Many of the people who say that they know What God Wants are killing us. It is not lack of knowing What God Wants that is hurting us, it is thinking that we know without a doubt. Therein lies real danger.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Over the next half year of Sundays, from June until Christmas, I am going to be posting excerpts here from the book What God Wants, and commenting upon them. I invite you to comment upon them as well, in the space provided below. Then, I will comment on your comments. And you can comment on mine. It is time, I think, that we had a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion of this important topic. It is time for all of humanity to have this discussion. Because humanity’s beliefs about God, and about what God wants, are driving the engine of the human experience.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Last week in this space I said that humanity does not understand What God Wants.
This Sunday I say, consider this: If humanity does understand What God Wants, and if the present world situation is the best that humanity can do after all these years with that information, how much hope can there be for a brighter tomorrow?
If we really know everything that it is truly important to know about God–and if all that has been revealed, all that has been taught, all that has been said and sung about God has brought humanity to this, then what good has all of it been?
Yet if there is something new for us to learn, something more for us to understand about God, then it’s still possible for the human condition to change. Hope returns. Not hope for something better in the Hereafter, when life as we’ve known it on the earth has been destroyed, but hope for something better right here right now, before everything has been destroyed.
That hope cannot be realized, however, until some very important questions are asked and answered.

Is it true that humanity is utterly stubborn, completely unwilling and absolutely unable to overcome its most primitive instincts? Or is it possible that there is still some teaching left to be done, some data still missing, some important aspect of God and Life still not understood?
Could it be that the problem is not with the receivers of the information, but with the information itself?
Could it be that humanity’s understanding of God and of Life is not so much “wrong” as it is simply incomplete?
Finally, is it time for humanity to throw open the door to inquiry about God in a new way?
For far too long the world’s discussion about God has been moving in only one direction, led in the main by those who say that we understand all there is that’s really important for us to understand about God, and who assert that humanity’s problems are not caused by human beings who fail to understand, but by human beings who fail to act on their understanding.
This is a popular notion, but it’s a misconception. Just the opposite has been true. It has been people who did act on what they understood about God who have caused many of our biggest problems.
These are people who thought they knew What God Wants.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who created the 200 years of the Christian Crusades and the horrors of the Inquisition, seeking to win the world for Christianity.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who told armies of Muslims to send marauders far and wide to conquer every land and culture and bring it under the Nation of Islam.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who called themselves the Chosen People and reclaimed land they declared to be originally their own, ignoring the fact that history had caused it to be inhabited for thousands of years by others, and telling those others to now leave portions of that land, and to live when and how they are told to live, as second class citizens without equal rights in their own home.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who hanged men and women in town squares, and burned others at the stake, holding up the Good Book and declaring them to be witches.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who passed laws making it illegal for humans of differing races to marry, or for consenting adults to engage in certain sexual practices.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who created cultural prohibitions forbidding people to sing or dance, draw pictures of any person, or play music of any kind except sacred songs.
It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who said that it was not okay to even utter or write the name of G-D–but that it was okay to kill in G-D’s name.
Is all of this really What God Wants?
Are you sure?
It is important to be sure, because we are not talking about a small thing here.
(This series of excepts from What God Wants continues in this space next Sunday.)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Over the next half year of Sundays, from June until Christmas, I am going to be posting excerpts here from the book What God Wants, and commenting upon them. I invite you to comment upon them as well, in the space provided below. Then, I will comment on your comments. And you can comment on mine. It is time, I think, that we had a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion of this important topic. It is time for all of humanity to have this discussion. Because humanity’s beliefs about God, and about what God wants, are driving the engine of the human experience.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =