GOD’S WILL OR MAN'S?
Aleron Zemplin
Yehhi’s apparent continued consciousness after his death as he watches and comments on successive history is meant to represent the collective thoughts regarding Yehhi of all the living people who focus their minds upon him. Yehhi’s thoughts and opinions evolve throughout history as the thoughts of those who think about him evolve. After physical death, the thoughts of others are his only continuing existence. The mental energy flows from the people to the god and defines the will of the god. What the people interpret as the will of the god is in fact the collective thoughts of the people regarding the god. The directionality of the relationship is deceptive. Both the people and the god believe that the will of the god originates with the god and he imposes his will upon the people. In fact it is exactly the opposite. The will of the people originates with the people, and the people thereby define their god.
In the modern, largely secular world, where we understand much more about how nature works than the Bronze Age people who first conceived this God, the definition of God and God’s will is unfortunately being left more and more to the most extreme, and ignorant religious elements, the few people who are left that do not understand that modern science has actually explained the forces of nature and the evolution of living things. This is because they are the ones focusing their thoughts on God while everyone else is thinking about worldly concerns. Thus the chanting students in Pakistani Madrassas and the fanatical, Middle Eastern, terrorist who literally cannot speak a single sentence without invoking the name of Allah have a disproportionately large influence on the will of God. Self-righteous Evangelical Christians who want to change civil law to represent their narrow minded views on social issues or replace the teaching of science with fantasy based pseudoscience have disproportionate influence on the nature of God. Yehhi is not a God of love, compassion or even justice. He is simply a God of whatever we collectively think about him as being. He is a creature of our own misguided thoughts who has traveled far from his origins as the bright, innocent, and likeable son of an ancient incense peddler. Yehhi loves the September 11th suicide bombers, and the Waco Branch Davidians. He loves them because they were focused on Him while most of us were not. He loves them because their actions and the actions of others like them are driving people toward more intense religious devotion. No matter that that devotion is becoming more and more divisive and laced with prejudice, ignorance, and fear. From Yehhi’s perspective, all that matters is that more thoughts are directed towards Him.
He was becoming less relevant in the modern world and thus perhaps in danger of once again starting to fade toward non-existence, like He almost did under the beehive dome back in Ur, before an earthquake brought Him to the forefront of Abraham’s thoughts. But due to recent developments, He is back and stronger than ever. Religion is a human endeavor, which is likely imprinted on our brains and in our genes; it will likely persist hundreds or thousands of generations into the future. Thus we should support caring, responsible and inclusive religious beliefs in caring and responsible people so that God’s will be defined by positive values. The alternative is to have a God defined by narrow minded, self-righteous people of prejudice, and ignorance.
In the modern, largely secular world, where we understand much more about how nature works than the Bronze Age people who first conceived this God, the definition of God and God’s will is unfortunately being left more and more to the most extreme, and ignorant religious elements, the few people who are left that do not understand that modern science has actually explained the forces of nature and the evolution of living things. This is because they are the ones focusing their thoughts on God while everyone else is thinking about worldly concerns. Thus the chanting students in Pakistani Madrassas and the fanatical, Middle Eastern, terrorist who literally cannot speak a single sentence without invoking the name of Allah have a disproportionately large influence on the will of God. Self-righteous Evangelical Christians who want to change civil law to represent their narrow minded views on social issues or replace the teaching of science with fantasy based pseudoscience have disproportionate influence on the nature of God. Yehhi is not a God of love, compassion or even justice. He is simply a God of whatever we collectively think about him as being. He is a creature of our own misguided thoughts who has traveled far from his origins as the bright, innocent, and likeable son of an ancient incense peddler. Yehhi loves the September 11th suicide bombers, and the Waco Branch Davidians. He loves them because they were focused on Him while most of us were not. He loves them because their actions and the actions of others like them are driving people toward more intense religious devotion. No matter that that devotion is becoming more and more divisive and laced with prejudice, ignorance, and fear. From Yehhi’s perspective, all that matters is that more thoughts are directed towards Him.
He was becoming less relevant in the modern world and thus perhaps in danger of once again starting to fade toward non-existence, like He almost did under the beehive dome back in Ur, before an earthquake brought Him to the forefront of Abraham’s thoughts. But due to recent developments, He is back and stronger than ever. Religion is a human endeavor, which is likely imprinted on our brains and in our genes; it will likely persist hundreds or thousands of generations into the future. Thus we should support caring, responsible and inclusive religious beliefs in caring and responsible people so that God’s will be defined by positive values. The alternative is to have a God defined by narrow minded, self-righteous people of prejudice, and ignorance.