How Do You Understand the Idea of 'God'?

[Pattern-chaser]

God first, neighbour second and self third.

For me, it is God that guides me to place myself and my neighbour on a more or less equal footing. [That cannot apply in all circumstances, of course. No rational law or rule can achieve this. It's a general statement.]

[Stoppelmann]

Ideologies like Christianity ask for a more sacrificial response. God first, neighbour second and self third.

If I remember the parable right, "that which you do for the least of these, you do for to me..." which means that the distinguishing you employ is not the biblical one.

You could even say that the person visiting me is God in disguise, as many traditions have said, and which is at least hinted at with Abraham and his three guests when he was sitting by the Oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day.

[EricPH]

What happens with people who sincerely engage in communal prayer is they mutually encourage each other. I'd rather mutual encouragement happens under the moral guidance of a compassionate church , such as yours seems to be,

I feel very blessed to be in the community I am now in. I was bought up in the 50's and 60's in the Catholic Church, I remember feeling it was like a huge sin to walk on the same side of the road as a non-Catholic Church. I left the church in my teens for two reasons. The real reason was; there were too many temptations in the world, I didn't want to be told what I should and should not do. The excuse I used to walk away from the church was, that I could not reconcile the two greatest commandments with how we judged non-Catholics.

I came back to the church in my late forties, still troubled by the question of unity. In 2005 I went to a three day Churches Together event for England and Wales, the key speaker was Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic church for England. I felt out of my depth, there were MP's, bishops and all kinds of leaders.

The cardinal gave his speech and paused at the end. I stood up and said I was a Catholic, I could feel the presence of Christ amongst all the people in the room, and I had a need to share communion with them in a shared service here tomorrow, Sunday, then I sat down. In front of about 250 people, the cardinal's response was silence. He knew, and I knew there were people from maybe twenty denominations in the room. What I asked was impossible in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

The moment I sat down, was the moment I realised I had not said the most important part of what I had meant to say. I waited for a further pause and stood up again. Baroness Cox, the chair for Churches Together said to sit down, you have already spoken. I continued to speak and someone handed me a microphone. I repeated my earlier comment and asked the Cardinal and anyone else to forgive me if I have caused offense. Again, the cardinal's response was silence.

Many people thanked me for speaking out. But Catholic priests also came and said I was speaking out of line, I understood their message. Had I said this a few hundred years ago, I would have ended up in a pile of ash. I wrote to the cardinal afterwards, his reply seemed sympathetic, but without any commitment either way.

There seems to be real conflict in how we do God, church and community. For me, what we do in the community leads me closer to God, but I still need the church.

[EricPH]

If I remember the parable right, "that which you do for the least of these, you do for to me..." which means that the distinguishing you employ is not the biblical one.

Mathew 25, one of the most profound parables in the Bible.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

You could even say that the person visiting me is God in disguise, as many traditions have said, and which is at least hinted at with Abraham and his three guests when he was sitting by the Oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day.

We are all God's children, whatever we do to anyone, we do to one of God's children.

[EricPH]

God first, neighbour second and self third.

For me, it is God that guides me to place myself and my neighbour on a more or less equal footing. [That cannot apply in all circumstances, of course. No rational law or rule can achieve this. It's a general statement.]

Relationships and marriage are probably the biggest challenge we face in life. Often at the start of a relationship, we are not so well off, so we juggle time and limited resources. After thirty nine years together, it almost feels that I get things more right, when I put my wife's needs first. Hopefully, she reciprocates, but my happiness depends a lot on her being happy.

[Gertie]

So for me the notion of 'God' has to be meaningful in some profoundly important way, say in terms of purpose or goodness.

Yes, I think the 'purpose' of God is to offer a role model, and thereby offer some guidelines by which we live our lives. That's my opinion, of course, but I think that's why we have God(s); whether or not God exists, She still exerts this guiding role for those who believe. She doesn't have to actually exist for the guidance to be — and continue to be — useful and valuable.

I'm sure many believers would have difficulty with the above. This is just the way *I* see it.

Yes I agree  that's a god worth the title.  Otherwise you're revering power for its own sake, might is right, which doesn't sit well with me and is dangerous.  Or it's just another word for physics, volcanos, the sun, love, whatever, which we already have words for.

God as exemplar has risks too of course, without good evidence it leaves us open to bias - “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” - Anne Lamott.

Good people tend to want relatable, good gods I think, and if such a god exists we are in-credibly  lucky.  Paul's pitch which so influenced and universalised  Christianity was to see Jesus as perfect exemplar, who showed the right way to revere god via emulation, proven by the resurrection. (But with the faith caveat replacing good works/scriptural law  as the new criterion for  reward and punishment).

