those who belong to Christian or Moslem denominations. If it is not, will someone please tell me, were the ancient gods real, effective, everlasting and the rulers of the heavens, and if so what happened to them?
Ouch?
I would say that it is not necessary to belong to an organised religion to express your relationship with God – for a relationship it is, not merely the observance of religious traditions.
I am a Christian but it is not deeply embarrasing to me to talk about the multiple gods that were and are being worshipped. Nowadays we have the religion of the celebrity. If ever there was the repeat of the Greek gods of old, here we are again with footballers and beautiful people! Thats what has happened to the god of old.
It is interesting to note that the ‘god shaped hole’ in a person’s psyche, if it has not been categorically denied, is filled with all sorts of gods, goddesses and the dollar.