Every once in awhile, life seems to hit a brick wall, and that's usually when a BIG QUESTION comes up. God often figures into these BIG QUESTIONS, and it reveals either our ignorance about God or about ourselves.
I decided to answer most of the BIG QUESTIONS for you today. You're welcome.
1. How do I know there's a God? It seems like superstition.
Depends on what you think God should be. The kind of God most people picture likely doesn’t exist. But Something exists, and we make guesses at what It might be like. How do you know something exists? Look in the mirror. Do you exist? Are you something?
If you don’t believe there is a God, maybe it is that the God you don’t believe in doesn’t exist. Down through the centuries there have been many Gods that we now think never existed. Maybe the idea you had of God is one of them. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t something that is the Source of the creative activity in the universe.
Do you believe in cause and effect? Everything is caused by something, and that cause is caused by something, until eventually there is a Some Thing that was the first cause of everything. That’s what we call God, but we only guess at what It is, or what It is like. Ernest Holmes called It The Thing Itself. Of course it is likely not exactly a thing as we think of it, but a Power, an Intelligence, a Principle of action.
We have different belief systems and religions in the world because different groups of people have made different guesses about the nature of that First Cause. It is far beyond us, and so we will never grasp It fully.
2. Where is God, anyway?
Where is First Cause? Because It existed before anything else existed, everything must be made from It, within It, and the complexity we see around us is actually the complexity of It’s thought. God is all around us, through us, and in us. We are not God, but God is us, right here, and right now. Before you get too cocky, God is also that guy around the corner that you can't stand. Get used to it.
We are like fish trying to figure out the water, except that unlike fish, we can’t jump out of it, or touch the bottom.
3. Where was God when I needed her?
The energy and intelligence, which we call God, is busy being You all the time. When you look outside of yourself for answers, God must wonder what’s wrong with you.
4. How can I trust God?
God does not have human characteristics, except in form, as you and your fellow humans. Can you trust yourself? God doesn’t have any need to manipulate or trick you – It is beyond any of that. Can you trust the sun, the air, and the water? Can you trust gravity, or electricity? These forces of nature are other aspects of God that are independent of any humanlike fears or failings.
The Creative Power’s only action is to give Itself freely to It’s creations. That's called the Grace of God. There’s no agenda other than to create in harmony (because It can’t be opposed to Itself), and in multiplicity (because creating the same thing all the time is not creative, it’s obsessive-compulsive!
When we don’t trust ourselves, or other people, or the world around us, it leads us down a path to an unhappy life. We waste enormous amounts of energy trying to trick the world into giving us more of what we want. It’s less trouble to take the straightforward route, ask for what you want, and listen for the answer – but that takes faith, and if you don’t trust, you don’t have the faith you need to live the easy way.
The biggest problem with lack of trust is that our mind automatically works so that we seek out the things that confirm our belief system. Believe that people and things are untrustworthy, and your unconscious mind seeks out betrayal with every step you make.
5. How come God didn't answer when I prayed?
While I don’t really know if there’s a wrong way to pray, certainly some ways are better than others. Many people pray for something when they’re really not clear if that’s what they want, or they haven’t really thought it through. Your mental impression of what you are praying for is the template for what you get. A fuzzy template brings an uncertain result.
This Thing we call God doesn’t answer so much as It responds, and it responds by corresponding to the belief you have. If you pray for the moon but seriously don’t believe you will get it, the Divine Power responds to your sincere belief by not giving it to you.
Some people are good at ‘asking’ but not good at ‘accepting’. The answers to prayer often come in a form slightly different than we have in mind. We need to be open to alternatives. Ask for a new car, and a second job comes available. Your new car may be hidden in the job offer. See?
6. How do I know God's will?
You’ve heard “Where there’s a will, there’s a way?” YOU have the will and God has the way. God’s will for you is your will for you, but not at the shallow surface level. At your innermost level, there is pure Spirit with a desire to express Itself in the world, as you. That desire lies within you at your deepest level, and you can contact it if you simply be still and listen…. and listen…and listen. This is called meditation.
It is said that prayer is talking to God – while meditation is listening to God. Do you want to learn something? Listen.
There are countless styles and types of meditation – one of them will work for you. It can be a formal type, or it can just be long walks in the park. I prefer sitting in the dark and listening to jazz. You can try this and that and find out what works for you.
What’s it all about? The key is to get your conscious ego-mind to shut the heck up, so that the unconscious can bubble to the surface with images, sounds, or ideas that speak to you at a soul level. The idea of meditative practices is the either put your surface mind to sleep or to distract it for a while.