I appreciate what you are both saying and it clearly relates to the modern concepts of god. The problem is, of course, that such a perfect exemplar is first of all out of reach and up on a pedestal, which is where the church after Constantine wanted him. The idea of Jesus as a brother, and as a “firstfruit” (which according to the Bible belong to God), meaning that others will follow, if they are of the same mind as Jesus was, was thereby pushed aside, because it would mean that the leaders of the church would be expected to “empty themselves” and take the form of a servant, which was less attractive than wielding power.

The idea of an all powerful god was primary for people in power of course, and the whole story that the New Testament is playing out, that God sends a baby and a suffering servant instead of a warring messiah, especially one that suffers himself to be crucified, is promptly ignored, and the avenging judge that comes at the end of the world is what all the pomp and splendour in the cathedrals and churches portray. “Yes you might have killed him, but he will take revenge!” is far removed from the man who says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”

There is so much that is at odds with this teaching, especially when you realise that many of the people that the church burned at the stake were suffering servants, who were later recognised as holy people, and who had struggled with the contradiction that the catholic church portrayed. Christianity turned revered healers into wicked outcasts, and although in ancient civilizations in the Middle East it was often women who practiced the holiest of rituals, were trained in the sacred arts, and as priestesses became known as wise women, who made house calls, delivered babies, dealt with infertility, and cured impotence, they have been some of the earliest manifestations of what came to be known as the witch.

It is this past that influences our ideas of religion in the West today, and consequently our imaginations of what may be called God – or what causes an almost allergic reaction to religion. Even in America, in 2019, only 36% of 18- to 34-year-olds attended church at least once or twice a month, but that has fallen to just 26% now. Only 22 percent of Western Europeans attend church at least monthly, despite a telephone survey with more than 24,000 participants from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom showing that the median percentage of the population of Western Europe identifying as Christian was 71 percent.

I believe that many of that 71% are nominal Christians, meaning they were baptised, but have no affinity to their church. In the protestant church, the “confirmation” of young people has often been celebrated as the ceremonial farewell to the church. This is hardly surprising because if the church is sincere about the Gospel teaching, it contradicts modern society, and if it conforms its teaching, it has nothing to say. God is about as communicable as the “flying spaghetti monster”. I believe that true Christianity is as difficult to communicate as good philosophy, and is really a minority issue.

"A philosopher among common people, Socrates says earlier, is “like a human being who has fallen in with wild beasts and is neither willing to join them in doing injustice nor sufficient as one man to resist all the savage animals.” His situation is extremely dangerous, because he knows truths the rest of the world is determined not to hear," says Adam Kirsch in The Republic of Plato. We know what happened to Socrates, and Jesus, and his followers ...

From the above -

Gertie wrote: ↑January 18th, 2023, 5:21 pm

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 18th, 2023, 9:58 am

Gertie wrote: ↑January 16th, 2023, 1:33 pm So for me the notion of 'God' has to be meaningful in some profoundly important way, say in terms of purpose or goodness.

Yes, I think the 'purpose' of God is to offer a role model, and thereby offer some guidelines by which we live our lives. That's my opinion, of course, but I think that's why we have God(s); whether or not God exists, She still exerts this guiding role for those who believe. She doesn't have to actually exist for the guidance to be — and continue to be — useful and valuable.

I'm sure many believers would have difficulty with the above. This is just the way *I* see it.

Yes I agree that's a god worth the title. Otherwise you're revering power for its own sake, might is right, which doesn't sit well with me and is dangerous. Or it's just another word for physics, volcanos, the sun, love, whatever, which we already have words for.

God as exemplar has risks too of course, without good evidence it leaves us open to bias - “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” - Anne Lamott.

Good people tend to want relatable, good gods I think, and if such a god exists we are in-credibly lucky. Paul's pitch which so influenced and universalised Christianity was to see Jesus as perfect exemplar, who showed the right way to revere god via emulation, proven by the resurrection. (But with the faith caveat replacing good works/scriptural law as the new criterion for reward and punishment).

I appreciate what you are both saying and it clearly relates to the modern concepts of god.

I'd say gods have always been created/adapted in ways which reflect the world view of the creators. Mine's as good as any in that sense.

The problem is, of course, that such a perfect exemplar is first of all out of reach and up on a pedestal, which is where the church after Constantine wanted him. The idea of Jesus as a brother, and as a “firstfruit” (which according to the Bible belong to God), meaning that others will follow, if they are of the same mind as Jesus was, was thereby pushed aside, because it would mean that the leaders of the church would be expected to “empty themselves” and take the form of a servant, which was less attractive than wielding power.

