Apr 26, 2011

God of the Metaphor II




Are We Waiting for God, or Is It The Other Way Around, God Is Waiting on us to catch up, however, we are stuck in the primordial mud?

Why have we forfeited God's miracles in modern and post-modern times, in exchange for the miracle of pigs running wildly down a hill?

Depending on how limited or obtuse one happened to be, I can understand why such a miracle might have been fitting for them in their obdurate times, however, in a post-modern age, come on, we would have analyzed and figured that one out. And, I am pleased that a woman was healed from an issue of blood. Clearly, medical science had not advanced to the point, to help her. However, shall we ignore all of the medical advances of today (God's miracles if you prefer), in order to reflect only on miracle healings of the past. Sacrilege, yea, I KNOW!

Jesus, told his disciples, that they would perform greater miracles. Well, we're trying, however, some people don't want us to do better than people who lived thousands of years ago. Did our predecessors know a thing about DNA? Did they understand chemistry to the extent that we do? What did our predecessors know about fusion?

If Jonah were here today, and required relief from a scorching sun, I would turn on the air conditioner, or God be a $10.00 fan that I purchased from Big Lots.

A, gain, any one of us could have caused a group of pigs to run wildly down a hillside. In fact today, I can make a car roll down a hill. People, 2,000 years later, ought to be much further along, in Moses' day, sorcerers performed miracles, just as they often did in Daniel's day. Am I minimized the miracles that Jesus did? I am certain that Jesus could have done far greater miracles than the ones that he did, however, he had to play to his audience.

In consideration of what our predecessors, considered to be miracles, let's think in terms of are understanding, and miracles that have been performed in modern and post-modern times, the miracles and understanding that we have today. Here is a minor list:


  • Rocket Scientristry & Space Travel
  • Einstein's Unified Field Theory.
  • Thermodynamics,
  • Entropy
  • The Big Bang
  • The General Theory of Relativity
  • Electromagnetism
  • Quantum Theory
  • Constants of nature
  • Theoretical Physics
  • Uniformitarianism
  • Ethos
  • Steady State
  • Evolution
  • Endocrinology
  • Black Holes
  • Worm Holes
  • White light
  • The Space Time Continuum
  • One part time and two parts space
  • Time Independence (Eternity)
  • Gravity
  • Mapping the human genome
  • Reverse engineering the brain

The minor miracles that were performed when the Bible was written, for the benefit of a less than intellectual office, would pale in comparison to what we know and are doing today. And what would Jesus say, if he happened by, and audience members from the past were to happen by. He would say: This is what I was trying to tell you, that was waiting for you.

As a point of departure, let's consider Paul's uniformitariansim and pantheism. When debating with ancient Greek philosophers at Athens, Paul injected what the Cretan philosopher Epimenides, and Cilician Stoic Philosopher, Aratus said: For in him we live and move and have our being.’[a]

Paul said: "As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring...’ Certainly the Greek Civilization began to move forward, however, what caused man to take the step backwards towards romanticism and superstition? The answer is found in religion and with religious groups whose need is to live in and to hold everyone else in the past.

That God would have dealt with individuals on their preferred, juvenile, level, makes sense. Simply, consider what the prophet Isaiah had to say about that in Isaiah the 55th chapter. Your thoughts, your ways ..., are not mine..., as high as the heavens are ...! As high as the heavens? What an interesting choice of words to make the point.

Wouldn't you believe that thousands of years later, that our minds have developed, those who escaped suppression, to the point that now we are ready and able, some of us, to communicate with what we call God about some things. The latter wanted God to remain as an anthropomorphic all knowing but distant God. I suspect that God, we like to have some friends.

What is this thing, entity, being, non-being ..., that we refer to as God ...? Haven't our predecessors simply come up with descriptions and ascriptions to describe what they could not comprehend or explain, given their apparent abilities to be satisfied with sleight of hand or a minor miracle or two.

