Religious Beliefs
Is God in control?
Is the bible the only source of learning God's will?
Is organized religion what Jesus had in mind?
I grew up in a very religiously active home. I learned a lot of facts. If you ever play "bible trivia" you would want me on your team. As a young adult, I was very fundamental, with a strong mix of idealism and the belief that perfection was possible.
I began to shed those early beliefs as I gave myself permission to ask questions.
As you may have noticed on my other belief and opinion pages, I do not agree with the majority on most topics. Religious beliefs are no exception.
With that said, let's take a look at some of the big questions.
Is God in control?
No way.
If God was in control, Lucifer would not have rebelled.
If God was in control, Adam and Eve would not have sinned.
If God was in control, his own "chosen people" would not murder. Terrorists would not blow themselves and entire buildings of people up in his name.
If God was in control, we would all do what he tells us to do.
If God was in control, there would be no need for the Ten Commandments.
If God was in control, we would all be nice to each other. We wouldn't lie. We wouldn't cheat. We wouldn't steal. We wouldn't kill.
If God was in control, this world would be a much friendlier place to live.
If he was in control, we wouldn't have so many arguments about religion!
Clearly, he is not in control in any normal definition of the word.
Some people say, "He is in control of my life if I let him take control." WHAT? If he is in control, then it wouldn't be up to you to give him permission to take over. In fact, that is a classic oxymoron. If someone is in control, then you are not "letting" them do anything by choice. Control is be the opposite of choice and free will.
The religious world is full of people who observe a crash that kills all but one of the passengers, and they conclude, "God must have a plan for the survivor!" WHAT? Of course he has a plan for the survivor. But he also had plans for the victims that were killed...and it wasn't premature death.
Why do people make these kind of observations?
Because human beings desperately want to see themselves as under God's control...to be "on his side." The way they do that is to view everything through their human eyes and assign God's role in all of it.
If a bad thing happens, "He is testing us..." or "He must have a plan for this tragedy to teach us something..."
If a good thing happens, "God is so kind and loving to have performed this miracle..."
Most human beings cannot even consider the thought that God is not in control. Yet, there is not any historical support for this thesis.
Rather, I maintain that that was Lucifer's very claim: "God, you are not fair. You don't give people free choice. You control." To which God essentially answered, "Oh yeah, watch this." And here we are...a world of people with free choice...and all the good and ugly possibilities that go with it.
God is not a micro-manager. He is not a puppeteer, controlling our movements and decisions with strings.
Rather, God created us in his image, with cognitive ability to think, to learn, to apply, and to take responsibility for our own choices. We reap what we sew...and unfortunately, we also reap what a lot of other people sew. That is why God does not stop drunk drivers from killing innocent people. If he were in control, he would.
God is NOT in control of our choices. We are.
And we cannot pass this control to him because he won't take it from us.
We are responsible for everything except our salvation...and even that is not forced on us.
Is the bible the only source of learning God's will?
How did it become "the" bible? Why are many of the world's religions based on this single book, yet differ in theology so much? Why does one religious group of people kill another religious group of people, and both of them base their beliefs on the bible?
And how did those various writings that span thousands of years, end up in the same book that has become "the" only source of so many religions? Common assumptions are that somehow all those manuscripts were physically put together by God. Those people are surprised to learn that a committee of men selected some manuscripts to be included and others were rejected.
God did not write any of the 66 books of the bible. He could have. His instructions could be like a big computer screen in the sky...a "read only" document that we humans cannot change. Why didn't he do it that way? It sure would have cleared a lot of things up.
The bible is a compilation of stories, letters, and beliefs, often told and re-told over a period of hundreds of years, then written down by someone who eventually had the education and writing skills to do so. There is a lot of room in that sequence for the teller's, reteller's, and writer's perceptions and beliefs to influence their understanding.
In addition to that, the bible is subject to the READER'S perceptions and beliefs. Consider the story of Joseph and Pharaoh and the Great Famine. I'll bet you have always heard that story as a demonstration that God is in control...that he "caused" the brothers to sell him into slavery, that he "caused" Pharaoh's wife to lie about him and get him thrown into prison, that he "caused" the 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine, that he "caused" Joseph's brothers to come bow down to Joseph. Did you notice how easy it was to read that he "caused" the famine? What a costly thing to force on the people of Egypt just to reunite Joseph with his family. There is another way to read these stories. Click here for more about the lessons from the story of the famine.
In fact, the bible is full of contradictions. It certainly isn't a "how to" life guide. We don't stone people any more. We don't restrict women from speaking in church. And we don't go out and kill people who dare to occupy our land. (OK, some people still do that, but we know it is wrong.)
Those who claim to believe in the bible do not do everything the bible says. Literalists pick and choose because they know that some of the things that God's people did are archaic and wrong.
So, if you are willing to accept that the bible is not the "only" word of God, that it is subject to the writer's and reader's perceptions and beliefs, then let's ask if it is a reliable source of God's will. I know, that is a blasphemous question to many. But don't pick up any stones yet. Consider the following.
I believe that God created us to think, to choose, to decide, to have a free will. That means he will NOT control us. He will not overrule us. He will let us form our opinions. He will even let us write those down and show them to others.
The bible writers were humans. They were subject to all the influences and perceptions that affected every human of their day.
In fact, that has not changed. Today's news is full of reports of people who see the same things, but describe them differently. This is especially true relative to one's political beliefs. It colors the way we see things, the way we report them, and the way we write them down. It seeps into our history books, into the way we teach our children, and ultimately becomes the foundation of their belief filters. To the degree that we are still susceptible to perceptions, it was all the more true in bible times when they did not have instant communication and cameras.
The truth does not matter. What matters is what we THINK the truth is.