Re first fruits - my reading is a little different, that Paul is transforming the OT meaning of the first fruits as the offering which first prioritises thanking Yahweh whose blessing provides for the whole harvest. Paul's shift is that Jesus becomes the ultimate sacrifice (and the final substitutionary atonement). Which is part of Paul's foundational move from justification by law (essentially the transactional Mosaic covenant which includes sacrificial offerings) to justification by faith. The corollary to that is Jesus now embodies/exemplifies the route to salvation. And because of the resurrection it's a salvation which even transcends death and the concerns of this world like a good harvest.

There's also the OT practice of the offering of the first born son (natch) as a type of first fruit offering to Yahweh, but being able to then 'redeem' him with cash to the priests. In Egypt Yahweh saved his chosen people by placing a mark of lamb's blood on their door so their homes were 'passed over' by the angel of death which killed all the first born sons of their captors. Jesus is the new and final sacrificial lamb, his blood shed in Jerusalem during Passover (the most holy time in the most holy place) now redeems/pays the debt-offering of those who understand it through faith in his resurrection. (The Bible is chocka with these types of call backs not obvious to modern readers)

These are readings which try to get close to the contemporary cultural/theological milieu of the writers. Including a tribal history of prophets emerging in times of strife (defeat, exile, enslavement and now Roman occupation of the land gifted to them by Yahweh) to point out why Yahweh is allowing their suffering, and how to get their god back on side. Moses being their archetypal prophet who Yahweh made the law-based covenant with, from which scriptual law like first fruits offering is justified. This would be integral to the world view of even a Hellenised Jew, a Roman citizen no less like Paul, who is more worldly and presumably soaking up ideas like Platonism too, seeping into his more dualistic body/soul interpretation of the resurrection. We can't know, but that reading makes sense to me.

The idea of an all powerful god was primary for people in power of course, and the whole story that the New Testament is playing out, that God sends a baby and a suffering servant instead of a warring messiah, especially one that suffers himself to be crucified, is promptly ignored, and the avenging judge that comes at the end of the world is what all the pomp and splendour in the cathedrals and churches portray. “Yes you might have killed him, but he will take revenge!” is far removed from the man who says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”

There is so much that is at odds with this teaching, especially when you realise that many of the people that the church burned at the stake were suffering servants, who were later recognised as holy people, and who had struggled with the contradiction that the catholic church portrayed. Christianity turned revered healers into wicked outcasts, and although in ancient civilizations in the Middle East it was often women who practiced the holiest of rituals, were trained in the sacred arts, and as priestesses became known as wise women, who made house calls, delivered babies, dealt with infertility, and cured impotence, they have been some of the earliest manifestations of what came to be known as the witch.

I think we're drawn to what resonates with us, and the Bible offers a pick n mix platter. What particularly interests me is the exegesis which tries to get to what the writers themselves were trying to convey and why, which might get us a bit closer to the historic reality. Also illuminating how much modern readers are bringing to our understanding of the texts. Subsequent church tadition, theology and texts we receive today as quasi-canonical are both part of that ongoing process of exegesis and additional baggage to wade through.


Re Jesus as the suffering servant - personally I doubt Jesus saw himself this way, tho I think he knew his message was provocative and dangerous, there's a lot of instruction not to tell anybody and a tendency to talk in parables. Especially provocative over Passover weekend in a bustling, bursting Jerusalem. And I think he was correctly believed to be an apocalyptic prophet by his followers during his life, who had come to proclaim that the current strife of Roman occupation caused by being led astray by the Jewish leadership was going to lead to another direct intervention from Yahweh. Yahweh was going to again intervene to smite his enemies (like he did in Egypt), and install his kingdom on earth in Jerusalem, and if you want to be saved when the time comes (any day now) you need to listen to his prophet Jesus's teaching.

When that didn't happen, and instead Jesus was publically shamed and executed by the Roman oppressors, the movement would either die out or there had to be a radical re-think of who Jesus was and what his message meant. As a true prophet or messianic figure, this must have been foretold to have credibility. And a scripture which might be construed this way was Isiah 53's story of the suffering servant, from 700 hundred years ago when the current strife was Jerusalem being beseiged by the Assyrians - they got beseiged a lot! Which is a sort of fit with the world transformed by Yahweh's intervention in the form of the lowest and most despised being glorified.

