DID GOD CREATE MAN, OR DID MAN CREATE GOD

There was a time when anyone who posed such a question would have been burned at the stake, stoned in the town square, or subjected to some other cruel and inhuman fate. Even in our times, in some places where the church is master over all that it surveys, such draconian responses have changed but little. Like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and many of America’s other Founding Fathers, I am a deist. I deeply believe in the existence of a supreme being. Now what? Do I look to the Bible, Qu’ran, Torah, or Tipitaka to acquire perfect knowledge of this supreme being? Maybe I should just hang my faith on the perceived divine omniscience of the Pope, Dalai Lama, rabbis, priests, backwoods preachers, or ayatollahs. Should I grovel through life as penitence for my part in perpetuating Original Sin or handle poisonous snakes to display my spiritual courage? Perhaps, I may best serve my deity of choice by speaking in a tongue presumed to be known only to him, or her. Of course, finding God would be less taxing and simpler if I would only fashion my faith from the nuggets of divine wisdom dispensed by the likes of Pat Robertson and T.D. Jakes. Or, I could pick a tele-evangelist’s name from a hat, mail my tithe to him, or her, once a week, and be done with it.

Being a deist, requires only that I conduct my life as best I can, and, prayerfully, receive my marching orders directly from The Divine Source. Somehow, that does not seem to be enough. Surely there is an altar before which I can bend my knees and know that my prayers of devotion and gratitude will reach the proper ear, and I will receive an appropriate response. Then, I wondered if there is such a thing as a divine ear to hear my prayers, pleas, and protests. Or is God a figment of the imaginations of men as Jupiter, Wotan, and Osiris presumably were. Polytheists created a deity for every human endeavor and aspect. Could it be possible that monotheists created a deity and consigned every human endeavor and aspect to it? It would certainly be a lot simpler and neater. Fewer names to remember. No possibility of overlapping functions, ungod- like envy, intrigues and confrontations.

I am also a doomsdayer. I don’t dress in morbid black and walk around with my countenance fixed in a somber scowl. I am not a fan of the human race, but nor am I misanthropic. Such optimism that I doggedly retain resides with the belief that humanity will collectively realize the fatal course it has chosen and change direction before it steps onto an icy patch of fanaticism and slide helplessly into extermination. That is why the question that I pose may well be the most important question confronting humanity in these turbulent, violent times. I sincerely believe that only knowing the truth about the existence of a supreme being will save us.

At one end of this discussion are the atheists. Their point of view must certainly be respected. For it is far, far better to deny the existence of God than to squander one’s faith on sanctimonious allegories, fear quaking mythologies, and shamelessly dispensed poppycock, imposed at the point of guns and fierce bombast promising damnation. It is also far better to deny the existence of God than to subject one’s power of reason to the demeaning and stifling manipulations of those who claim to know what is best for our souls.

For about five thousand years, in much of the world, publicly declared atheists were condemned to be executed without recourse. Perhaps, the stridency in their current tones is due to the fact that they have much ground to make up, and little time to do so. Atheism has long been the missing piece in the puzzle in our quest for perfect knowledge about the conceptual source. As long as atheists stand their ground as advocates of reason, only revelations supported by truth will drive them away. Firmly embracing the improbability of the haphazard and helter skelter clashing and bonding of atoms forming and sustaining the wonders that the universe contain, I am of the mind that the atheist arguing and blustering until their brains explode will not budge me an inch from my belief that some form of conceptual source brought the universe into being. But proving it to scientific certainty, ah, there’s the rub.

The workings of God, Yahweh, Allah, Baal and etc. are beyond the powers of men to comprehend, the religionists argue. They purport to know who this conceptual source is and that they alone can draw from its powers. They set themselves above inquiry and are often violently intolerant of demands for proof of their assertions. To question the dictates of the church is the ultimate heresy. To expect God to yield His innermost secrets to scientific methodologies is an unspeakable abomination. Besides, religionists rightly argue, only religion can curb man’s savage nature. A point well taken, were it not for religion’s propensity for exploiting man’s savage nature when it serves the church’s ends and interests. We need only gratefully wallow in our ignorance and accept the existence of God on faith alone to realize his eternal rewards, is the essential theme of every religious faith. But it would seem axiomatic in the mind of God, that faith that yields to the flattery of ignorance, can only know humiliation, if and when the truth is brought to light.

We are sentient, mortal beings. That would suggest that whomever or whatever brought us into being endowed us with the faculties of reason; therefore, it is perfectly logically to assume that this conceptual source will not do our thinking for us. The conceptual source may not expect us to know everything about the universe, but it does expect us to realize that all things about it exist to be known. This does not necessarily mean the conceptual source will abandon us when we are confronted with circumstances that fall beyond our range of comprehension. Assuring us of this seems the proper role of faith. Faith is hope in what we do not know, not in what we do not choose to learn. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to believe that all religions are creations of a conceptual source. But it is critical that we understand that what religions have become is a creation of the religionists, and therefore, their responsibility.

So where are we in our pursuit of the truth concerning the existence of God? In a word, nowhere. And we’ve been there for many millennia. A stubborn streak of egotism, I suspect, prevent atheists from lighting candles to explore the spiritual darkness to learn whether or not God exists. We deists accept the existence of God as a fait accompli. No sense wasting precious candlelight re-affirming what we presume to already know. Religionists will light a million candles, but each to illuminate their own faces as they spew out ominous enigmas wrapped in piety, propelled by self interest. Over the millennia, religionists have been conditioned to plunge to the depths of their theologies in search of confirmation, ignoring or rejecting those contradictory empirical truths that lay just below the surface. Atheists celebrate the exposing of such truths, but adamantly refuse to credit their origins to a conceptual source.

As a creation of man, God is an amorphous, abstract entity, shaped, formed and defined according to our wants and agendas. His sole purpose for being is to fulfill our desires and protect our interests. Each religion vociferously asserts that God will receive only congregants of its faith into some form of Heaven and condemn all others to Hell. He is expected to forgive our most monstrous transgressions and avenge every peccadillo perpetrated against us. Despite their assertions to the contrary, religionists perceive The Creator functioning as little more than their manservant, Santa Claus, footstool, boody boy, and step `n fetchit, in return for our praise, worship, and, sometimes, sacrifices. Since all things are possible with The Creator, why not put him to the test. Christians build nuclear bombs and expect that God will insure that they will be detonated anywhere but over Christians. And God will forgive them for whatever reason they detonate them over their enemies. After all, they are bombing the bastards in the name of Jesus Christ. For the faithful, God rubber stamps their every whim and fancy. Such are the glorious benefits of the illusion of having a personal God.

Did God create man? Or did man create God? Suppose, just suppose, that God created man and put us on Earth to functions as His stewards. Suppose, God detests the arrogance and impertinence of his most inspired creation, and has grown weary of it playing Him for a chump. Maybe, God has decided, that a housecleaning on planet Earth is very much in order. Maybe, just maybe, God is the soul of compassion and is willing to forgive and forget our pseudo divine delusion that our beliefs are his truths, if given the proper incentives.