Our Erroneous Concepts About God!

Many of us, the modern day human beings, may boast of living in a world of science and may be proud of the achievements that we have made and have been making in the past few decades, as compared to our forefathers who lived in the past centuries.

When we examine this with regard to the physical environment and material comforts, we may be compelled to be proud of human achievement in many fields, even while we faintly acknowledge the problems of our modern day achievements.

While some of our fellows are making advances in sciences and technology, some of us are also compelled to believe in our own abilities while some others among us may become a bit scared of the future consequences.

Our scientific advancements have not yet resolved our faith or faithlessness in the unseen superior intelligence that subtly over control our world. That has caused our knowledge and intelligence to work in isolated compartments when it comes to our religious thoughts and scientific thoughts.

More importantly, our religious beliefs and spiritual ideas have not undergone much change as compared to our forefathers who lived in the past bygone centuries. In other words, we are as ignorant or confused when it comes to our understanding of the universe and the naturally visible management of our planet and its nature. While we may collect data and try to interpret those data with our mathematical tools, we really do not have any idea about the universe administration that are beyond our material comprehension.

That way, modern mankind is no different from its ancient ancestry! Our modern scientific minds too remain as those of our ancient forefathers when it comes to our concepts about God!

We have made remarkable success in removing so many erroneous concepts that carried forward from the past with regard to our material knowledge with the help of our scientific skills and tools. But unfortunately we have not made an equivalent progress of mind with regard to our knowledge and understanding of God.

So what are our erroneous concepts about God?

Let me pause here to quote from my book of life guidance which talks about it (the erroneous God concepts of human beings) from a superior third party view point:

Religious tradition is the imperfectly preserved record of the experiences of the God-knowing men of past ages, but such records are untrustworthy as guides for religious living or as the source of true information about the Universal Father (God). Such ancient beliefs have been invariably altered by the fact that primitive man was a myth maker.

One of the greatest sources of confusion on Urantia (Earth) concerning the nature of God grows out of the failure of your sacred books clearly to distinguish between the (divine) personalities of the Paradise Trinity and between Paradise Deity and the local universe creators and administrators. During the past dispensations of partial understanding, your priests and prophets failed clearly to differentiate between Planetary Princes, System Sovereigns, Constellation Fathers, Creator Sons, Super-universe Rulers, the Supreme Being, and the Universal Father. Many of the messages of subordinate personalities, such as Life Carriers and various orders of angels, have been, in your records, presented as coming from God himself. Urantian (Earthly) religious thought still confuses the associate personalities of Deity with the Universal Father himself, so that all are included under one appellation (identity).

The people of Urantia (earth) continue to suffer from the influence of primitive concepts of God. The gods who go on a rampage in the storm; who shake the earth in their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who inflict their judgments of displeasure in times of famine and flood -- these are the gods of primitive religion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the universes. Such concepts are a relic of the times when men supposed that the universe was under the guidance and domination of the whims of such imaginary gods. But mortal man is beginning to realize that he lives in a realm of comparative law and order as far as concerns the administrative policies and conduct of the Supreme Creators and the Supreme Controllers.

The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating (appeasing) an offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile (childish) and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.

The Hebrews believed that "without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin." They had not found deliverance from the old and pagan idea that the Gods could not be appeased except by the sight of blood, though Moses did make a distinct advance when he forbade human sacrifices and substituted therefor, in the primitive minds of his childlike Bedouin followers, the ceremonial sacrifice of animals.

The bestowal of a Paradise Son (Jesus) on your world was inherent in the situation of closing a planetary age; it was inescapable, and it was not made necessary for the purpose of winning the favor of God. This bestowal also happened to be the final personal act of a Creator Son in the long adventure of earning the experiential sovereignty of his universe. What a travesty upon the infinite character of God this teaching that his fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary!

But the inhabitants of Urantia (earth) are to find deliverance from these ancient errors and pagan superstitions respecting the nature of the Universal Father (God). The revelation of the truth about God is appearing, and the human race is destined to know the Universal Father in all that beauty of character and loveliness of attributes so magnificently portrayed by the Creator Son who sojourned on Urantia (earth) as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

Did it touch your mind to think?

My Answers to Some of the Pertinent Questions that You Have in Your Mind: Question-1 About God!

Your Question : I am getting confused now-a-days. People around me say there is God. I don't see Him around, but sometimes I reason that there should be some one who is behind everything. But at times I also get carried away by the rationalist thoughts expressed by some of our learned scientists and thinkers who say there is nobody called God. I am not able to make up my mind. Is there any God really out there? If so, what is He like?

My Answer: I too had gone through this stage of confusion for many years when my mind was in the process of learning and analyzing. But eventually I came to the conclusion that it is very much rational and logical to believe in the existence of God rather than to deny that fact. 

Slowly I learned more about God which I had shared with my readers some time ago in this blog-Know More About God. 

Remember that God is the Supreme Creator and therefore the Supreme Father of the Universes and as a Father, God loves all His Creations. 

Many people among us have a tendency to reject the idea of God when we begin to be a bit scientifically oriented. As we progress in scientific knowledge, our faith in God is likely to get enhanced. 

Ideally our faith in God should logically progress to such levels that we no longer would reject God's love! 

