Deep Thoughts About God

And Yet Still More Random Thoughts

Buddhism ...

Firstly and this is really what I think, I have the utmost respect for anyone who believes they have a relationship with God / a god (small G) / gods plural, (small G again) / creator being. Or who are seeking 'enlightenment'.

Because I know how intense my relationship with God is in those private things that no-one else knows about, you know? And if others however misguided are seeking that spiritual depth then I have all the time in the world for them. I would prefer that they believe as I do, because my beliefs are based on the fact that everything else is wrong. Christ IS the only way to salvation.

But at least they are thinking about it ...

The Church is very very very broad. And yet we have one fundamental belief that is held throughout the Christian Church - No its not the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, nor the Virgin birth, the supremacy of God, the Authority of God in our lives .... It is not even the all sufficiency of Christ. No Above all things the One thing that almost all Christians would claim is that they are right in their beliefs.

Let’s clarify that a bit – It’s not the church that is right, it’s not the local church that they belong to that is right - THEY are right. Just yesterday I heard a speaker talking about the Pharisee that prayed 'Thank God I'm not a Gentile, a slave or a woman' and I can imagine that there were many in that congregation that have at some time and in many permutations said something like 'Thank God I'm not a Charismatic, Baptist or a Catholic! (or whatever.)

About ten years ago the Toronto Blessing was all the rage here in the UK. And my church is firmly in the cerebral no excitable camp (we are only just now getting the hang of clapping the children with an occasional smattering when we sing "we want to see Jesus lifted high") Anyway, I and a friend traveled to Oxford to a small independent church and got done. Slain in the spirit.... I have no idea of your feelings on such things, but actually I found it all rather exciting. It certainly made a change to what I was used to.

I wish I had kept my mouth shut.

An absolute torrent of books and leaflets poured through my letter box, I was taken aside by those older in the faith for fatherly or motherly advice, about the perils and wiles of the devil - I was even watched when I led the Sunday School. It was mad! Eventually I was 'invited' to tea with the Elders ... Where I agreed, reluctantly 2 hours later,(ummm) that I had made an 'error in judgment'.

It’s with some pride (chuckling) that I have been to 'tea' with the Elders five or six times in eighteen years ... That's a lot. Jesus was a radical, a thorn in flesh of the establishment - we should be too. I privately wonder if ironically we haven't become the Pharisees for the 21st century.

As for Buddhism directly…

While I have been writing this one of the guys, Phillip, I pray with on a regular basis has called and we had a long chat about it, which has helped get my thoughts together.

There are some similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. We are both seeking enlightenment, for us its salvation, indwelling of the Holy Spirit and knowledge of God. Redemption. Propitiation (deflecting God's righteous wrath on to Christ).

For the Buddhist they too seek enlightenment - but it’s a random chaotic thing. Enlightenment is to be sought but it cannot necessarily be found. It just happens. Whether you’re seeking for 20 minutes or twenty years the chance of you discovering enlightenment is the same. Chaos rules in the sense that because the universe is in a constant state of flux there is no need for guilt or redemption because you are simply responding to the circumstance of the moment and anything could happen. We are just victims of fate - if fate existed, which of course it doesn't because then there would be order to the universe and someone of something to order it ...

Phillip and I came to the conclusion that it is possible perhaps to be a Christian with Buddhist sympathies. But not a Buddhist Christian.

I was raised Catholic, and when I was Catholic I was Catholic all the way. I believed that everyone should be Catholic and if they weren’t, they were wrong. I became “saved” after that and I went to a Southern Baptist church for many, many years, and when I was Southern Baptist I thought everyone who wasn’t a Christian was going to Hell. I’ve been to Presbyterian churches and Methodist churches and even Buddhist temples, and I’ve had to stop thinking in terms of who is right and who is wrong, because the truth is that everyone is wrong, in a sense.

