© 1998 Ann Bendall
© 1998 The Brotherhood of Man Library
A small, select population abounds this earth who take offence to the word, “God.”
To these people belief in God is viewed as being puerile. But if you listen to their challenge, the word “God” is argued against as if designating a concept rather than a personality. On being questioned though, God deniers affirm that they reject both the concept and the personality images. However, I’m never quite sure if they are rejecting:
Such people will challenge God’s existence in terms that convey a total lack of understanding of the primacy of mortal will.
As I strain my ears to listen, it is as if they are violently rejecting Moses’ God but cannot conceive of Jesus’ God. And this is acceptable to me, for if we judge by another’s actions rather than their words, Jesus’ God ended up by being Moses’ God. After all, he did let his blameless son die on the cross instead of saving him! Or, alternatively, not even contemplating saving him! Then this God actually demanded that Jesus should become the sacrificial lamb, a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins!
Let’s face it, if this was the only way we could be forgiven, God does not impress as anything other than to be feared. So is it not unfortunate that the Jesus’ God who is Love, the God we discover in the Gospel and letters of John, was transformed into Moses’ God through the symbolic debacle associated with the Pauline interpretation of the crucifixion?
With such God deniers, should we declare as Jesus did, “This man was not hungry for the truth,” (UB 132:7.2) while feeling so delightfully smug at our “doing as Jesus did.” Or perhaps we should strive to add to the knowledge that they already have, serving them “spiritual food in attractive form” (UB 133:4.2) when they appear to provide us with no basis upon which to add to?
To “add to” requires first that we attempt to understand such people. Many who deny the existence of God are actually denying the Church which, on Urantia, a long time ago claimed patent, copyright, and propriety right to God. (Any novice in history can identify that, almost from its beginnings, the Church became so politically and socially enmeshed in human affairs that it appeared to forget, or to rank as low priority, its role as spiritual sustainer and upholder.)
With these god-denying people we could challenge the possibility that they may be throwing out the baby (due respect, beloved Father) with the bath water. However, be warned, modern ‘intelligent’ people take offence to any suggestion that their ideas have not been formulated except with the deepest of introspection.
Next, before relegating our god-denying brothers and sisters to the “not ready for the truth” category, we must acknowledge that the major difference between us 20th century mortals and those of Jesus’ times, is that all folks capable of a moral decision now have a Thought Adjuster. So whether or not they wish to deny the existence of God is purely of semantic value, for all such people appear to be fully aware that there does exist something we might term “peace within.”
These folk are also aware that when they seem to lose this sense of peace, they also lose “joy in life.”
I am firmly convinced that if they can regain this sense of “inner peace,” accompanied by its attendant sense of “joy of life,” then it means that the pathway to their superconscious has become decongested thus making the formidable task of their Thought Adjuster a little easier.
Consequently (if it does not challenge or offend them), I feel comfortable in identifying God by a name acceptable to them such as “peace within”—which thus provides the basis of further additions.
Ironically, most of this population of God-deniers usually hold an inordinate amount of superstitious beliefs. They often believe in predestination on a day by day basis; they are quite partial to fortune telling, tarot card readings, talking to spirits, etc.
While our God-deniers may be highly capable of scathing and well thought out arguments against the existence of God, often based upon the historical hypocrisy of the church, they accept superstitious beliefs without question or analysis!
To date, having been quite unable to formulate an acceptable hypothesis to explain such illogical beliefs, I fall back upon the Melchizedek’s statement, “evolutionary religion is sentimental, not logical.” (UB 92:4.3)
There is another population born of the demise in popularity of the traditional Western churches that occurred in the fifties. This appeared to accompany the secular explosion, and naturally the Pentecostal -type movements gained popularity in such an environment. Was this the forerunner of the age of rank individuality that commenced in the early 70’s and now has become a sophisticated art? I do not know.
Anyway, people really caught onto this “ask in Jesus’ name and I guarantee you’ll get it” concept. Jesus became a sort of Aladdin’s lamp. People started praying for whatever they wanted with the sublime confidence that they could ask for anything at all in Jesus’ name and he was bound to give it to them.
