One God; why?
One God; why?
One of my friends posted a blog about a recent letter written by the pope, where the pope makes a reference to god, and then clarifies in his writing by further defining his god as the god of the desert, the one true god, yada yada.
This friend was slightly offended and considered what the pope wrote to be a nexus of pure evil; tied it in to blame this attitude for the Spanish inquisition, the burning of monasteries, and the standard fare grandiose and dramatized war cries that carry us to the modern day prejudices against the Christianity and Muslim religions, and the global knee-jerk shudder behind the phrase 'there is only one god and Allah is his name.'
I decided to counter his argument with what I hope is just a bit of common sense, and so I responded to his inquisition about why, in his opinion, these desert religions are so terribly closed minded and why they choose to only have one god and why they choose to bludgeon others with their one god theory, (I have referred to this sub-culture conversion phenomenon myself in recent months as being "pent-accosted"):
I posted a comment in my friend's blog which read:
I have a theory about that. Let me explain -
My theory is that another way of looking at this very same principle is by thinking of it in terms of "The Wizard of Oz." That whatever you are looking for, you - in fact - already have everything you need. Why should you go out to other religions and find other gods, when all of mankind can get everything he needs right from the same old lame old tired god that was drummed into his brain as a child? Don't you have better things to do with the precious little time you have on this earth? The search for what they already have, although a source of endless excitement, could be a source of endless confusion taking years to navigate.
Maybe that's why the "no other gods" or "one god" idea was formed. Maybe someone somewhere was trying to save people a whole bunch of trouble looking outside for what already exists at home.
Now just because someone wants to take the sound "one god" conservation of confusion principle out of context and start converting others, by hook, crook or... malice, that does not mean that the religions that indoctrinate only one god are wrong, just that people are wrong in their interpretation of what, quite honestly, is a sound dogma as it applies to a single nomadic people trying to make sure that they are not divided and conquered.
One of my friends posted a blog about a recent letter written by the pope, where the pope makes a reference to god, and then clarifies in his writing by further defining his god as the god of the desert, the one true god, yada yada.
This friend was slightly offended and considered what the pope wrote to be a nexus of pure evil; tied it in to blame this attitude for the Spanish inquisition, the burning of monasteries, and the standard fare grandiose and dramatized war cries that carry us to the modern day prejudices against the Christianity and Muslim religions, and the global knee-jerk shudder behind the phrase 'there is only one god and Allah is his name.'
I decided to counter his argument with what I hope is just a bit of common sense, and so I responded to his inquisition about why, in his opinion, these desert religions are so terribly closed minded and why they choose to only have one god and why they choose to bludgeon others with their one god theory, (I have referred to this sub-culture conversion phenomenon myself in recent months as being "pent-accosted"):
I posted a comment in my friend's blog which read:
I have a theory about that. Let me explain -
My theory is that another way of looking at this very same principle is by thinking of it in terms of "The Wizard of Oz." That whatever you are looking for, you - in fact - already have everything you need. Why should you go out to other religions and find other gods, when all of mankind can get everything he needs right from the same old lame old tired god that was drummed into his brain as a child? Don't you have better things to do with the precious little time you have on this earth? The search for what they already have, although a source of endless excitement, could be a source of endless confusion taking years to navigate.
Maybe that's why the "no other gods" or "one god" idea was formed. Maybe someone somewhere was trying to save people a whole bunch of trouble looking outside for what already exists at home.
Now just because someone wants to take the sound "one god" conservation of confusion principle out of context and start converting others, by hook, crook or... malice, that does not mean that the religions that indoctrinate only one god are wrong, just that people are wrong in their interpretation of what, quite honestly, is a sound dogma as it applies to a single nomadic people trying to make sure that they are not divided and conquered.