You have to bear in mind with what we now call New testament texts, they were written in hindsight, as part of the process of re-evaluating Jesus's Christology and Eschatology, accreting stories echoing scriptures and apparent fore-knowledge to create a new coherent-ish narrative over time which still made scriptural sense. In reality early Christianity was a mixed bag of interpretations based on a broader range of texts adopted by different sects with different theological takes. Constantine insisted on some kind of unified orthodoxy which all the diaspora could (hopefully) cohere around where-ever they were. And that's the orthodoxy we now are left to try to make sense of.

[Viswa_01210]

What are your own thoughts on the concept of God?

GOD - Capable of Doing Everything, but Actually Does Nothing.

[Belindi]

What happens with people who sincerely engage in communal prayer is they mutually encourage each other. I'd rather mutual encouragement happens under the moral guidance of a compassionate church , such as yours seems to be,

I feel very blessed to be in the community I am now in. I was bought up in the 50's and 60's in the Catholic Church, I remember feeling it was like a huge sin to walk on the same side of the road as a non-Catholic Church. I left the church in my teens for two reasons. The real reason was; there were too many temptations in the world, I didn't want to be told what I should and should not do. The excuse I used to walk away from the church was, that I could not reconcile the two greatest commandments with how we judged non-Catholics.

I came back to the church in my late forties, still troubled by the question of unity. In 2005 I went to a three day Churches Together event for England and Wales, the key speaker was Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic church for England. I felt out of my depth, there were MP's, bishops and all kinds of leaders.

The cardinal gave his speech and paused at the end. I stood up and said I was a Catholic, I could feel the presence of Christ amongst all the people in the room, and I had a need to share communion with them in a shared service here tomorrow, Sunday, then I sat down. In front of about 250 people, the cardinal's response was silence. He knew, and I knew there were people from maybe twenty denominations in the room. What I asked was impossible in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

The moment I sat down, was the moment I realised I had not said the most important part of what I had meant to say. I waited for a further pause and stood up again. Baroness Cox, the chair for Churches Together said to sit down, you have already spoken. I continued to speak and someone handed me a microphone. I repeated my earlier comment and asked the Cardinal and anyone else to forgive me if I have caused offense. Again, the cardinal's response was silence.

Many people thanked me for speaking out. But Catholic priests also came and said I was speaking out of line, I understood their message. Had I said this a few hundred years ago, I would have ended up in a pile of ash. I wrote to the cardinal afterwards, his reply seemed sympathetic, but without any commitment either way.

There seems to be real conflict in how we do God, church and community. For me, what we do in the community leads me closer to God, but I still need the church.

I have not much personal experience of churches since I became an adult and what I have is Unitarian where God is liberal and the congregation includes new dissenters from mainstream churches, old traditionalists, Humanists, and others. Nearly all if not all would be politically left wing.
I have an abiding impression of RCs that they are exceptionally nice to know, and I gather RCs are nice despite the dogmas and despite priests like the ones you encountered at the Churches Together event , not excluding the Cardinal.

Now and again one talks to a priest from one sect or another who actually thinks for himself. You may be fortunate one day in finding such a priest. Investment in passages from the Gospels such as you quote may be what saves members of the flock such as yourself from becoming disheartened by their church and its priests.

[Stoppelmann]

I'd say gods have always been created/adapted in ways which reflect the world view of the creators. Mine's as good as any in that sense.

When you do comparative studies, you definitely come to that conclusion, so I would agree with you with one difference, the earliest religions had the most refined ideas, and the most cultivated languages, which does make you wonder. Pali and Old Testament Hebrew especially are very sophisticated. Of course, here I rely on other scholars, such as the philologist I had long talks with.

Re first fruits - my reading is a little different, that Paul is transforming the OT meaning of the first fruits as the offering which first prioritises thanking Yahweh whose blessing provides for the whole harvest. Paul's shift is that Jesus becomes the ultimate sacrifice (and the final substitutionary atonement). Which is part of Paul's foundational move from justification by law (essentially the transactional Mosaic covenant which includes sacrificial offerings) to justification by faith. The corollary to that is Jesus now embodies/exemplifies the route to salvation. And because of the resurrection it's a salvation which even transcends death and the concerns of this world like a good harvest.

That is an acceptable way to interpret the Gospel, but I always tend to ask myself, did Paul invent Jesus for his teaching, or was Paul brought around by the teaching of Jesus after he realised the truth of what he was saying. The line that you have brought supposes that Paul said what it all meant, but no one else had understood. I see Paul as a convert to the very simple message of Jesus, which comes out in John 17, “And I have given them the glory which thou gavest me, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me; that they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, even as thou hast loved me.”

