Think about this, who actually forbade post-modern humans from having a direct encounter with God, or from having an updated 21st Century textbook, that would include recent experiences of man's encounters with a verifiable God ..., and a text that would prove that God or something really does exist in the 21st century?
One verse that was recorded in the book of Revelations, i.e., that if you add anything to this prophecy..., has caused more trouble and shaped more people's thinking about the entire Canon, including the book of Revelations than any other in scripture in the Canon has done.
We must keep in mind that the book of Revelations barely made it into the Canon. We must also bear in mind that the speaker in the book of Revelations was speaking about a single prophecy, when he said that nothing was to be added to the prophecy. And sadly, the warning has been attached to the other 65 books that are contained in the Canon.
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The new book of truth that I am proposing that should be created, could either become a companion piece or a replacement for the miscellany of the world's outdated, error prone and questionable religious texts. A new book could be a powerful instructor for people of all nations, particularly everyone who has been taught, before, that you either believe all of a certain sacred book or you really don’t believe any of it.
Balderdash I say for, you can believe and know God, and on the other hand not believe some of what has been written in certain religious texts!
To my critics and detractors, by compiling such a book we would be able to show individuals who question the existence of God, real proofs, and to provide them with an opportunity to test what would be proven to be more than a hypothesis. On the other hand rather than continuing to debate what is and what is not real and accurate, we could just simply cut to the chase and ask God to show up (see my previous topic).
One thing that I do know is that it is time for religious people to get in the real world and to put up or shut up, instead of talking about IT only as something mystical that is hidden away in a cloud. Again, I believe that it is time to put up or to shut up!
When we replace or add a 21st century accurate companion or replacement piece to coincide with or replace all of the world’s other sacred religious texts, I believe that it will enable us to draw more humans of all persuasions to what is authentic and what has been proven to be real.
Haven’t we done the 'I believe it dance' long enough? And, haven’t we ‘followed on to know’ long enough? I believe that it is time to know and to prove in the present what can be known, as opposed to simply relying on old stories from the past or by telling people to 'just believe'.
The way that we have been behaving has been as if to say that God hasn't done anything in 2000 years. My objective is not to help people to simply have faith in a belief in God, let me be clear about that. I am saying emphatically that I believe that it is time to meet God face to face, enough of this I just believe, that settles it so let’s just all go and share communion!
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A new book of truth,I believe, will attract secularists, other critics, purists, skeptics, truth seekers and myth busters. The book ought not to be written from a perspective where blind faith is its central theme; instead its contents ought to be based upon recent verifiable and confirmable information. Direct and confirmable encounters with God ought to be included, and verifiable evidence that demonstrate actual participation by God. How can that be done?
As I explained to a skeptical and often cantankerous brother in a classroom discussion at church yesterday, the same Jesus that was active in the Common Era, ought to be active today. I also explained that we need to show people that God was and has been active in human affairs for over 2000 years. I pointed out that we cannot continue to rely on ancient texts and beautifully written stories as proof of the existence of God in the 21st century.
I went on to explain to the brother that a 21st Century book of God with actual current day experiences contained within it, would be more relevant to many individuals who are living under present day skepticism by codifying and putting into writing God’s presence and activities in the 21st century.
Isn't it amazing that so many religious individuals speak of a future time when they will live with God, when on the same token they do not seem to have any interest in living with God in the present?We need to provide people with something that they can relate to today. As I spoke in this classroom setting, I noticed one woman who looked over at her husband and gave him the matter of fact look as I spoke. Ironically, the lesson yesterday was about Jesus when he attempted to do something similar to what I am doing now, on an occasion that is known today as 'The Sermon On The Mount'.
What did Jesus do then, you might ask? Well, among other things he attempted to update the message that had been passed down to the Jews, beforehand, by their ancestors. The radical Jesus taught about God in and from a new perspective to a disparate group of people who had been taught from the Mosaic Law. And what was the long-term result of his teaching the people a new paradigm, Jesus ended up being hung on the Cross. People simply do not care for having their beliefs subjected to scrutiny!
I am proposing that we do with people today, the same thing that Jesus was doing with Jews in the past by telling to them to place their ancient writings within their proper historical context, so that they can move forward. Do I expect everyone to accept what I am saying, some readers never will? If we are realistic factually change can be very hard for some people, even for this writer at times.
Jesus knew when he taught that not everyone was going to receive his message. Oftentimes, it takes time for individuals to accept new ideas, particularly when they have believed something else for so long. I actually thought that the woman who looked over at her husband was cute, in that she was laughing at me when on the other hand I understood but sympathized with her inability to contemplate change.