Why? Well they gleaned enough of Jesus to figure that he was a man of high moral fiber. Consequently he would hardly be the type to go back on his word. And I guess they considered that God sure did owe Jesus something for the rough times he had put him through.
Outside of the Pentecostal churches amongst the Western masses, the primacy of the individual was being exalted while the basic social unit upon which civilization stands, the family, was being destroyed in the process. Individuality came to mean independence, and rank independence negates the possibility of forming effective teams or groups.
And so, as the Pentecostals were praying to Jesus for goodies, the “primacy of the individual” adherents were chanting their affirmations and extolling the virtues of positive thinking. You simply had to ask and the “universe” would provide. All you had to do was to be the epitome of positivity, and whatever was requested was yours.
Alas, in this age with its heavy emphasis on education of the masses, it appears that, with education, we stifled the ability to think deeply!
These god-usurper philosophies have in common that the individual is the center, the controller of their universe—or would be if their thinking was positive enough. But, in the end, such God-usurpers have either to deny God’s existence or depose him to a position of subservience to their wills. Curiously, the latter position is the actual one that our Thought Adjuster does occupy.
Unfortunately the god-usurper philosophy does not stop there. A position at the center of the universe poses major societal problems because we can’t all be at the center. So what happens if it appears that one person has got it all. Jealousy, envy, and disillusionment are the result. Someone else occupies our rightful place, so maybe we have not been positive enough, or maybe Jesus is not that person of high moral fiber that we thought him to be.
At times, in brief moments of despair, as I watch our civilization crumbling, I gain solace from Psalm 12. I look at all the activity, the inventions, the amorality, the materialistic thinking, and those fine intellects with not a shred of philosophy in their memory banks.
In such moments, I feel relief that, despite the cry of the prophet, “Help, O Lord, for there is no longer anyone who is godly,” it remains a fact that, though uttered such a long time ago, we have survived.
Sure a few civilizations might have come and gone, but we, the human race, have made progress. But have we? The only real progress is because, through the grace of God, Jesus did come to this planet.
To the Pentecostals and the individualists, I find difficulty in adding anything of value to them. They appear to be a population who will not be open to additional truth at least until they have experienced disillusionment. But why should they listen to mere me? They are the center of their universe. And why would they want to downgrade their position?
Western opinion polls reveal that between 80 and 90% of people believe in God. Of the God-believers I have met, most will say without question, “I believe in God but I don’t go to Church.”
The latter comment is said by way of an apology which they seek to clarify by adding, “I feel I don’t have to go to Church, it’s as if God is everywhere, as well as within me. . . but I feel him more when in contact with nature.”
Then there are the real thinkers who affirm, “I know God is inside me, but I don’t like to say this to people because it sounds as if I am saying that I am God, and I’m not. . . I know what I mean and what I feel but it is hard to put it into words.”
My heart sings when I meet such people. I am so grateful to God and Jesus, that Jesus decided to come down here, and that the world is far from that writer of Psalm 12. I do live in a different time, a time when most people have God within them, and know it. They pray lovely personal prayers, they have a truly honest personal relationship. But many get stuck on a sense of guilt that in their occupying of God’s time, they are taking him away from the more needy.
To such people, I suggest that they look at the beauty of a butterfly, and explore its life cycle. I then suggest that no human could concoct such a creation. Hence, the mind of God must be infinitely and incomprehensibly superior to ours. And so it is conceivable to me that he can, at one and the same time, keep the stars in alignment, control gravity so planets do not crash into each other, and be within each and every person, helping at their request, giving to each their fill.
And if a person philosophically postulates, “I wonder what God wants of me other than loving him, I suggest that maybe if we look to the most perfect person to ever walk this earth, Jesus, and strive to adopt his philosophy and beliefs, maybe that might be good for starters. I also offer a qualifier that I have to search carefully for his words in the Bible, but have found another book which I find invaluable.”
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
Henry Adams