Everyone of every faith is trying to understand the Mind of God, even the Buddhist who has no Name for Him except perhaps for some vague notion of “enlightenment”. And as we seek Him, we have to be open to the possibilities He reveals to us. In a sense, I can say “Thank God I’m not Catholic” because if I had stayed Catholic I would have missed out on a great deal that God has shown me. And while I believe now that the Catholic is wrong about a great many things, being a Catholic was a very important part of my own journey. So I'm not going to criticize Catholics and argue with them about where I think they're missing the boat; if they're seeking God in their hearts, then He'll show them what He wants them to know; if they're not seeking Him, I'm wasting my time telling them they're wrong, and all I'm doing is pissing them off (and not in the way that's kind of fun to do, like when I get Tara all flustered and you can see the veins in her neck).

I don’t believe, in other words, that Christians are collectively “right” while other faiths are not. If I had to think in those terms at all (which thankfully I don’t), I might say that Christians are theologically closer to God than those who belong to other faiths, at least in that collective sense. In other words, I suppose while all of us have an incomplete understanding of God, it may be accurate to say that, if the Bible is true and if Jesus is really God, then the Christian's understanding is more nearly complete than the non-Christians.

Having said that, I don’t believe that God sees us that way: I believe that we are all individuals who are either moving towards Him or not. Christians who believe that they have found God are not moving towards Him any longer.

A lot of people have warned me about Buddhism and most of them have been sincere. Ignorant, but sincere. Because, like you’ve said, they believe that they’re right. And for them to be right, all the Buddhists and Hindus and Taoists have to be wrong.

And I don’t believe that way. I believe not only that there is truth in all faiths, but that no faith can have the entire truth. If someone is seeking truth, and if they’re open to possibilities, then God will show them exactly what they need to know. And I think that God’s Word bears that out:

Luke 11: 9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

So why is it that those who claim to trust God, don't seem to believe that He can reach people whose understanding of Him is incomplete?

Anyway, I always appreciate your comments, Grog. Keep writing. And for those of you reading this, check out Grog’s website here.

Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 2:27 AM
To: the.claw@bigmonster.net
Subject: Epiphany

I have struggled a long time with anger, ... at God. If it wasn't something about myself, dissatisfaction with my life or suffering of loved ones, it was a vague feeling that God could not be interested in his creation - a sentiment expressed in the movie Tears of The Sun, "... God left Africa a long time ago". How can God care about His creation and allow all of the vile things that we commit on each other every single day? In a letter to Einstein in June 1927, Heisenberg wrote: "I believe that indeterminism, that is the nonvalidity of rigorous causality, is necessary, and not just consistently possible." Despite Einstein's rejection of this notion, in so many words, I felt like God set his creation in motion, subject to probabilistic laws of His own design, and is content to watch how it evolves. God must not care enough to intervene!

But God does not OWE me anything, yet he gave me everything, ... His forgiveness on the cross! My relationship to my Creator is not a right, it is a privilege. God is not running an entitlement program. In this life I can own nothing save one, the content of my character, and this I should pour out as a living sacrifice to my Creator. Not because I love God, but because He loves me, and I am the work of His hands.

"To persuade the heart, the will, the action, is alone worth the full energy of a man. ... To make a man happy as a lark, might be to do him grievous wrong: to make a man wake, rise, look up, turn, is worth the life and death of the Son of the Eternal." -- George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons

"God does NOT play dice with the universe." -- Albert Einstein

- Gary

I’m glad to hear from you, Gary.

The idea that God set the universe in motion and then took a hands-off policy in managing it is not a new one. If you look at what goes on in the world, the evidence even seems to bear this out. I think that’s the problem, though. We look too far outside of ourselves, at wars and famines and disasters, and not at our own lives and hearts, which is where God’s work takes place. I don’t think God ever turns His back on us, and I believe that He is as involved in our lives as we allow Him to be. I’ll even take it one step further and say that those who don’t feel God’s presence aren’t looking for it: They’re either oblivious to it, or limiting Him by trying to understand Him in their own terms, or they’re just outright rejecting even the very notion of Him.

