Introduction
There are many religions on the planet with different notions about God which has become a source of confusion among religious people. There are some people who argue that all religions are the same, and we are worshiping the same God. Are all religions the same? Are we worshiping the same God? What does the word “God” mean?
In this article, I discuss the origin of religion, the different worldviews, the confusion about the Ultimate Reality, and the controversy about the word “God”. The fact here is that, in some religions, there is no god to worship, because there is nothing there to point to as God. And again, When some one says, he or she believes in God, that doesn`t mean both of you are serving or worshiping the same God. The only way both of you serve or worship the same "God" is when both of your ideas, notions, and concepts about the word "God" are the same. So this article is about understanding the word “God” and how controversial the word “God” has become.
How Did It All Start?
Religion, by definition, is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Since the recording of human history, the idea about God has taken different shapes and forms. According to the Urantia Book, paper 85, the origins of worship, “primitive religion had a biologic origin, a natural evolutionary development, aside from moral associations and apart from all spiritual influences. The higher animals have fears but no illusions, hence no religion. Man creates his primitive religions out of his fears and by means of his illusions. In the evolution of the human species, worship in its primitive manifestations appears long before the mind of man is capable of formulating the more complex concepts of life now and in the hereafter which deserve to be called religion. Early religion was wholly intellectual in nature and was entirely predicated on associational circumstances. The objects of worship were altogether suggestive; they consisted of the things of nature which were close at hand, or which loomed large in the commonplace experience of the simple-minded primitive Urantians. When religion once evolved beyond nature worship, it acquired roots of spirit origin but was nevertheless always conditioned by the social environment. As nature worship developed, man’s concepts envisioned a division of labor in the super mortal world; there were nature spirits for lakes, trees, waterfalls, rain, and hundreds of other ordinary terrestrial phenomena. At one time or another mortal man has worshiped everything on the face of the earth, including himself. He has also worshiped about everything imaginable in the sky and beneath the surface of the earth. Primitive man feared all manifestations of power; he worshiped every natural phenomenon he could not comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatly impressed the expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life are still termed “acts of God” and “mysterious dispensations of Providence.” The worship of rocks, hills, trees, and animals naturally developed up through fearful veneration of the elements to the deification of the sun, moon, and stars. In India and elsewhere the stars were regarded as the glorified souls of great men who had departed from the life in the flesh. The Chaldean star cultists considered themselves to be the children of the sky father and the earth mother”.
This means that the fear of the unknown resulted to the submission of mankind to the unknown, thus the beginning of religion. On the other hand, according to Boyer, early man was forced to locate food and shelter in order to survive, while constantly being directed by his instincts and senses. Because man's existence depended on nature, men began to form their religion and beliefs on and around nature itself. It is evident that man's first religion would have had to develop from the material world, he argues, because man relied heavily on his senses and what he could see, touch, and feel. In this sense, the worship of nature formed, allowing man to further depend on nature for survival.
The above arguments point to the fact that in any case, mankind first form of worship was Earth Religion. According to Wikipedia, “Earth-centered religion or nature worship is a system of religion based on the veneration of natural phenomena. It covers any religion that worships the earth, nature, or fertilty gods and goddesses, such as the various forms of goddess worship or matriarchal religion. The term earth religion encompasses any religion that worships the earth, nature or fertility gods or goddesses. As mankind cultures and societies became more complex, they began using practices and various symbols to make sense of the natural and spiritual world around them. Instead of simply trying to find belongingness and empathy from the relationships with others, humans created and evolved God and spirits in order to fulfill that need and exploration.
As a result of this there is an array of groups and beliefs that fall under earth religion, such as paganism, which is a polytheistic, nature based religion; animism, which is the worldview that all living entities (plants, animals, and humans) possess a spirit; Wicca, who hold the concept of an earth mother goddess, as well as practice ritual magic; and druidism, which equates divinity with the natural world. Another perspective of earth religion to consider is pantheism, which takes a varied approach to the importance and purpose of the earth, and man's relationship with the planet. Several of their core statements deal with the connectivity humans share with the planet, declaring that "all matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which we are an inseparable part" and "we are an integral part of Nature, which we should cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We should strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally"
Earth religion has been a part of the history of mankind since the recording of human history, the evidence of this can be seen in the cultures and ways of life of people of all nations, races and languages. April 22 was established as International Mother Earth Day by the United Nations in 2009, but many cultures around the world have been celebrating the Earth for thousands of years. Winter solstice and Summer solstice are celebrated with holidays like Yule and Dongzhi in the winter and Tiregān and upala in the summer. During this, diverse religious rites and rituals are performed to honor and worship the heavenly bodies.
Different Worldviews.
There are numerious world views that have made religion to be a source of confusion in the world. Religion supposed to be a unifying force amongst humanity, and a medium to connect mankind with the One and only truth God, but now-a-day, it` s the source of some of the most devasting conflicts in the world. The source of the confusion is derived from the ways in which mankind perceive "God".