Paul says we were strangers to the covenant, that is being at one with God, and now through the revelation of Christ have been brought near. Eastern Christianity has the ancient doctrine of deification, or theosis, and interest has exploded in recent decades among Western theologians. Put simply, this doctrine asserts that salvation is, in some way, a process of the soul ‘becoming God,’ or as Clement of Alexandria put it, “being assimilated to God as far as possible.” It was previously deemed the unique heritage of Eastern Christianity but has an affinity with other non-dual teaching. It is carried principally in the tradition of hesychasm, a prayer with unflagging emphasis on “putting the mind in the heart.”

Romano Guardini, one of the most important figures in Catholic intellectual life in the 20th century, put it this way “The mystical experience is realisation that although I am not God, I am not other than God either. And although I am not any of you, I am not other than any of you either. And although I am not the Earth, I’m not other than the Earth either.” And James Finley, Ph.D., student of Thomas Merton and clinical psychologist, commented, “ It’s really a state where we in God cease to be experienced as other than each other and our ultimate destiny is infinite union with the infinite mystery of God as our destiny. And even on this earth we can be awakened to it as this unitive state.”

For the patristic fathers of the early Christian centuries, contemplation was central, and the content of that practise was not understood as being generated or processed through the normal channels of the ‘faculties’ (reason, emotion, memory, will), but instead, they as some higher bandwidth of perceptivity which is beyond the reaches of the usual functioning of the mind. Contemplation as originally understood invoked a higher, luminous knowledge, a “knowledge impregnated by love,” in the famous 6th-century description of St. Gregory the Great.

There's also the OT practice of the offering of the first born son (natch) as a type of first fruit offering to Yahweh, but being able to then 'redeem' him with cash to the priests. In Egypt Yahweh saved his chosen people by placing a mark of lamb's blood on their door so their homes were 'passed over' by the angel of death which killed all the first born sons of their captors. Jesus is the new and final sacrificial lamb, his blood shed in Jerusalem during Passover (the most holy time in the most holy place) now redeems/pays the debt-offering of those who understand it through faith in his resurrection. (The Bible is chocka with these types of call backs not obvious to modern readers)

These are readings which try to get close to the contemporary cultural/theological milieu of the writers. Including a tribal history of prophets emerging in times of strife (defeat, exile, enslavement and now Roman occupation of the land gifted to them by Yahweh) to point out why Yahweh is allowing their suffering, and how to get their god back on side. Moses being their archetypal prophet who Yahweh made the law-based covenant with, from which scriptual law like first fruits offering is justified. This would be integral to the world view of even a Hellenised Jew, a Roman citizen no less like Paul, who is more worldly and presumably soaking up ideas like Platonism too, seeping into his more dualistic body/soul interpretation of the resurrection. We can't know, but that reading makes sense to me.

I agree, there are numerous examples that point to all possible interpretations, and they are not exclusive, but offer many ways to interpret the meaning of Christ. Of course the teaching of the church is replete with such parallels of NT with OT stories that are, to some degree, dogmatised, but we can see from examples from the Eastern Church that this approach isn’t exhaustive, and comparative studies show us many parallels with other traditions. We have to understand the time of the OT Prophets up until the Constantine influence was a time of new paradigms and conquests, initially coming from Greece, which we see in the hellenisation of Judea, especially the fact that Judaism in classical antiquity combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture.
At the same time, the restless Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya) was in place, which covered various parts of Afghanistan and the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent (parts of modern-day Pakistan and northwestern India). Its troubled story meant that many sought refuge in the Mediterranean cultures, exchanging Buddhist and Hindu thought for Greek philosophy.

Clearly, there were traditions that the Roman Church suppressed and instead made salvation exclusive and Jesus out of reach by placing him in heaven as part of a Trinity. Reading the Gospel, I read Jesus as seeing us all as expressions of God who have lost our way, missed the mark, and in need of freedom from bondage, healing from brokenness and bruising, and our eyes opened. Then we can enter a life of love, which is a life where the ego, expressed in reactions in which I, me, and mine take centre stage, is largely under control, and alignment with God is aspired.

I think we're drawn to what resonates with us, and the Bible offers a pick n mix platter. What particularly interests me is the exegesis which tries to get to what the writers themselves were trying to convey and why, which might get us a bit closer to the historic reality. Also illuminating how much modern readers are bringing to our understanding of the texts. Subsequent church tadition, theology and texts we receive today as quasi-canonical are both part of that ongoing process of exegesis and additional baggage to wade through.

I agree, and what I am trying to say, although I probably do a bad job of it. There have been so many revelations about the nature of Christianity that opened my eyes over time. One of them was a book by Neil Douglas-Klotz, who looked at the Peshitta, a Syriac version of the Bible, which gives us an idea of how Aramaic, the language of Galilee, would have sounded and its implications, which are not unimportant.