We have more miracles occurring today, even in the medical field, however, we simply don't record or give enough credence to today's miracles. I have suggested that we create a modern day companion bible if you will. Let's begin this bible, starting with ancient philosophers, and move right on down to the Renaissance. We cannot leave out Newton and others, or what they learned, understood and taught. Then let's discuss our airships that have been sent into outer space, 'higher than the heavens'.

Let's talk about other notable miracles, that our predecessors could not understand, such as traveling at Mach I speed ..., dark energy and dark matter, tracking the human genome ....

I do not begrudge metaphorists, historicists or religious romanticists given their explanations for everything, especially religious ones; however, at some point, it seems to me that the metaphorists need to move away from symbolism, pictorials, aphorisms, historical constructs, allegory and parables, into perfection. Sadly, religion conditions them and everyone else to remain right where they are, as opposed to being actualized or moving forward.

By that I mean, understanding what they refer to God is and becoming one with it, instead of practising historical religious reductionism.

I was at a seminar about 20 years or so ago, at the University of Akron in the state of Ohio. The speaker was formerly an avowed atheist, who came to believe through research, in the existence of what we refer to as God.

Initially, he sat out to prove scientifically, that there was no such as God, and instead, he discovered the God ... of unformitarianism. During his research, he kept finding evidence, or a common thread if you prefer, or properties if you willl that pointed to some unknown quantity.
The properties of which showed up in everything, and everywhere that he conducted his research.

He posed a question to the audiences first. "How many of you have ever seen an atom, a quark or a molecule"? And of course the audience response was, "No, I have never seen one". He asked then, "how many of you have ever seen God". The collective audience response was, "I have never seen him". He followed his question with this statement, then why do you believe that there are such things as atoms, molecules and quarks, which you have never seen, and you believe in a God that you have never seen". Silence ensured, as he proceeded to explain, how and why he came to believe in God through research.

Now most religious people would tell you that there is only one way to find God. This man proved that you could find God via other means, include scientific research.

The God of the metaphor, is much smaller by comparison than the God of all of the above. It is time for the religious world to wake up, for the non-religious world is actually closer, I believe, to uniting or uncovering if you prefer, with what we refer to as God, I believe, than religious people who are locked into metaphor, myth, and historical paradigms.

When we get outside of the limitations of the God of relgion, and escape from the bounds of a 3-dimensional world? When we understand what time is, essentially relocation in space. And most of all, when we come to understand that we have spent years hanging around at the beginning of knowledge, instead of moving forward - then we will understand that God, or what we refer to us as God, does not have to remain an unknown quantity.

We can know IT, and I suspect IT, is not trying to hide, and that essentially, we keep "NOT LOOKING', in the right places. Will God be found in a test tube, in a E-MC squared equation ..., well, not if you are in stuck in a book or the books.

Those who are ready to move forward, beyond the God of the metaphor, are invited to do so. However, I believe that the one's who are truly being 'Left Behind', are the individuals, mostly religious zealots who are stuck in the primordial mud of methaphor and religious romanticism, myth and the like!

Religion, as a discipline could be helpful today, if it would just get with it. How many individuals are turning away from, what we refer to as God, because of religion. People are no longer desirous of hearing fairy tales, proverbs or mythological stories - people, in a modern context and in modern societies are hungering and thirsting after knowledge, and that which is actual and factual.

Are we doing greater things today? Well, if tearing down barns (medium-sized religious edifices in order to build bigger ones, is doing something greater - we have succeeded). God knows that religious buildings and edificies are getting larger and larger. However, what is happening to people. People are frustrated, and religion is not helping them. Sacrilege? Yes, I know!

I don't feel bad because, they referred to Jesus as Baalzebub!


Rev. C. Solomon

to be continued and corrected...

Is our knowledge equal to that of what we refer to God? I doubt it. However, we will never get there, if we rely on outdated nursery rhymes to explain anything. And besides that, I suspect that we are ready to have a conversation with God, one that is other than, give me money, heal my body, show me what girl to marry, enlarge my territory, give me long life, thank you that I am not like other people --- sacred cows?

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