Many of you may be confused with the ideas about God that are propagated by the leaders and followers of our established religions. While I do not reject all those ideas as wrong per se, it is essential to remember that no human being can ever give a complete picture or description of God any time because God is the Infinite Creator and eternally existent Personality beyond the reach of our intelligence to comprehend! (You may read this blog about God and religion that I shared some time ago). 

When I say that God has created us all, some of you might get a kind of pleasure to make me cornered by asking the childish question - who created God? Should I stress again that it is too childish a question?

Many religions have traditions that are involved in pleasing God with various rituals and sacrifices. All these originate from the human concept of pleasing an angry God. The underdeveloped human mind awfully fear power of destruction rather than the power of love! Even now, many of us respect a boss or father who does not hesitate to use his power upon you mercilessly rather than the one who hesitates to use his power upon you on account of his loving mercy! It is very difficult for the immature human mind to accept that the all powerful God hesitates to destroy wrongdoers mercilessly with immediate effect! It is very much within the acceptance of the immature human mind to visualize an angry God who gets pleased by persistent prayers for mercy!

If you happen to have a reasonably developed mind that ask questions on such things that your mind does not fully accept, I do not say that you are going against God. On the contrary, God would be pleased with those of his lowly intelligent human creations when they use their God-provided intelligence properly in the right direction. God has given intelligence to his creations for using it rather than keeping it aside and behaving like a stupid fellow!

As the Creator of the universes God indeed should have willed or planned something great for all his creations. The intelligent created beings like us should live according to that will as far as we understand that. Asking questions to explore possible answers is an act of creativity in which our Creator would definitely be pleased. And if that is so, God, the Supreme Intelligence of the Universe, would not be pleased with those humans who refuse to advance and progress in mind! Sticking stupidly to the traditions of their ancient under-developed ancestors without analyzing those with the intelligent logical mind is indeed something that God does not like of human beings!

It is not difficult for any logical mind to conclude that the concept of God getting pleased with blood sacrifices is essentially an erroneous notion! Does the all powerful God require your support and help? Think about it with your open mind! 

I feel it quite logical and essential that we have religion. But then religion should be essentially concerned with our faith in God and our reciprocating love towards Him. Rituals, in my opinion, are not to be considered as real worship, though we have been doing rituals as part of our worship for long. Religious rituals are not essential for us to love God. 

Nevertheless, if some underdeveloped humans still want to continue with some worship rituals, let them do so till such time the individuals concerned attain desirable levels of mind progress to understand the futility of such rituals. 

I consider religion as a universal binding force. Religion should bind humans in universal brotherhood through the fatherhood of God. Religion is not something that should divide humans. Unfortunately our religions are divided as of now and they are no unifying force at present. Varying degrees of understanding in humans make them differing in their religious opinions and thoughts. When self righteousness is added to it, the differing opinions become agents of conflicts! Rigid opinions give rise to fanaticism. Religious fanatics and zealots cannot tolerate what this author expresses here or elsewhere even when such opinions are merely harmless views!    
I do not consider it appropriate for any of our conventional religions spending their energies in converting others to their fold. 

While discussions about various view points and concepts among people about God may be good for them to understand truths and untruths in their concepts and ideas, it may not be good to argue over a topic about which they have no absolute knowledge or full comprehension. 

It is unfortunate that ignorant humans keep fighting among themselves in the name of God and religion! 

But this phenomena would cease sometime later when the average mind of humans develop above a certain level. 

Many ardent followers of religions believe that there is some negative power that works against God and call it the evil or Satan. For them what they follow is of god while others are of Satan. The pity is that they all point their fingers to others as satanic that eventually make all them accusing each other as satanic. In this process they fail to recognize what is divine and what is devilish! 

I would like to assert this: there is no power in the universe as equal to God. But at the same time there are creations of God with free will like us who, due to the free thinking mind, might act against the will of God. Such creations of God that work against the will of God could either be humans or even superior intelligent creations of God. 

The possibility of such intelligent but clever beings influencing other gullible intelligent beings cannot be overruled. 

To understand the implications of that we should know more about the spiritual evolution of mankind. 

Many among us pray and worship for gaining wealth, money, power and importance during our short lives on earth. We say that it is a blessing from God. Is it really so? 

In reality this is our greatest conceptual blunder and this concept among people is augmented by clever manipulations from invisible powers that are willfully against God. 

God does not give extra favor to any one for his sycophantic prayers or worship. 

Sycophancy is a nature that is essentially anti-God or evil. Unfortunately, this evil is predominant in the world today. This also would gradually vanish in the future when humans become more mature in mind. 

And remember this- if God has planned something, it would happen at some time now or later. 

God has a purpose and whether we agree or disagree it makes no difference! The will of God would prevail. 

God is no respecter of persons that it is necessary for Him to give satisfactory answers to his maturing children always, though He does so often out of his love to his creations! 

Also remember this. If the question about God has arisen in your mind, that itself is a good sign of the possibility of you becoming aligned with God sooner or later. 

Keep nurturing your thoughts towards God and love Him as your invisible but all powerful loving father who knows all about you and your needs. When you really understand God, you will learn to live a life on earth that is most rewarding and meaningful, devoid of all anxieties and worries! 

May God bless you!