Re Jesus as the suffering servant - personally I doubt Jesus saw himself this way, tho I think he knew his message was provocative and dangerous, there's a lot of instruction not to tell anybody and a tendency to talk in parables. Especially provocative over Passover weekend in a bustling, bursting Jerusalem. And I think he was correctly believed to be an apocalyptic prophet by his followers during his life, who had come to proclaim that the current strife of Roman occupation caused by being led astray by the Jewish leadership was going to lead to another direct intervention from Yahweh. Yahweh was going to again intervene to smite his enemies (like he did in Egypt), and install his kingdom on earth in Jerusalem, and if you want to be saved when the time comes (any day now) you need to listen to his prophet Jesus's teaching.

When that didn't happen, and instead Jesus was publically shamed and executed by the Roman oppressors, the movement would either die out or there had to be a radical re-think of who Jesus was and what his message meant. As a true prophet or messianic figure, this must have been foretold to have credibility. And a scripture which might be construed this way was Isiah 53's story of the suffering servant, from 700 hundred years ago when the current strife was Jerusalem being beseiged by the Assyrians - they got beseiged a lot! Which is a sort of fit with the world transformed by Yahweh's intervention in the form of the lowest and most despised being glorified.

The broad consensus among Jewish, and even some Christian commentators, is that the “servant” in Isaiah 52-53 refers to the nation of Israel. Isaiah 53, which is the fourth of four renowned Servant Songs, is connected to its preceding chapters. The “servant” in each of the three previous Servant Songs is plainly and repeatedly identified as the nation of Israel. However, as I said above, there were many people who heard Jesus use many Isaiah quotes, and reinterpreting the remnant theme, saw Jesus as the remnant of Israel and in last consequence as the suffering servant, especially as this fitted his execution. This was, of course, an indictment of the Jewish authorities who gave Jesus over to the Romans to be executed as a terrorist.

You have to bear in mind with what we now call New testament texts, they were written in hindsight, as part of the process of re-evaluating Jesus's Christology and Eschatology, accreting stories echoing scriptures and apparent fore-knowledge to create a new coherent-ish narrative over time which still made scriptural sense. In reality early Christianity was a mixed bag of interpretations based on a broader range of texts adopted by different sects with different theological takes. Constantine insisted on some kind of unified orthodoxy which all the diaspora could (hopefully) cohere around where-ever they were. And that's the orthodoxy we now are left to try to make sense of.

The creation of narrative isn’t a surprise, although the first attempt (at least that survived) called Mark seems to have been written as a tragedy, which was well demonstrated in a lecture from Pierre Grimes, an American philosopher and lecturer at the Noetic Society. The Gospels named Matthew and Luke seem to be “corrections” or at least attempt to take that character away from the narrative, and have a more “fitting” endings. The Gnostic Gospels are, of course, a very alternative take on the story, but have their value.

I’m sorry I wrote so much, I lack the ability to keep it short. Sorry.

[JackDaydream]

What are your own thoughts on the concept of God?

GOD - Capable of Doing Everything, but Actually Does Nothing.

Your idea of God being 'Capable of Doing Everything' suggests infinite possibilities, with the idea of 'Doing Nothing' as a passive form. As human beings, we may feel let down by the lack of intervention of the 'divine'. However, such intervention if it were outside of our choices would leave little scope for human choices.

Surely, such a concept of God would be a deterministic influence and it may be debatable how much control over them individuals would wish for. It is possible to feel that God 'ought' to solve problems in nature but that would leave little scope for humans as co-creators. Similarly, it is possible to feel that certain aspects of life, like natural disasters and sickness are thrown upon people. Personally, I feel that if there is a God this being has a hidden role in destiny and providence, but allowing for humans to have conscious agency in determining their own goals.

[Viswa_01210]

Your idea of God being 'Capable of Doing Everything' suggests infinite possibilities, with the idea of 'Doing Nothing' as a passive form. As human beings, we may feel let down by the lack of intervention of the 'divine'. However, such intervention if it were outside of our choices would leave little scope for human choices.

Surely, such a concept of God would be a deterministic influence and it may be debatable how much control over them individuals would wish for. It is possible to feel that God 'ought' to solve problems in nature but that would leave little scope for humans as co-creators. Similarly, it is possible to feel that certain aspects of life, like natural disasters and sickness are thrown upon people. Personally, I feel that if there is a God this being has a hidden role in destiny and providence, but allowing for humans to have conscious agency in determining their own goals.

