Worship?

I have already made it clear, I hope, that there is only one God. There are however many religions. If they are all worshiping the same God, as I have argued, is there a right way to do so? Is it even necessary to worship God at all? After all, if we can't understand the nature of God is worship not futile? Does God even care?

I am a father. I love my daughters unconditionally and I would do everything in my power to make them happy. Do I care if they give me a Father's Day gift? Do I love one girl more than the other because she might have given me a gift which I appreciate more than the gift given by the other? Of course not. We are all God's children. God loves us all. Surely Gods's love is far greater than a mere human could imagine, but even if it was not, can we really believe that God will love some of us more than others because of the type of gift we give Him, or because some of us give more than others? Again of course not!

 The way we worship, if we chose to do so - the religion we chose - can be of no consequence to God. Why would it? We are like small children vying for our parents attention, clamouring to be the favourite child. No true loving parent would pick a favourite, and certainly not based upon the equivalent of who gave the best present.

 That is why violence and hatred based on religious differences is so futile and stupid. God loves life. Why would any father wish one of his children to kill another just because one gives chocolate on Father's Day while the other gives a flat screen TV. Why would God?

I suggest, dear reader, that on each occasion through history up to and including the terrible treasonous murder in London last week, when violence is done in the name of God, the perpetrator has been misled by the forces of darkness. God wants us to love each other, not hate and kill each other.

I will blog in the future about why I believe that some devout people can come to be so misled. Meantime, thanks again for reading.

Bad things happen

So, if I am correct and God really is looking after us, how come bad things happen? I think there are three reasons for terrible things happening:-

 1. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but God really does move in mysterious ways. I have already said in an earlier blog that we can't hope to understand God. We certainly can't hope to understand His reasons for doing or not doing something or other. Sometimes what seems to be a bad thing turns out to be a blessing in disguise. For example, the prisoner who, with time on his hands, comes to appreciate his family on the outside, previously neglected.

 2. Our free will can make things go wrong. God gave us free will, it would be illogical if, having done so, He chose to control our every move. We make mistakes and bad things arise as a consequence.

 3. Lastly there is what I referred to previously as the forces of darkness. I am talking about the devil. I believe that when cast from heaven the devil ended up here. Did God give the devil "ownership" of earth and everything on it? Some people believe so. The devil was able to offer Jesus the world if he would renounce God and worship the devil instead. That would make no sence unless the devil had the power follow through on his offer. He has power on earth. Why would God do such a thing? God felt compassion for the devil, I guess. Also God has faith in us, that we will use the free will he gave us to ignore the temptation placed before us by the devil. Sometimes we do, often we do not. Bad things happen because the devil wants them to. And when they do how do we react? Often by saying "there can't be a God or such a horrible thing would not have happened"! In truth organised religion, which often teaches that God is all powerful, that nothing ever happens which is not His will, plays into the devils hands on this. They don't call him master of lies for nothing.

So I reckon that these are the three reasons that bad things happen. When they do, God, I believe mitigates, He makes a bad situation bearable, He gives us release if we simply can't stand it any more. I will blog some more on that another time.

Meantime, trust in God, even when terrible things happen, He is with us and we can count on him even if sometimes we can't understand what is going on!

Thanks for reading.

Who is God?

There are just under seven billion people on this planet (I Googled it) of whom around five and three quarter billion express a belief in a god or gods (Google again!).

I imagine that a significant majority of those expressing a belief will pray, at least occasionally, and, in all probability, present their preferred "deity" with a shopping list of requests whenever they do.  It is surely inconceivable that the same believers would all (excluding perhaps some whose faith is particularly strong) continue to pray, and indeed to believe, if their prayers were never answered, or if the ratio of those answered to those ignored did not exceed that of random chance.

Of the believers, again according to Google, the largest single group are Christian - 2.1 billion with Islam just behind at 1.5 billion.

I recall a conversation I had a number of years ago with a evangelical Christian pastor.  He was of the view that Muslims believed in a different God from that believed in by Christians because they called their God Allah.  But can he possibly be right? I think not.

I was born and raised as a Christian in the UK.  Therefore, I pray to God.  Had I been French, I would have prayed to Dieu, if Spanish to Dios, Zulu to Nkos and if Russian to Boch.  All the same God but with different names.  Is it such a stretch, therefore, to believe that Allah is also the same God, after all both Christianity and Islam share a holy book, or at least part of one, as, for that matter, does Judaism.  Certainly I think that no one would doubt that the Christian and Jewish God is one and the same.

I do not think there is more than one God.  I understand that most polytheistic religions recognise a creator with the other gods being subordinate to that creator.  Is that such a huge step away from a belief in Angels?  Maybe, that is for you dear reader to decide.

What I would suggest is clear that someone answers the prayers of even those , roughly 2 billion believers who are not Christian, Muslim or Jew.  Certainly some will argue that the powers of darkness might answer prayers in order to mislead.  There can be little doubt that is true, if it were not there would be no suicide bombers.  No one can seriously believe that God wants you to murder innocents, yet for centuries some have argued precisely that, misled I believe.

Given that prayers are answered more often than not - in my experience upwards of 95 per cent of the time, it cannot matter what you call God, he is still listening.

I think it is futile to speculate on the nature of God.  God embraces both the male and female aspect, after all God creates.  I have no reason to doubt that God created the whole universe.  It is highly likely that life exists on other planets so God must be able to split off fragments of His self to be able to keep track of all of us living things.  To an extent Christians accept this by the Trinity, God the father, God the son and God the Holy Ghost, three aspects of one God, explained by  St Patrick by reference to a shamrock.

The bible states that God made man in his image - I would suggest that cannot be literally true, all men and women have different images.  I prefer the interpretation that God gave us free will, but that is for another blog.

I do not think we can ever truly understand God.  All we can do is give thanks that he is there for us.  God is not just great, God is awesome and indescribable from the point of view of mere humans.

Thanks again for reading.