IT WAS fashionable only a few years ago to assume that God didn’t really exist, or even that he had died.
How different things seem now, when religion of one sort or another is in the headlines every day.
God is not dead. His voice thunders out daily from the summit of Mount Sinai and shatters the cedar trees of Lebanon.
He is clearly alive in the hearts of great swathes of humanity. A curiosity about him is written into our DNA.
God does not only belong to the past. He is at the cutting edge of news and politics in the 21st century …
Consider the bitter conflict in the Middle East, the huge fuss about British Muslim women wearing the full-face veil, the row over whether faith schools should be required to take a proportion of pupils from other faiths or none – all of these issues show that religion and God are very much alive.
Even the most ardent atheist will sometimes wonder if there is a God, a merciful diety, one that can take all away the pain of life’s vale of tears.
And many an atheist or agnostic when caught in circumstances of extreme danger will find his inner conscience sending him hurtling towards eternal truth, compelling him to screams the prayer: “Help me, God.�
That has been the common conversion experience of millions of men (and quite a few women) over the ages as they sheltered in foxholes amid the horrors of war. They cry out to God intuitively.
“There are no atheists in foxholes,� I once heard a Roman Catholic priest say. He was right.
And whether we like it or not (and I guess most folk don’t) God’s role in the destiny of the nations is still very much a hot issue.
That is why everyone reporting on the affairs of man needs to understand, now more than ever, about religion and its fiery interface with politics.
As for the teaching of religion in schools, which is now under threat from secular fundamentalists and liberal extremists, I'd say it is needed more than ever …
Because we all need ethical training, rooted in the authentic moral teachings of the world’s great faiths.
It is a foolish self-deception to believe that human society can get by on its own, without help from a higher wisdom.
And it is hopelessly gullible to look to airy-fairy ‘New Age’ mumbo-jumbo for personal salvation or enlightenment.
Such muddled thinking has led us to into the mess that Western societies now find themselves in.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »
Kay ~ wrote...
In reply to Steve Regan's topic ~ "The trouble with pretending that God is dead . . . "
We humans are still a species that have not been around all that long, Stephen, and despite our progress from cave dwellers to "rational thinkers," we're still functioning in the survival mode ~ that is we act and react to those who are different than us in thought, word and deed as if threatened.
Also, it's too simplistic to say that “ the ego� is the problem, the inherent enemy, for our sense of self does not act without our making a choice. Blaming others for the pitiful state of humankind is skimming the surface, for we ourselves share in the responsibility ~ if we choose compassion towards others, it not only sets the example, it activates the very change necessary for our spiritual evolution.
It's going to take time, Stephen.
In this sense time is our ally because with each choice we make in how we relate to others, in each kind thought, word and action, humankind moves one stepping stone closer to the God in all there is. We will cease to hurt ourselves by hurting others, but only when this becomes a collective realisation ~ only then.
Is God dead?
No.
“God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason.�
Dag Hammarskjold
*** Blimey, this blog gets the most interesting and philosophical of comments left on it.Thanks for that, Kay. Always nice to hear from you, my friend. SR
Posted by: Kay ~ | October 29, 2006 7:14 PM