There is no humans, no nature, no disaster, no goals, no individuals, no creation happens actually for the God/Divine to intervene.
Just God and GOD alone everywhere and none else.

[JackDaydream]

What happens with people who sincerely engage in communal prayer is they mutually encourage each other. I'd rather mutual encouragement happens under the moral guidance of a compassionate church , such as yours seems to be,

I feel very blessed to be in the community I am now in. I was bought up in the 50's and 60's in the Catholic Church, I remember feeling it was like a huge sin to walk on the same side of the road as a non-Catholic Church. I left the church in my teens for two reasons. The real reason was; there were too many temptations in the world, I didn't want to be told what I should and should not do. The excuse I used to walk away from the church was, that I could not reconcile the two greatest commandments with how we judged non-Catholics.

I came back to the church in my late forties, still troubled by the question of unity. In 2005 I went to a three day Churches Together event for England and Wales, the key speaker was Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic church for England. I felt out of my depth, there were MP's, bishops and all kinds of leaders.

The cardinal gave his speech and paused at the end. I stood up and said I was a Catholic, I could feel the presence of Christ amongst all the people in the room, and I had a need to share communion with them in a shared service here tomorrow, Sunday, then I sat down. In front of about 250 people, the cardinal's response was silence. He knew, and I knew there were people from maybe twenty denominations in the room. What I asked was impossible in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

The moment I sat down, was the moment I realised I had not said the most important part of what I had meant to say. I waited for a further pause and stood up again. Baroness Cox, the chair for Churches Together said to sit down, you have already spoken. I continued to speak and someone handed me a microphone. I repeated my earlier comment and asked the Cardinal and anyone else to forgive me if I have caused offense. Again, the cardinal's response was silence.

Many people thanked me for speaking out. But Catholic priests also came and said I was speaking out of line, I understood their message. Had I said this a few hundred years ago, I would have ended up in a pile of ash. I wrote to the cardinal afterwards, his reply seemed sympathetic, but without any commitment either way.

There seems to be real conflict in how we do God, church and community. For me, what we do in the community leads me closer to God, but I still need the church.

I just read your post on the experience of being a Catholic and it lead me to reflect on how I really began questioning so much on the basis of going to Christian Union and finding people so opposed to Catholicism there. I found people saying that Catholics worship Mary and Catholicism being seen as if it was outside of Christianity. It seemed so prejudiced but it lead me to a more pluralistic approach because putting others into boxes seems so prejudiced. People project onto others views about God and such differences can result in hurt feelings with many people being upset and that is where religious beliefs or lack of them can be such sensitive areas.

While Catholicism has a shadow of guilt, especially around sexuality, sometimes others, including other groups can sometimes paint it all so dark. Having grown up in a Catholic community, I am aware of how supportive and compassionate many have been to my parents and myself, and there may be a lot of overgeneralising about Catholics.

This applies to all religions groups. So much is projected onto Muslims, especially terrorist leanings, which can be a distortion of many of the ideas and attitudes of many who are Muslim. There may be a parallel process between the tendency to project onto specific religious groups just as humans may project so much into the anthropomorphic pictures of God, based on limited understanding.

[JackDaydream]

Your idea of God being 'Capable of Doing Everything' suggests infinite possibilities, with the idea of 'Doing Nothing' as a passive form. As human beings, we may feel let down by the lack of intervention of the 'divine'. However, such intervention if it were outside of our choices would leave little scope for human choices.

Surely, such a concept of God would be a deterministic influence and it may be debatable how much control over them individuals would wish for. It is possible to feel that God 'ought' to solve problems in nature but that would leave little scope for humans as co-creators. Similarly, it is possible to feel that certain aspects of life, like natural disasters and sickness are thrown upon people. Personally, I feel that if there is a God this being has a hidden role in destiny and providence, but allowing for humans to have conscious agency in determining their own goals.

There is no humans, no nature, no disaster, no goals, no individuals, no creation happens actually for the God/Divine to intervene.
Just God and GOD alone everywhere and none else.

Your reply turns the issue upside down to most views of there being no God and simply human beings and the material world. I often see the debate between theism and atheism as resting upon framing, with your unusual slant being one as seeing human life as an outer expression of a God? I do wonder would you argue that human beings are not free and everything is predestined in the mind of God? Generally, the way the idea of the existence of God is framed depends on the understanding of transcendence, with many projecting the concept of God 'into the skies', as a separate being. Immanence, on the other hand, sees the divinity within.