That is one of my favorite statements, and it makes a great discussion. In fact, the bible includes many examples of people who believed something only to find out it wasn't true at all.
The bible is a historical review of the world as they saw and experienced it. The old testament is full of man-made messes. Interestingly, the people making the mess saw themselves as guided, if not controlled by God. So that is how they wrote it down. You will notice that the bible does not critically evaluate its own stories. It just tells them. If there is any commentary about the old testament in the bible, it was by Jesus who repeatedly interpreted the old testament in a way that astounded and angered the so-called scholars of his day. It is no wonder that the people of his day did not understand him.
Consider the disciples.
These men spent direct time with Jesus. They watched him interact with people. They listened to his sermons. They watched him heal people.
Yet, they didn't get it. They didn't understand what he was all about. Right up to the "last supper" they were arguing over who would sit where...clearly thinking he was about to set up an earthly kingdom.
Of course that is what they thought. They thought that was the teaching of "the bible" which is what we now refer to as the Old Testament. Each story created an expectation that affected the perception of the person who told and retold, and then wrote the next story. By the time Jesus came along, everyone understood the Messiah to be a human being that would bring them back into power in their region.
Even after Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and spent more time with them, the disciples still needed a reminder of what the Messiah was all about. That reminder is contained in John 14: 1 to 3.
What happened after he ascended and left them to their own free will? See the next section.
Is organized religion what Jesus had in mind?
By the time Jesus came along, people had spent about 4,000 years completely misunderstanding what God had in mind. They had screwed up the concepts of love and service. They had developed an organized religion that sought to control people, and to establish its own rating system. It was all about the church. Only the church leaders could decide what was right and wrong. And the people went along with it. There is something deep within us that seeks a power stronger than ourselves. We are willing accomplices in giving the church its power over us. And we all know that, "...power doth corrupt"!!!
Jesus blew that model up. He scolded the church, and even cleared the people out of one of the buildings because they had turned it into a business...effectively charging people to attend and making the purveyors rich in the process. We would never do such a thing today...would we?
While Jesus demonstrated sweet compassion to individuals of all beliefs and those who were clearly sinners, he did not hold back his scorn of what organized religion had done to insert itself in between God and man.
Organized religion has been responsible for a lot of bad things in this world.
- Most of the wars and atrocities that have ever been fought have been in the name of God or some misguided belief that they are carrying out God's will. The bible is full of that kind of behavior. We should know better as we have all that history from which to learn.
- Organized religion routinely charges those who disagree with its teachings with blasphemy. Religion doesn't have the confidence to accept questions and differing views.
- Organized religion believes it is ordained and authorized by God. That is a blatantly self- aggrandizing view...to claim to be chosen by God to lead "his" people. No wonder it can't tolerate disent.
- Most religious pollute the gospel by claiming sinners have to be something they are not before God accepts them.
Jesus demonstrated how to understand the bible of his day. When questioned by the appointed church leaders about his views of various rules, he quoted the bible and then followed that with something like, "But there is a bigger truth...you have to apply cognitive reasoning and not get hung up on the narrow definition." He told people they should love their enemies too. WHAT? How absurd could he be? But that was Jesus. He was absurd, compared to the accepted norms of his day.
Organized religion is a man-made institution. God is no more in control of an organized religion than he is of an individual. It only took a few months after Jesus ascended for the disciples to start their own organized religion.
If Jesus had wanted that, he would have told them, "The current religion is wrong. I want you to start another one with the following rules and procedures." But that is not what he told them to do.
To be sure, their new "Christian" religion was their idea...a human compulsion to rule and to be ruled. Paul, the most celebrated missionary and bible scholar spent most of his ministry traveling around and setting up organized churches, and then writing letters to them trying to settle petty arguments about their rules. Should women cover their heads. Should they be able to speak in church? Is eating meat that is offered to idols OK? What about slaves?
The arguments were so severe that the early church has eventually fractured into hundreds of religions that have all kinds of conflicting doctrines. Each denomination believes it is "the" only correct church. What a mess.
Things haven't changed much over the years. Today's churches are consumed with petty arguments, and are still spinning off new branches.
In my opinion, organized religion's worst offense, then and now, is that it inserts itself between God and man. It becomes the gateway through which it asks people to pass in order to qualify for heaven. Oh, I know, that is not their formal position. But it is the effective result of the way it conducts itself.
Jesus could have written a book with his own hand to clear everything up. But he didn't. Just like God didn't write the bible in the sky.
And that brings us full-circle.
God is NOT in control. He does not want to control us. He does not ask us to give up our free will. We wants us to choose him...freely and willingly. It is Satan who says that God is in control...that he doesn't let us choose. But God created us in his image...with the cognitive ability to think, to discern, to learn. What for, if not to choose? And, he holds us accountable for those choices.
We reap what we sow. Unfortunately, because we are in this mess together, sometimes we reap what others sow. But fortunately, the one thing he will do for us is grant us the grace we don't deserve. It is already done. That is an amazing thing! It is now our privilege to share that kind of graceful interaction with others.
The bible is NOT the only source of learning God's will and desire for us. In fact, it is a flawed book written by flawed people who perceived the world around them through their significantly smudged glasses. We need to do what Jesus did...to consider the principles and look for the larger application. That is a much more compelling challenge than the minimums in the 10 Commandments and other passages.
Organized religion is NOT established by God or Jesus. It is man-made, and should not be given more power than that. Worshiping together is a wonderful thing, but not when it becomes exclusive and judgmental.
More to come...
Marketplace Realities: How to always be AHEAD of the marketplace.
Is college worth the cost? How to get a LOT more out of it.
The ideal job description: You can write your own.
Political Realities: Who is right and who is left.
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