What I think about "God" and "The Bible" (for the christians)

by David Long on Sunday, December 19, 2010 at 5:07am ·

What I think about "God" and "The Bible":

I wouldn't say there is no God.

That is not my position.

I would say that "god" is bigger then any man can imagine.

"God' is a word for a transcendent mystery beyond all categories of thought. 

God is a mystery to all. Not something we can know or understand. Unfortunately we want to say we know God so we can put him/her/it in a box, say we understand him/her/it and go about living life. God cannot be known. It's beyond all understanding from our perspective. The only way we can even think about the thing that is no-thing is to wrap "him/her or it" in tangible "things" we understand. (words that cannot hold God like "him/her or it") 

This is where religion comes in. Unfortunately, most modern day Christians don't view their gospels, and ancient texts, as poems to grasp what can't be known. They think of them as facts. They say the Bible is the untranslatable, literal, word of God. In all reality, it is the multi-translated, metaphorical, words of men.

To read a myth as a fact is to misunderstand it. These stories are metaphors that come from the human subconscious that apply to everyone. (they didn't fall from the sky)

Mythology is the finger pointing at the stars. But don't get caught in the finger, or you will never see the stars, and that is the whole point of pointing. Religion is the edge. metaphors about the transcendent. But don't get stuck on the image. Your ultimate image of God is your ultimate boundary from God.

These myths are to tell us how to be in the world and give us strength and humility in the face of ignorance, fear, and greed. And it teaches us how to deal with our own Ignorance fear and greed. Jesus is the example. (the 3 temptations of christ)

Did you know that many of the original hebrew scrolls had pomegranates on the ends to represent the different levels of meaning and the different ways we can understand and relate to this living word? Living meaning not static or absolute but changing and evolving with the time and cosmology. Still relevant if you can read it in spirit/christ and not a simple, easy answer, reductionist, literal, historic, materialistic, reading from the perspective of the flesh.

1 Corinthians:

2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

(Here we see that the truth of God is "hidden wisdom".  The truth of God is a "mystery".)

2:10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. [14] But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

In other words to take the bible literally or to read it in the flesh is foolishness. (and indeed it is foolish) It should be read in spirit as metaphor.

In the earliest version of Judaism and Christianity It was thought that God was a mystery beyond the ability of man's mind to even comprehend.

In the OT God say's "Before Abram was I AM" which is not a name. Back in these days it was thought that if you knew a god's name you could call him and thus have power over him. This God is saying "I am that which cannot be named" or "I'm not telling" and this is the god I know. Many people feel him/it, call him/it by different names, have similar experiences and claim to know contradictory things about it.

For me I think I prefer the mysterious contemplative versions of this tradition. I think that and WWJD is about as close as they get to truth now a days.

Christian Orthodoxy and other traditions claim to have found the true name and image of god, and the true word of god. No mystery here at all. "Do this, say these words, pay 10% and your in." This whole orthodox religion is just a perverted version of "Christianity" designed with political intentions by Constantine and the Roman Government for control. If we know them by their fruits it's obvious that what followed in the inquisition and crusades was perverted religion as a tool for power. Not to mention it's a mishmash of different ideas put together /self contradictory.) All that is just easy answers and false hope for gullible people who are too lazy to research the mystery for them selves.

So I guess I am saying I don't believe in any mythic god. Any childish Anthropomorphic personal God. All that makes no logical sense and if you do rationalize it you put god in a context, and at that point humanity is just the sims on gods computer, and God is just some kid in a context him self. Then "god" is hardly a "god" and we are even smaller and less relevant then we thought. but then we realize we are telling a story about a human and we should stop trying to understand that which is beyond our ability to know. - If we want to be humble and honest in our pursuit of the truth.

God can be understood in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. I will try and explain this to you in Christian language .

1st person perspective of god is where "your body is a temple"

Thomas Gospel (114 sayings of Jesus) 108: Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him."

John 10:30 - "I and the father are one."

2nd person perspective of god is where you worship the divine in the other. Love your neighbor as your self.

Matthew 25:41-46 

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

3rd person perspective of god is where you worship the bride of christ or the body of christ. God as everything, The kosmo's it's self.

Mark 12:30-31 

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

This is basically touching on all 3 aspects of the divine and relating them to each other. (thats the goal. The self in service to it's context in a sacred way.)

"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31