7. If God is so great, how come there's evil in the world?
We have a habit of misusing Power and then blaming the source. It’s like saying “If electricity is so good, how come there’s static on my radio?” The Power that made the world is everywhere in the world, right now, making everything happen. It’s not good or bad; It just IS, in the same way that electricity just IS in your wall socket. Misuse it, and it shocks you – maybe kills you. That doesn’t mean that evil was in the electricity, it just means that our relationship to it was incorrect.
This Power and Intelligence that we call God just is. That’s what God told Moses, when Moses asked, “Who are you?” The answer was “I AM THAT AM” or “I AM THAT WHICH IS.” So if Power just is, and the ocean just is, and lightning just is, and we just are, then it’s our job to treat it right and treat each other right. The Power works through everything, including us, and we are free to misuse it, or else we wouldn’t be free at all.
The word Sin, apparently, is an old archery term meaning to miss the mark. We miss the mark on a lot of things, but if we start looking for some evil lurking in the woodwork, we don’t just miss the mark, we miss the point. The point is that we are responsible for finding out how things work, and then placing ourselves in proper relationship to things.
I like to think of the word responsible as made up of response – able. We are able to respond to the forces and events around us. We can let go of guilt, shame and all the lurking emotions which people have been saddled with. Just assume responsibility – your ability to respond. That will let you bring out the best from every situation, even if the situation is one you don’t like.
8. If God is everywhere, why do we bother with churches?
Good question. Churches are human institutions, built to fulfill an inner human need to band together. Somehow there is an energy that is built up and released, an enthusiasm, when we not only group together, but together go through a ritualistic kind of action.
We need help to keep our focus on the answers to big questions, and we need reinforcement when the circumstances of life pull our attention away from the Good and onto life’s problems. Other people can help to pull us back on track.
Having said that, the kind of church we belong to will depend on our fundamental beliefs, about whether we believe in freedom and flexibility, or authoritarianism. So long as there are people who believe in different ways, there will be a need for different kinds of churches.
There likely are people who have no need for churches. That’s OK. But for most people, they seek a church that will reflect their beliefs, and their prejudices, back to them. That may feel comfortable to them, but most people do not progress away from their rigid patterns of thought until they start to examine the kinds of things that are being reinforced in their chosen group.
In the office cafeteria, most of the complainers will sit at the same table. They reinforce each other. People with rigid and inflexible viewpoints also gather, to reinforce each other. It goes without saying that people who want to keep a positive outlook, who want to learn and to grow, should also join together to reinforce one another.
Many spiritual ‘seekers’ who resist dogma but have a burning desire to understand the spiritual Principles that underlies all existence are drawn to churches of the New Thought movement. There have been many great Catholics, Baptists, and others who have opened their minds and hearts to and intuitive understanding of Truth. Some of these have been defrocked, excommunicated, and in the distant past, even burned or worse. Organizations often move forcefully or even violently to protect their structure and their control over people. When they do, they move away from Truth into the realm of Dogma.
9. What’s the difference between Dogma and Truth? Isn’t it a matter of opinion?
Another tough question to answer, but here goes. Most religions from the distant past to the present are rule-based. They list a set of rules, and as time goes on, the list tends to get longer. These rules include lists of beliefs that you must hold if you are to be considered a member of the group. In other words they are not inclusive.
Some modern religions are Principle-based. Principles are statements of Truth, which may be obvious or not. Principles are not invented by people but they are discovered by people. Principles hold true regardless of circumstances, regardless of time, space or situation.
Rules are made up to deal with the EFFECTS of the action of Principles. When you know the Principle, and how it works, you can write your own rules and they will be valid, useful and correct.
We have some examples in the world of physics. Gravity is a principle. It applies everywhere, whether there is anything to provide it or not. Your weight is an effect of gravity, and it would vary at various points in space, including being absent if you were in orbit.
The Ten Commandments are a set of rules. Later on, the Hebrew people added hundreds of dietary rules, behaviour rules, and ritual actions. When asked, Jesus reduced these to two Principles, “Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself.” These are actually three, because “Love yourself” and “Love your neighbout” could be considered as two things.
There are some familiar physical principles, which operate throughout the universe. There are also mental and spiritual principles, such as the Creative Principle, which is taught in courses such as The Science of Mind, and also in some secular programs, like Psycho-Cybernetics. This principle is broken down into sub-categories, such as the Law of Attraction, the Law of Compensation, the Law of Cause and Effect, or Karma, and others. Each ‘Law’ is a principle from which you can derive moral and useful rules for living.
New Thought Churches teach these Universal Principles that apply to any and every situation, and from these you can deduce or develop any rules you need to live a good and useful life. These churches do not insist on a specific belief, but they teach that your thoughts, including your belief set, will work through the Creative Principle in all Its forms, to produce your experience of life. From there, it’s up to you, and if you keep thinking what you’ve always thought, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.
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