[Viswa_01210]

Your reply turns the issue upside down to most views of there being no God and simply human beings and the material world. I often see the debate between theism and atheism as resting upon framing, with your unusual slant being one as seeing human life as an outer expression of a God? I do wonder would you argue that human beings are not free and everything is predestined in the mind of God? Generally, the way the idea of the existence of God is framed depends on the understanding of transcendence, with many projecting the concept of God 'into the skies', as a separate being. Immanence, on the other hand, sees the divinity within.

It's simple. I never trust Experiences as Trustworthy (most importantly material world), but only Knowledge.

As you spoke about the Mind of God, incredible things are experienced in this Thoughts. No doubt. But, why we give importance to any things thoughtfully experienced (and want to know much more things thought) in the mind of God, instead of giving GOD itself? There is no big deal about these thoughtful actions to find, whether it is predestined or not. Because they have no reality in GOD. When we gives much importance to thoughts in Mind of God (thoughts include material worldly.actions), an Ignorance arises upon God, and one ignorantly start to belief "thoughtful actions are true/real actions". Though thoughts/thoughtful actions in Mind of God has tremendous beauty and wonderment, it's unworthy and only sufferings holistically. When thoughts in mind of God looked at partial basis, it looks immensely great and powerful and aweness and magnificent, but when looked holistically these thoughts in mind of God - it's just useless. Without killing, no living thoughtful actions. If life has to be there thoughtfully (like food-etc.) many organisms has to be tortured and killed thoughtfully. Does one need such kind of thoughtful beauty on the one hand, by thoughtfully killing and suffer on the other hand? Is life truly worth to torture someother thoughtfully?

Not at all. And in all these, one forgets God. One fails to be/live in peace.
Unworthy thoughtful actions. God is Truth.

[JackDaydream]

Your reply turns the issue upside down to most views of there being no God and simply human beings and the material world. I often see the debate between theism and atheism as resting upon framing, with your unusual slant being one as seeing human life as an outer expression of a God? I do wonder would you argue that human beings are not free and everything is predestined in the mind of God? Generally, the way the idea of the existence of God is framed depends on the understanding of transcendence, with many projecting the concept of God 'into the skies', as a separate being. Immanence, on the other hand, sees the divinity within.

It's simple. I never trust Experiences as Trustworthy (most importantly material world), but only Knowledge.

As you spoke about the Mind of God, incredible things are experienced in this Thoughts. No doubt. But, why we give importance to any things thoughtfully experienced (and want to know much more things thought) in the mind of God, instead of giving GOD itself? There is no big deal about these thoughtful actions to find, whether it is predestined or not. Because they have no reality in GOD. When we gives much importance to thoughts in Mind of God (thoughts include material worldly.actions), an Ignorance arises upon God, and one ignorantly start to belief "thoughtful actions are true/real actions". Though thoughts/thoughtful actions in Mind of God has tremendous beauty and wonderment, it's unworthy and only sufferings holistically. When thoughts in mind of God looked at partial basis, it looks immensely great and powerful and aweness and magnificent, but when looked holistically these thoughts in mind of God - it's just useless. Without killing, no living thoughtful actions. If life has to be there thoughtfully (like food-etc.) many organisms has to be tortured and killed thoughtfully. Does one need such kind of thoughtful beauty on the one hand, by thoughtfully killing and suffer on the other hand? Is life truly worth to torture someother thoughtfully?

Not at all. And in all these, one forgets God. One fails to be/live in peace.
Unworthy thoughtful actions. God is Truth.

The way in which you describe the idea of God demonstrates what makes the concept a philosophy problem. The reason is that the idea of 'truth' and 'knowledge' are difficult areas with so much disagreement. I am not wishing to advocate cultural relativism, which dismisses the existence of all these. I certainly value the idea of not killing and of thoughtfulness.

Some philosophy perspectives break down the ideas of truth and beauty entirely, to the point where all meanings and values appear to have been thrown into the rubbish bin. However, there is still the question of objective 'truth' vs subjective, with the possible intersubjective areas in between. As far as I see it, there can be extremes of those who posit objective truths in some kind of authoritarian view and others who reduce it all to subjectivity.

Also, getting back to the idea of 'God' itself, there is the question to what extent is the concept useful philosophically? What I am thinking about is the nature of 'truth' and its validation, especially in the comparison between theistic perspectives and Buddhism, which doesn't speak of a deity as such. To what extent is the idea of God important in trying to grasp the idea of the absolute? Or, can it create more problems than it solves, especially if it glosses over many other aspects of epistemology and ethics? I am not dismissing the concept of 'truth', but trying to think about how constructed philosophy systems use this concept, just as the use of the term 'God' may be used ambiguously.