She was simply hearing something that differed from what she was accustomed to hearing, just as the people who were gathered at the Sermon on the Mount had done. There were many individuals on that mountain, it is fair to say, that never accepted what Jesus taught. There are many individuals today, in and outside of Israel, who still do not accept the teachings of Jesus.
As a change agent, I feel as if I am in great company when I am laughed at. There are too many religious individuals who need to be made to feel uncomfortable within their religious comfort zones. And if some of our religious people never change during their lifetimes, history has taught us that in time many individuals who appeared to be unchangeable, have been able to make the leap into a different direction.
The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of someone who had to be forced, on the Road to Damascus, to take a change in direction.
There are ministers who have been saying of late in the media that the Canon is under attack.Factually, the Canon is not under attack at all, at least not by some of us. There are simply a group of truth seekers out there who are more interested in knowing the truth and teaching the truth as opposed to teaching people to base the most important decisions of their lives upon speculation, faulty texts, questionable scholarship and naive teachers.
Over and over again, Constantine’s Canon has been subjected to scrutiny, and to be frank learned men and women of truth recognize that there are major problems with a lot of the information that is contained within the Canon. In answer to another young minister's question that was put to me yesterday, we need to get ahead of this thing. Why? People can read, and soon they will storm the doors of the churches, mosques and synagogues wanting to know how come we, pastors, rabbis, imams..., failed to tell them the truth.
Now I am not saying everything that is included in the Canon is suspect. But on the other hand, what is stopping us from creating an even more viable and reliable book that contains verifiable information that people can understand without a thesaurus, a concordance, a commentary and 2 Bible Aids? Wouldn't that be better than trying to convince other people that they should believe in a never seen God, based on 2 to 5 thousand year old questionable and error prone texts?
In other words, I believe that we can show individuals a force that is active in the here and now, and we can teach them how to access, know and have IT to respond to us without learning Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Greek.
Perhaps the God of some believers did actually die in the Common Era, despite ITS ongoing 2000 year postmortem!Again, how long can we simply teach other people about our predecessor’s experiences, as opposed to teaching them about our modern day experiences with the entity known as God, Jehovah, Osiris, Vishnu, the Great Spirit...? The questions that plague most non-believers today that pertains to God are as follows:
1). Well then where is this God?
2). Why isn't God confirmable or active in the present?
3). What is God?
4). How come I cannot see God?
As the years continue to pile on, many individuals have understandably concluded that what many of us believe to have been God, thousands of years ago, never existed at all and that we are a bunch of gullible nut cakes. And, they make a compelling argument. We have not made a very good case for the existence of God, other than to tell what we were told that God did 2000 years ago, instead of demonstrating convincingly what God is doing right now!
Too much of our present day cosmology is taken from information that was written by writers from years past, information that cannot be vetted today. To our detractors we sound as if we telling a fairy tale. As you continue to read this article ask, well, why wouldn’t God want to speak to us now? And on the other hand perhaps God is on the side of our detractors and is also asking, how come they don't ever say anything new or tell the people what I am doing in the 21st century?
Wouldn’t it be great to have an updated current, proven and tested guide (or CD) available for humans to digest? And wouldn’t it be great to have a guide with instructions in it that one could use to prove the existence of God today, or not? And how good would it be to have a guide that could instruct a person how to proceed in communicating directly with the entity, and have it to actually respond in a comprehensible fashion?
People need to be exposed to a methodology that works, one that will put them in direct contact with the entity. Now before you respond to what I have written with anger, cynicism, sympathy or sarcasm, I suspect that there are some individuals who would not want to know the truth anyway. While there are others that would prefer to simply keep things just as they are now, rather than to move out of their comfort zones.
And finally, there are others who still would simply not care one way or the other anyway, whether God exists or not.
My thrust continues to be that the entity that we refer to as God is approachable, although it is likely neither superhuman nor any of the things that our predecessors said or wrote when attempting to describe IT.
On the other hand all evidence to the contrary seems to point to a different conclusion, that the non-human supposedly spiritual entity is actually something else altogether, and it is even larger than the superhuman or spiritual God … of the past that all nations of the earth in some form or the other have been taught to believe.
How will we do this? We will do this with the help of the entity that either exists or does not exist. In other words, we would dispatch our 'wise women and men' this time on a fact-finding mission, one that is reminiscent of the Magi who came to look for the Christ Child. And if we find IT (I'm going) good, or on the other hand we will accept whatever IT turns out to be or not to be even it turns out to be something different than what we believed.