When you move around the globe, there are diverse kinds of views about God. As we will see, they serve as the "mind-sets" of different groups of people around the world, and display their emotions and feelings about "God". These world views include: Agnosticism, Atheism, Apatheism, Ignosticism, omnism, Politheism, Panentheism, Pantheism, Henotheism, Animism, Deism, and Theism.
1. Agnosticism. The word “agnostic” essentially means “without knowledge.” It is the view that maintains that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether or not God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable. Agnostics argue that the existence of God is impossible to be known or proven.
Agnosticism, Literally means no knowledge, or human being is not able to know God. In my opinion, it's a clever attempt to quench mankind's quest for God. Whoever pursues this path, ends up living without knowledge about God.
2. Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.
This is an important point to note, atheism does not mean that there is no God. It's only a deliberate denial and rejection of God. The same amount of deliberate act that an individual takes to deny and reject God, is the same amount of deliberate act needed to accept that God exist. Therefore, atheism is a conscious attempt to rule out God from the affairs of one's life.
3. Apatheism also known as pragmatic atheism or practical atheism, is acting with apathy, disregard, or lack of interest towards belief or disbelief in a deity. An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do not exist. An apatheist lives as if there are no gods and explains natural phenomena without reference to any deities. The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view. In other words, an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to their life.
4. Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and other theological concepts.
5. Polytheism refers to the worship of or belief in multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals.
6. Pantheism is the belief that the Universe (or nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God. Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god. A pantheist can worship anything he/she chooses as God because all or everything is God.
7. Panentheism (meaning "all-in-God". It is a belief system which posits that the divine – whether as a single God, number of gods, or other form of "cosmic animating force", interpenetrates every part of the universe and extends, timelessly (and, presumably, spacelessly) beyond it. A panentheist argues that all or everything is in God.
8. Animism (from Latin anima, "breath, spirit, life"), is the worldview that non-human entities—such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects—possess a spiritual essence.
9. Henotheism is the belief in and worship of a single God while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be served. In other words, it's the worship of many gods, but at the same time accepting one to be the chief god or godess.
10. Deism derived from the Latin word deus meaning "god", combines the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge with the conclusion that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator of the universe. Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world but rather allows it to function according to the laws of nature.
11. Theism is the belief in a personal creator God, who is self-existent, holy, loving, just, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. Theistis assert that all limited or finite things are dependent in some way on one supreme or ultimate reality of which one may also speak in personal terms. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this ultimate reality is often called God.
Different Opinions About the Ultimate Reality.
Theistic religions attribute existence of our species to a Master Designer. The religions that do not believe in a Master Designer are said to be non-theistic, then comes the question, who or what is the Ultimate Reality? By definition, Ultimate Reality is something that is supreme, final, and fundamental power in all reality. But as we will see, there are different opinions which seem to be a source of confusion of who really God is.
A). Theistic Religions
Judaism, the earliest monotheistic religion believes in a personal creator God who revealed himself through the story of the Jewish people. We find it in the scriptures called the Torah by the Jews and the Old Testament by the Christians. Christianity gives the fullest account of God`s involvement in his creation, in terms of the incarnation and redeeming work of the eternal Son of God. Islam, was founded by Muhammad. The god of Islam, Allah, is presented in the Quran as an eternal being, transcendent and almighty. But to what extent is Allah, the god of Islam, the same as the God of Judaism and Christianity, is a source of confusion, depending on who you talk to, there are different opinions. The most common view is that Judaism and Christianity find it easy to accept that both of them are connected to the same God. In fact, some theologians called God the Judeo-Christian God, which means the God of the Jews and Christians. But when it comes to including Allah, the god of Islam, to the Judeo-Christian God concept, it's vehemently rejected by both Jews and Christians. Only some politicians because of politics and religious tolerance accept Allah, the god of Islam, as the same as the God of the Jews and Christians.
B). Non-theistic Religions
While theistic religions diver on the full account and understanding of who God or the Ultimate Reality actually is, the confusion is even much bigger among non-theistic religions. As we will see, they all have different views about who God or who the Ultimate Reality is, and how he should be perceived. At the same time there is a similarity that exists when it comes to the question of God.
1). The Ultimate Reality in Hinduism appears to be not specific, because there are different groups with different notions about God. For instance, three main patterns can be identified among them. First, there is henotheism, the religion of the ancient Vedas and later Vaishnavism and Shaivism, which states that many gods exist, but one of them is more important than the others. Second, there is pantheism, the perspective brought by the Upanishads and later Vedanta, which considers Ultimate Reality to be just anything, because all or everything is God. Third, there is dualism, the perspective of the Samkhya and the Yoga darshana of Patanjali that acknowledge two ultimate realities, in other words, two forces that are equal in power. Now, this understanding of Hinduism makes us to know that the kind of Hinduism an individual practices depends on the group he or she is a part of. So in this case, who is the actual Ultimate Reality in Hinduism? In other words, there is no specific Ultimate Reality in Hinduism.
