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Theology: that madness gone systematic which tries to crowd God's fullness into a formula and a system!
- Rabbi Joel Blau, "My Uncertain God," Menorah Journal, 1924
This is my page about God and how we relate to Him.
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In the beginning we have to consider all the
possibilities. How did everything happen? Science doesn't have all the
answers, though many scientists think they do. One possibility is that a
supernatural Being set all things in motion. In the Big Bang Theory
everything just suddenly happened. Before that nothing happened.
Something or Someone must have caused it. Since I have not been
brainwashed into accepting whatever science says with its patchy
"evidence," I am free to consider possibilities. The one that
makes sense to me is that such a Being (or even Beings) exists. We don't
know much about this as we are limited to the senses we have been given.
How could we understand or even detect such an Entity? We can understand
only what our five senses can detect. With this information, we can
speculate. Unfortunate to our tiny minds, we are limited to the Creation
- the universe in which we are confined (a funny word for something so
incredibly large). Anything we can know about God is only what He
reveals. One cannot dismiss God because he does not have the ability to
do so. Atheists amuse me because they use all the logic in the universe
to try to explain away What they cannot even comprehend. God is not part
of the universe. He created it and established its rules. He is not
subject to them and can come and go as He pleases without our knowing.
He can change things or leave them alone, whichever suits his purpose.
We have absolutely no right to anything, including our lives. If we have
had one joy in our lives, it is one more than we deserve. I have had
innumerable joys in my life. When there is a difficulty, no matter how
great or small, I realize that it is a small price for all the wonderful
memories I have. It is a rare person on this planet who does not have
some moment in his mind that he can look back on and smile. I think back
in time about my mother and the other important people in my life who
are now gone. It's true that tears come to my eyes sometimes but they
are tears of joy. They are wonderful memories of the cosmic connection I
shared with them. It is my belief that one day in the distant future
this God will call our names and we shall all once again be together
along with the Wonder who gave us our lives in the first place. However,
I still have this life on earth to deal with. Life is a challenge, a
learning experience. We should see our problems as something to conquer
and smile as we take them on because we are continuing to learn. We gain
experience and as we look back on many of the problems we've faced in
the past with great trepidation, we just laugh at how silly we were. My
dream is that one day, when we are all once again gathered together, God
will stand up and say: Okay, let's get to work. The shrieks of those who
expected a freebie would be hilarious. God doesn't owe anyone a thing.
Someone once said that God insulted us by making us out of dirt. I think
it is an insult to God to not appreciate the gift of dirt from which all
our food comes. There's a purpose to all of Creation. Enjoy it. |
| Is Jesus God? I have no idea. The evidence seems to weigh
against it [Reader's Comment].
To the Jew, to worship a human being - which Jesus was - is
an abomination. That is why I am careful. I do not wish to offend the
Creator by worshiping someone who isn't supposed to be God. It is the
same with nature worship. How ridiculous is it to worship the creation
as a substitute or otherwise for the true Creator? If I were God I
wouldn't be nearly so lenient as He is. I would be very angry at the
ingratitude of ignoring what I, the giver of life, did. It's fortunate
that I am not God. As for Jesus (Yeshua, Jehoshua, whatever), I don't
think he played himself as the Messiah. Perhaps he was a messiah like
Moses, King David, and other important biblical figures, but not the
Messiah. Over the millennia there have been changes in the New
Testament. It has mysteriously been the nature of those scribes who made
new copies of the Christian writings to "clarify" things by
substituting a more suitable word in passages which the scribe thought
might be unclear. One of my favorites is the gospel of John. There Jesus
is constantly referred to as the son of God. Unfortunately, they found a
piece of an older text which instead said the son of man. Many changes
can be demonstrated throughout the New Testament - even that entire
writings were removed or added according to the theology of the day. It
is sad that this happened but it is wonderful that God gave us reasoning
and means to find out that our beliefs sometimes need to change because
of new evidence. It is certain that Jesus really existed, contrary to
the teachings of those who are angry at Him. I saw a text that awakened
me to the fact that Constantine, whom I call the real father of the
modern church, had a number of copies of the Christian writings of his
day sent to him and it made me wonder just how many of the changes were
done under his rule. Some parts of the gospels show Jesus to be very
Jewish which he was. In other parts it is difficult to detect any Jewish
background in the text. How much was true and how much was embellished
with Roman religious traditions? There is really no way to know all the
details. How many of the things Jesus said and taught were embellished
by the zealous followers? How many didn't really happen? There is no way
to know. In my research I have come to the following conclusions (which
are still subject to change). There is a God. There was a Jesus. I think
he was a rabbi, a great teacher. I think he was quoted in Jewish
writings with a little embellishment as was needed. Jesus was certainly
a Jew and seemed to be aligned with the Pharisees for the most part. I
always hold onto the possibility that I might be wrong and that Jesus
really was God in the flesh. Once presented with the evidence I need to
piece things together I could change my mind at a moment's notice. I do
not hate or even dislike Jesus. In fact, his speeches are some of the
text of the Bible that I read and contemplate the most. Some of his
teachings don't sound very Jewish and I attribute that to the Romans who
first condemned the church, then rebuilt it. I don't think he was here
to help everyone, only to get the leaders of Judaism back in line. That
is why the leaders had the Romans to kill him. It wasn't the people but
the leaders. I think that God requires one thing of us as Isaiah said -
He sees what is in our hearts. That is what determines our destiny, not
fear. Fear was incorporated into Christianity in its early days and
thereafter to keep followers in line. Now look at what a mess there is.
When I talk to Christians, I talk in their language as much as I can
because it is important that they understand what I am saying and
compare it to what they believe. What one believes is a difficult thing
to change, especially when there is fire and brimstone involved. As for
the story of Jesus, there are many who say that his virgin birth and
other events came from other sources. That may or may not be true but I
marvel that his story is condemned as if it were impossible for
something to happen because someone made up a similar story first. The
factor that I think is being left out is that God is supposed to be One
who made the story reality and often does things that we imagined before
they actually happened. I still don't know the answer. |
To be continued ...
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