Elijah, at least, proved that God existed to the people of Israel by having God to show up and to provide the people with undeniable miracle. How come we cannot do the same today?
I frankly do not feel that believers have a reason to be afraid, or that they have anything to worry about when someone mentions subjecting God to proof; what is there to fear? I am convinced that IT is real, however, we don’t have to keep treating IT in the manner that we treat the imaginable Santa Claus. Humans are typically more likely to base their conclusions about God upon feelings, conjecture, interpretations, speculation or what some unknown or known person from the past or present wrote. Why not base it upon a 'close encounter of the fourth kind'?
Or are some believers simply afraid that IT might actually show up!
The way that it was done before is simply not good enough for some of us. Besides, I am not so sure that the entity is satisfied with such a simple accommodation, that is to continue repeating what other people used to say or told us about IT, i.e., I believe it, and that settles it. But does that truly settle the matter?
Because someone believes something, that doesn't settle anything in most people's minds neither should it. Most individuals personalize, anthropomorphize, visualize and believe in the God that they believe in! Did you get that, the God that most people believe in is a god of their imagination? And these same individuals will often tell you about their god?
Oftentimes I experience forces like gravity, centripetal, centrifugal …, acting upon my body and mind. And even though I cannot see the forces, there is no doubt about my experiences rather defining my experiences becomes the central issue.
Perhaps this entity cannot be seen, felt, heard or touched. However, believers and the individuals that we are attempting to introduce to the entity will certainly feel more secure when someone proves that what heretofore have been theories and fantastic stories from a 21st century perspective (information that has been passed down from generation to generation), has been proven to be correct.
One thing that we cannot do so far is to go back in time, however, what we can do is to prove whether or not the entity does or does not exist today.
A new Genesis, or book of beginnings I propose would begin with a more scientifically verifiable explanation of how the Universe began. In it we could include experiments that anyone can use to test what had been written down. Where some of the previous stories from ancient historical texts cannot be substantiated, or when we know that the material has been borrowed from other nonprovable and nonprobative sources or traditions, the new Guide would simply include confirmed information!
Our locus and focus would be more that of writing about what we know, and about what has been confirmed. Will the entity that has been referred to as God, Allah, El, Adonai, Vishnu, Krishna, The Great Spirit … be on board for such exposure? I suspect that it would welcome such exposure of the kind that would prove its existence. Some have written in the past that God is beyond finding out. Can it be that they wrote what they did because they could not find the detection method that could be used to find and to interact with God?
Now I know that some of you won’t care for what I am writing I’m sure, however, rather than continuing to tell other people that their God is not real and that yours is real, simply prove that your God is real. Or, are you afraid to have your belief, God or your god put to the test and to be proven wrong?
Haven’t believers been challenged in the past to prove God? Just think of how many more individuals, religious people, would actually serve God if they knew that God was real. Let’s keep in mind something that Jesus said to the Pharisees. He said: you have heaven shut up, you are not going in and you are keeping others from going in. The same holds true today. Many individuals will never come to know God, if the way to know God is based upon anything that believers do or say.
We must ask ourselves, how many people have we kept from entering into heaven because of our insistence on teaching God in a manner that is comfortable to us but not to the ones that we are trying to reach? I would prefer to say to an individual that I have nothing to hide and here is an experiment that can use, or you can go and create one of your own making in order to test whether God exists or not.
But similar to what Elijah once told his detractors: if God turns out to be God then serve him. Or on the other hand after proving the existence of God yourself, you will be able to say that God is real, and that your findings are not based upon conjecture, speculation or unquestionable texts, even if you still choose not to serve God. You might prove to yourself that there is actually a God, and it was not what you believed or thought it to be!
Now for those of you who do not like my idea about constructing a new Bible or a companion piece to the existing one with updated information contained with it, I have another suggestion. Why don't we simply ask God to show up so that we can ask a few questions? Or, is the real problem that you simply don't believe that God exists yourself?
Aside from being written in a 21 Century context, the contents of the new book ought to include themes that are relevant in a 21st Century context. It should be written with terms that we can understand of the kind that will not require a preacher, teacher, thesaurus, concordance or a Greek or Hebrew lexicon... Next there ought to be scientific information included, and 21st century state of the art understanding with regards to the elements, atoms, quarks, molecules, quantum physics, theoretical physics ....
And last but not least the book ought to contain philosophical knowledge, the secularist point of view point and what God for sure has to say to us today. And this will be information that comes again from God today!
Again, the people of the world need to have a serious sit down discussion with God today, as opposed to simply saying that even though I cannot see God, I know that God is there or that what writers wrote 2000 years ago is absolute.
Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon
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