I know what you mean about being angry at God. I think everyone does. And while I don’t think it’s a good place to stay, I am convinced that it’s a necessary part of our journey towards God. It’s like how when you grieve a loss, you go through several stages of grief, including depression, denial, and anger, and while no one would recommend that you stay angry or depressed, probably most folks recognize that these are necessary steps on the way to healing, or whatever. At least, when we’re angry at Him, we’re acknowledging Him.

I think God understands your anger, but at the same time wants you to get past that. The problem as I see it is that most folks like their anger, they enjoy it, they make it a part of their identity. And while God continues to call us to seek Him and offers us blessings we can’t imagine, we pitch our tents in the desert and dream of rain.

This one comes from my friend Rosalie:

i want to ask you something. I don't mean this to be rude or hurtful or anything like that--I just want your opinion/answer. Why is believing in God so different and supposedly "true" and the ancients believing in Zeus and such was only a myth?

There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people to ask.

Lots of folks would say that the difference is that Zeus is a myth and that Jesus is real and that you're just supposed to believe in Him because you just are that's why, and if you don't you'll go to hell. So get in line with all the Christians, believe the right things, behave the right way, shut the hell up and don't ask questions. To be fair, some of these folks might also make some points of their own: That Jesus was a real person whose existence can be historically verified, for example, while Zeus was made up. All of this is putting aside that you never even mentioned Jesus specifically in your question, you just asked about believing in God.

On the other hand, I'm sure some folks would say that there's no difference at all, and that people have always made up stories to explain things that they don't understand. In that case, believing in Jesus is just the same as believing in Zeus or Odin or UFOs.

I tend to think that the second person's answer is probably more accurate than the first, and that for most people believing in some vague, undefined concept of God is just as comforting or reassuring as belief in Zeus was to some hypothetical ancient guy living a million years ago. I think most people intellectually accept the concept of God without letting it influence how they live or what they do, and while your question may spark some debate on the nature of Zeus vs. Jesus, I think at the heart of what you're asking is not a lesson in history or comparative religions, or why you should believe one thing over the other: I think what you're asking is, why should you believe anything at all.

....and, obviously, you don't have to believe. Lots of people are perfectly happy living their lives and raising their kids or whatever they do, not believing in anything beyond just what's in their line of sight. And many of them are turned off to Christianity not because of anything that the Bible says or anything Jesus taught, but because of the way a lot of Christians act.

I've had folks tell me that the Bible isn't real and that Jesus was just a regular guy and it's all just made up stories that have been passed down and distorted and built upon, that this council put it all together 2000 years ago and this King mistranslated that part of it or whatever, and it's all so confused and muddled that you don't even know what to believe about it anymore.

I say...so what?

Even if all of that is true what they say, all I have to do is open my Bible and read it. Study it. Practice what it says. And the more I do that, the more I'm convinced that it's true and that I can demonstrate it by my own life. It's not undefined, nebulous, hypothetical, subjective concepts open to debate and interpretation anymore: It's something real that I'm doing and experiencing that affects my whole life. And just like anything, the more I do it (hopefully) the better I get at it.

Let me give an example, from Matthew Chapter 22

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love your neighbor as yourself; it sounds simple.....but how do you do it? I guess you start by asking, how do you love yourself? You feed yourself, you clothe yourself, you take care of yourself. You don't judge yourself and berate yourself and tell yourself you're going to hell. Unless you're insane or something.

My point is just that this is truth, that I know it's truth, and that no one can prove it's not true with some historical document or archaeology.

In the end, I think it matters less what you already believe about God than how your heart seeks God.

Like, in the Old Testament, God didn't have a name. In Hebrew, they wrote it out "YHWH" with no vowels so that it couldn't be pronounced. It also said that you couldn't look upon the face of God or you would die. And don't make graven images. To me it just seems like you couldn't say His name, you couldn't see His face, you couldn't make images of Him....you couldn't really know Him, you couldn't define Him in your own terms. You knew God by how He revealed Himself to you. You knew God by seeking Him in your life and in your heart.

