{"id":115,"date":"2007-11-03T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-03T01:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/11\/what-some-have-been-taught-abo.html"},"modified":"2007-11-03T01:01:01","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T01:01:01","slug":"what-some-have-been-taught-abo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/11\/what-some-have-been-taught-abo.html","title":{"rendered":"What Some Have Been Taught About God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a quick survey of some of the things many people have been told by their ancestors, by their parents, by their teachers and by other authority figures in their lives, about What God Wants.
\nIt may be tough for some of you to get through this survey. Please do it anyway.
\nThese passed-on messages have created the here-and-now views, ideas and experiences of millions of people who at least loosely adhere to, or live in cultures which have been deeply affected by, the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the big three of the world\u2019s organized religions. Some of these teachings also became a part of other religions. The result of this is that a huge portion of the world\u2019s people have been exposed to these ideas and deeply affected by them.
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\nNOTE: Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Openings.<\/em>
\nThis week’s prose…an excerpt from Communion with God<\/em>…<\/strong>
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\nLet\u2019s take the most obvious topics first.<\/p>\n

GOD\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for humans to understand that God is the Supreme Being, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Giver of Life, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Wise Beyond Human Understanding.
\nGod is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the Unmoved Mover, separate from humanity, but the creator of it in His own image. Separate from life, but the Creator of it, as His gift to humanity.
\nMost humans have been told that God is a single God, a unified God, the Only God there is. The word Allah means, literally, the God. Some humans have been told that this One God is divided into Three Parts, one of which became human. Some humans have been told that there is more than one God. And some humans have been told that there is no God at all. The majority of humans in the Twenty-First Century believe in a God of some sort.
\nMost of those who do believe in God have been told that What God Wants is Love and Justice.
\nTo fulfill the first mandate, God has granted each human being ample and repeated opportunity to be reconciled with Him.
\nTo fulfill the second mandate, God, at the end of each human life, sits in Judgment of every human soul, deciding at this Reckoning whether the soul has earned everlasting reward in Heaven or everlasting damnation in Hell.
\nMost humans have been told that God is a jealous God, God is a vengeful God, God is an angry God who can be filled with wrath and who uses violence directly on human beings\u2014and who invites and even commands human beings to do so on each other.
\nThey\u2019ve also been told that God is a caring God, a compassionate God, a merciful God, a loving God who wants nothing but the best for human beings. All that humans have to do is obey Him.
\nIt\u2019s easy for humans to know how to obey God because God has told humans exactly what to do and what not to do. It\u2019s all there in Sacred Scripture. It can be found also in the words and in the teaching of God\u2019s personal representative on earth.
\nThese are the beliefs of much of humanity.
\nOne result of this teaching: Many human beings are afraid of God. They also love God. So, many humans confuse fear and love, seeing them as connected in some way. Where God is concerned, we love to be afraid (we have made it a virtue to be \u201cGod fearing\u201d), and we are afraid not to love (we are commanded to \u201cLove the Lord thy God with all thy mind, all thy heart, and all thy soul\u201d).
\nHumans fear what God will do to them if they do not obey Him. They have been told He will punish them with everlasting torment. Many human beings therefore rely heavily on their understanding of God\u2019s word and God\u2019s desires and what meets God\u2019s approval when regulating their lives, interpreting situations or events, and making decisions.
\nWhen U. S. President George W. Bush was asked if he ever sought the advice of his father, the first President Bush, he replied that he sought counsel from \u201ca higher Father.\u201d When the then new spiritual leader of Hamas, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, delivered a speech at Gaza\u2019s Islamic University in March, 2004, he told those assembled that “God declared war” against America, Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Rantisi added, \u201cThe war of God continues against them and I can see the victory coming up from the land of Palestine by the hand of Hamas.\u201d
\nTwo weeks later Rantisi was dead, killed by an Israeli rocket attack on his car.
\nEarlier it was said, \u201cHumanity\u2019s ideas about God produce humanity\u2019s ideas about life and about people.\u201d
\nThis is painfully clear. This is painfully obvious.<\/p>\n

GOD\u2019S WORD AND GOD\u2019S MESSENGER\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for God\u2019s Word to be recognized as being contained in the Holy Scriptures and Sacred Texts, and for God\u2019s Messenger to be honored and listened to and followed.
\nThere are many Holy Scriptures and Sacred Texts, including the Adi Granth, the Bhagavad-gita, the Book of Mormon, the Hadith, the I Ching, the Kojiki, the Lun-y\u00fc, the Mahabharata, the Mathnawi, the New Testament, the Pali Canon, the Qur\u2019an, the Tao-te Ching, the Talmud, the Torah, the Upanishad, the Veda, and the Yoga-sutras, to name a few. Many humans have been told that only one of these texts is the right one. The rest are wrong. If you choose the teachings of the \u201cwrong\u201d one, you\u2019ll go to hell.
\nThere are many Messengers, including…<\/p>\n


