The evolution of God

[Amelia]

God has mellowed. The God that most Americans worship occasionally gets upset about abortion and gay marriage, but he is a softy compared with the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. That was a warrior God, savagely tribal, deeply insecure about his status and willing to commit mass murder to show off his powers. But at least Yahweh had strong moral views, occasionally enlightened ones, about how the Israelites should behave. His hunter-gatherer ancestors, by contrast, were doofus gods. Morally clueless, they were often yelled at by their people and tended toward quirky obsessions. One thunder god would get mad if people combed their hair during a storm or watched dogs mate.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Bloom-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

In terms of ppl's concept of God, as opposed to God himself, I agree with the author that our morals seem to be more accomodating now and so our concept of God has evolved to suit - Cultural sensibilities shift according to changes in human dynamics, and these shape the God that people worship.

Its interesting bec one would think that God is as he always was. Is it that we are more enlightened? I dont think he addresses hinduism in the article but of course, hindus have a different explanation for the 'disparities'.

[brag]

I believe we have gotten more clever with words and we can use them to gain/claim/justify whatever advantage we may have in mind.

God is and has always been the same for many, the eternal witness. The metaphor of the two birds on a tree tells the story well. It is only our cleverness with words that keeps us describing God acording to our multiplicity of needs and wants.

Such witnessing by God helps us live acording to the dictates of our conscience from where all transformation/reformation comes about.

[Huma]

I think society in general has been shifting away from religion and spiritual beliefs because of the various negatives that religious institutions have displayed over time.

People are more informed about nature and technology, so holy men can't fool them and threaten them as much with the "unknown". We've seen the dark and weak sides of several religious bodies, and We've seen the strength of the humanistic, tolerant approach to life. Democracy means people aren't as dependent on the Church as they used to be to survive.

So as religious belief dies, so does the perception of God it bred.

[brag]

The true and sometimes only concern that most religions have is whether we love God and God loves us and whether such love is reflected in societal behaviors.

True love of God requires no other rules of conduct since love itself is a synonym for God. Yet we know that man relies heavily on leaders to lead him into recognizing, growing and understanding love around some rules of behaviors.

Failing to recognize and exercise the natural leadership qualities of the self, man, in large numbers, turns to religious leaders to motivate, lead and guide them into a unique relationship with God as they yearn to know and experience God's love.

The depth of most religious teachings come from love from and of God, as I understand it. It is from where all our so called morality and moral living comes. All else is merely superfluous chattering in attempting to bring home the point of God and religion.

So when we speak about irrelevance of religious teachings we are just having an exercise in our own misunderstandings and/or narrow understanding of the concept of God and religion.

When we listen to the teaching and preaching of people who belong to the indigenous religions of nature worship and the five elements of power that make up nature, we see a different picture of God, religion, monotheism and idol worship.

The concept of God and religion never or hardly ever changes for the indigenous people of nature worship. In fact, they always have a rich range of concepts for describing God as functioning, as well. They have no time for believing that they alone have God's love or that proselytizing a religion of hellfire and brimstone is the answer for winning God's love.

[alieninthecaribbean]

Religions and holy books often require one to have a lower expectation of God and a higher expectation of ourselves.

In other words, God can act immorally and order the Hebrews to commit genocide in the Old Testament but if we do that today, we'd be tried under the War Crimes Act.

This is why it is SOOOOOO important to ALWAYS have a higher expectation of God and REALISTIC expecation of humankind. That way you can separate the God of the Bible, koran, talmud, Norse mythology, Greek mythology etc. from the REAL God. The One we are STILL learning and growing in our discovery of as we learn and grow in our discovery of Its greatest testimony...THE UNIVERSE.

Those who have settled on a book or religion's take on God are restricting their experience to a fuzzy snapshot of a shooting comet rather than trying to keep up with that comet's trajectory and constantly updating the technology of their telescope to see it ever clearer and clearer. ;)

[letric]

In order to have disappointments you have to have high expectations.

[letric]

God as viewed by Aquinas. Berkeley, Leibniz, Avicenna, or the Egyptian beliefs, Indian ideas, Jung's writings, Newton ideas? Just questions....