2). The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama - the Buddha, lived in the sixth century BC. Buddhism is another religion that appears to have no specific Ultimate Reality. For instance, two main forms of Buddhism are known today: the conservative branch, represented by the Theravada school, spread mainly in Sri Lanka and southeast Asia, and the liberal branch - Mahayana, spread mainly in China, Tibet, Korea and Japan.
The Theravada school, which claims to have guarded the unaltered message of its founder, teaches that there is neither a personal god, nor a spiritual or material substance that exists by itself as Ultimate Reality. The world as we know it does not have its origin in a primordial being such as Brahman. What we see is only a product of transitory factors of existence, which depend functionally upon each other. That gods exist is not rejected, but they are only temporary beings that attained heaven using the same virtues as any human disciple. Gods are not worshiped, do not represent the basis for morality, and are not the givers of happiness. The Ultimate Reality is nothing but a transcendent truth, which governs the universe and human life. As Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, puts it “the world exists because of causal actions, all things are produced by causal actions and all beings are governed and bound by causal actions. They are fixed like the rolling wheel of a cart, fixed by the pin of its axle shaft”. What does this mean? There is nothing like Ultimate Reality in Buddhism. There is no god to point to, no god to worship, no god to look up to for morality, only casual human actions are important.
3). The founder of Taoism is Lao Tse. Taoism appears to be similar to Buddhism, there is nothing like Ultimate Reality, because, in Taoism, the ultimate reality is a principle of life, not a specific Being. Taoism states an impersonal Ultimate Reality that is both the creator principle and the eternal truth of the universe. It is the Tao, the immutable and unchanging principle that is the basis of multiplicity and the impulse that generates all forms of life. In the same way as the Hindu Brahman or Buddhist Dharmakaya, Tao is the source in which all the manifestations of the world originate and return. So there is no god to worship and look up to as the ultimate reality.
4). Confucianism, as a matter of fact, has no ultimate reality. Rather than a religion, Confucius founded an ethical system in order to harmonize social relations in the Chinese state. For this reason it is hard to say that Confucianism, at least in its original form, is a true religion. Although Confucius respected the religious traditions of his time, he gave them a mere ethical interpretation. The supreme principle in the universe according to him is the moral law, a universal principle, omnipresent, hidden and eternal. This is it, Taoism is not a religion, therefore, there is no ultimate reality. Confucianism is an ethical system.
As we have seen, this means that in some religions, there is no god to worship, because there is nothing there to point to as God. This is interesting, How can you have a religion without God? Or how can you have a religion without a specific God? Mankind is confused, mankind needs help, and must be told the truth.
The Controversy about the Word God.
This is the kind of world that we live in, there is no universal agreement about the Ultimate Reality or God. This makes the word “God” to be controversial and a source of confusion for religious people. In the midst of this confusion, some people who don't know about the confusion surrounding the Ultimate Reality or God, argue that all religions are the same or we are all worshiping the same God. This is not true. All religions are not the same, and we are not worshiping the same God. Let no one deceive you or be deceived by anyone. There are only two religions who appear to have similar notions about God, and they are Judaism and Christianity. Their Old Testament concepts about God are the same, the only difference about these religions is the issue of Jesus Christ or the New Testament. Judaism doesn't believe that the Messiah has come. Therefore all assertions about the manifestation of God through Jesus Christ are rejected. There is also some kind of similarity between the non-theistic religions, about the ultimate reality. For instance, Taoism states an impersonal Ultimate Reality that is both the creator principle and the eternal truth of the universe. It is the Tao, the immutable and unchanging principle that is the basis of multiplicity and the impulse that generates all forms of life. In the same way as the Hindu Brahman or Buddhist Dharmakaya, Tao is the source in which all the manifestations of the world originate and return. This means that there is no specific god in these religions to worship, because there is nothing there to point to as God.
While the confusion about the ultimate reality persists, there are omnists who argue that all religions should be recognized. Omnism is the recognition and respect of all religions; those who hold this belief are called omnists. In recent years, the term has been emerging anew, due to the interest of modern day self-described omnists who have rediscovered and begun to redefine the term. It is best thought of as syncretism taken to its logical extreme.
The problem here is that if we recognize, respect, and believe all religions, then who's telling the truth? The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary says that the origin of the word ‘god’ comes from a Germanic word ‘gad,’ pronounced as “gohdt.” The English word God is identical with the Anglo-Saxon word for “good,” and therefore it is believed that the name God refers to the divine goodness.
Conclusion
To conclude, many religious problems about "God" arise from misunderstandings about exactly what the word is taken to mean. Based on what one thinks the word "God" is to be taken, is his or her notion about "God". And as notions differ, so are the notions about "God". In other words, When some one says, he or she believes in God, that doesn`t mean both of you are serving or worshiping the same God. The only way both of you serve or worship the same "God" is when both of you ideas, notions, and concepts about the word "God" are the same. So don`t be carried away when some uses the word "God" and claims to be worshiping "God". Make sure both of you ideas, or notions and concepts are the same, then you can conclude that both of you are serving or worshiping the same "God".
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