I don't think you have to start by opening a Bible or by going to a church or meditating or anything like that. Those things are all good, but I think it has to start with a willingness to seek God, to go where He leads you and not where you think you should be. And if you really do this with an open mind and an open heart, I think you'll recognize the truths that He directs you to.

And so, to answer your question, I think there are some fundamental differences between, say, Zeus and Jesus. But a lot of times, people's belief in them, and the reasons they choose to believe, are the same.

I guess in the end you just have to choose for yourself. It's what I think.

(From the Mailbag August 1, 2006)

LOL you are so full of it man you hit the nail on the head when you say that people make up there gods cos theyres no such a thing and if there is then he hates us. I laugh my ass off cos then you go talken like youre so holy an no everything its crazy.

Well, Mike, you bring up some good points.

It's true that man seems to have a need to believe in something bigger than himself, as a way to give himself purpose or explain things he doesn't understand, and that most times this results in making up gods. It's called "mythology".

For those who don't believe in God, this is just more evidence that there really is no God, no all-seeing, all-knowing Creator-Father who loves us, as the Christians and Jews would have us believe. Because man makes gods up all the time, and the Hebrew God is just like any other.

Others might say that this need to believe in God had to come from somewhere. Maybe, along with a flawed nature that always turns away from Him, God also instilled in us a desire to constantly seek Him, and in our imperfect understanding we tend to invent our own gods. Like an empty space that He put there for a specific reason.

The thing is, this is the same evidence that everyone faces, but people view it differently. There's no sense arguing or debating. Because whatever evidence you might present a guy with, he looks at it his own way and uses it to support his own point of view. Everyone believes what they choose to believe, and has the exact relationship with God that they choose to have.

And I don't mean to say that one point of view is just as valid as any other. Either there is a God or there's not, and it could potentially matter very much what you believe. All I'm saying is that you have to be willing to believe in Him as He reveals Himself to you and not just as other people tell you.

If you, Mike, choose not to believe, I'm cool with that. I even understand it. I just don't agree.

(From The Mailbag, October 2, 2006)

This is from Travis:

I was reading your piece about Zeus Vs. Jesus with a lot of hesitation because everything else I'd read on your site was pretty funny. not sure how you would handle a question like that. But the more I read the more I thought you had something there. Very good. I don't get why you quted the bible where you did. You said let me give an example and then you quote the bible but I didn't get what that was an example of. I was lost.

Here's all I was trying to say: Ok, look at that passage about the lawyer asking Jesus a question. A skeptic would read that passage and say, Was there really a lawyer? Where were they when he asked Jesus that question, and how do we know for real that Jesus really said that?

A Bible scholar would say, Jesus said this in context of ten other things and he was on his way to Galilee and the original Greek had subtle shades of meaning that blah blah blah....

And all of that is interesting but none of it says anything about the truth of what it says, and misses the whole point. You can read it and talk about it and study it, but unless you actually do it, there's no point to any of it. It doesn't matter how much you know about it.

First up: My friend Lisa sent me this, she thought it was a good idea for a sermon. You know, like at church:

Since the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, and Eve was tempted, sin was introduced to humanity. Today, with our high tech computers and stressed out single moms, life in this modern world keeps giving us more and more reasons to distance ourselves from a truly spiritual life with God. In church, we sing songs based on how God is always there with us through the good and the bad, yet we still have such a wild and huge fit about the late carpool or the dirty room. Are these actions not the opposite that our religion teaches us? We are not supposed to worry about the clothes on our back, but still we throw a fit about the kids we love, the cheap curtains from the dollar store, or the pimple on the center of our forehead. Are all of these things constant? If not, why do we put such emotion into them? Shouldn't God be the foundation of our life on Earth? After all, when he made the earth, the bible says, "It was good.". But every day I see ourselves getting further from the good of the earth, and basing it on the newest technology, or the most beautiful woman. I think it is time for us, the ones who roam around the earth with nowhere to rest our head, to finally rest it on the rock of God.