\n…Noah, Abraham, Moses, Confucius, Siddartha Gautama (who has been called The Buddha), Jesus of Nazareth (who has been called The Savior), Muhammad (who has been called The Greatest Prophet), Patanjai (who has been called The Enlightened One), Baha\u2019u\u2019llah (who has been called the Blessed One), Jalal al-Din Rumi, (who has been called the Mystic), Paramahansa Yogananda (who has been called the Master), Joseph Smith (who has been called many things), and others. Many humans have been told that only one of these messengers is the right one. The rest are wrong. If you choose the message of the \u201cwrong\u201d one, you\u2019ll go to hell.
\nOne result of this teaching: Human beings have been trying to figure out which is the right text and who is the right messenger for thousands of years. The followers of certain messengers and the believers in certain texts have sought to convince the rest of the world that the messenger and text of their persuasion is the only one to which people should turn.
\nOn many occasions throughout history these attempts at conversion have turned violent. There has scarcely been a day on this planet when a battle has not been fought or a human being not killed in the name of God, or for God\u2019s Cause.
\nThe Holy Scriptures of all major religions indicate that vanquishing, punishing and killing is something that God Himself has repeatedly done, and so vanquishing, punishing and killing in God\u2019s name and in the name of God\u2019s Messenger is acceptable and, in some circumstances, required.
\nThis is, many of the world\u2019s people believe, What God Wants.<\/p>\n

HEAVEN AND HELL\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for people to live good lives, and for good people to go to Heaven or Paradise after their deaths, while bad people go to Hell, Gehenna, or Hades. Those in Heaven will live in unending bliss in reunion with God and those in Hell will live with other evildoers who have been damned to eternal torture. Where each individual soul goes will be decided at the Reckoning on Judgment Day.
\nSome humans have been told that hell is a temporary experience during which sinners are tormented by demons until the debt created by the evil of their lives has been paid, while others have been informed that hell is but a phase in a soul\u2019s journey as it passes through many experiences of reincarnation.
\nOne result of this teaching: Millions of people have structured their entire lives around the struggle to avoid \u201cgoing to hell\u201d and around the hope of \u201cgetting to heaven.\u201d They have done extraordinary and sometimes shocking things to produce this outcome.
\nThe concept of heaven and hell has shaped not only their behavior, but their entire understanding of life itself. It has also shaped human history.<\/p>\n

LIFE\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for life to be a school, a place of learning, a time of testing, a brief and precious opportunity to migrate the soul back to heaven, back to God, whence it came.
\nMany humans have also been told that it\u2019s when life ends that the real joy begins. All of life should be considered a prelude, a forerunner, a platform upon which is built the soul\u2019s experience of eternity. Life should therefore be led with an eye toward the Afterlife, for what is earned now will be experienced forever.
\nMost humans also believe that What God Wants is for people to understand that life consists of what people can see, hear, taste, touch and smell\u2014and nothing more.
\nOne result of this teaching: Humans believe that life is not easy, nor is it supposed to be. It\u2019s a constant struggle. In this struggle, anything other than what is perceived by the five senses is considered \u201csupernatural\u201d or \u201coccult\u201d and falls, therefore, into the category of \u201ctrafficking with the Devil\u201d and \u201cthe work of Satan.\u201d
\nHumans are struggling to get back to God, and into God\u2019s good graces. They are struggling to get back home. This is what life is about. It\u2019s about the struggle of the soul, living within the body, to get back home, to return to God, from Whom it has been separated.
\nMost people of religious persuasion focus heavily on Heaven and Hell. Those who believe that \u201cgetting to Heaven\u201d is the ultimate Purpose of Life, and who truly and fervently believe that they can guarantee their entrance into Heaven by doing certain things while on earth, will, of course, seek to do those things.
\nThey\u2019ll make sure that their sins are confessed regularly, and that their absolutions are up to date, so that if they die suddenly their soul will be ready for Judgment Day. They\u2019ll fast for hours, days, or weeks at a time, travel on pilgrimages to distant holy places, go to church or temple or mosque or synagogue every week without fail, tithe 10% of their income, eat or not eat certain foods, wear or not wear certain clothing, say or not say certain words, and engage in all manner of rites and rituals.
\nThey\u2019ll obey the rules of their religion, honor the customs of their faith tradition, and follow the instructions of their spiritual leaders in order to demonstrate to God that they are a worthy person, so that a place will be reserved for them in Paradise.
\nIf they are distressed enough and oppressed enough and unhappy enough, some humans will even end their own lives and kill other people\u2014including the totally innocent and the absolutely unsuspecting\u2014for the promise of a reward in heaven.
\n(If that promised reward happens to be 72 black-eyed virgins with whom to spend all of eternity, and if the humans in question happen to be 18 to 30-year-old men with little future and a dust-laden, poverty stricken, injustice-filled present, the chances of their making such an extraordinarily destructive decision will increase tenfold.)
\nThey\u2019ll do this because they believe this is What God Wants.
\nBut is it?
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\nThis week’s gift of poetry<\/em>
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\nWhile You were out,
\nmany things transpired.
\nA sky was born.
\nLove & Laughter married.
\nTen Thousand suns were birthed.
\nI awoke, a Butterfly.
\nMy wings burst into song.
\nAnd I even changed my name,
\nWhile You were out.
\nPlanets began to dance, my Love,
\nAnd all colors traded hues.
\nStars turned themselves into ocean bottoms;
\nGrasshoppers, into Gazelles,
\nAnd I left the earth
\nand returned
\nCourageous
\nAll, while You were out.
\n(While You Were Out – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For more of the work of this new American poet, go to www.mclairepoet.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a quick survey of some of the things many people have been told by their ancestors, by their parents, by their teachers and by other authority figures in their lives, about What God Wants. It may be tough for some of you to get through this survey. Please do it anyway. 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