“God said it. I believe it. That settles it”
So says a bumper sticker seen on cars of the Religious Right in Red country.
I cannot help but wonder how, when, or where God said it. Was it in a book? If so, a book written by whom?
Now we are being put on dangerous ground by our President who is trying to marry politics into religion or is it the reverse? Either way his promotion of I.D. (Intelligent Design) surely bridges the separation of church and state. Yet this was a founding principle for our founding fathers. Hopefully Bush truly believes in what he his saying, but he won’t be the first President who believes in providential history.
The present administration is reeling from sinking polls; Rummy’s DOD seems more like DOA. Then there’s Rovegate, the Downing Street Memos, Cindy Sheehan all capped by this horribly mistaken war. But anything goes that will keep people from examining the underbelly of lies and corruption that characterize this administration. Of course fear is the mantra so let us bring in religion, so frequently the precursor to fear.
Intelligent Design is the sheep in wolves clothing. The wolf is Creationism. We are asked to believe in the existence of a serious debate within the scientific community between Evolution and Intelligent Design when there is no basis for debate. The scientific leaders and intellects recognize I.D. as a dependent on nothing but faith. Because there is no scientific evidence I.D., depends on the Supernatural. The I.D. movement is very smart stealth PR, proclaiming as does Bush that all they want is discussion. But it is a specious premise.
Creationism is supported by the Radical Religious Right who are offended by the elitist Blue, liberal, so called secular domination of our courts and the media. Reds want Christian prayers in schools, abolishment of any rights for gays, particularly marriage. Women’s right of choice is being defined as a crime. Reds support religious artifacts in public spaces. Most proclaim Terry Schiavo was murdered. This more radical side is creating an American Taliban.
A benign god would be good. All our wars have been fought in the name of God and blessed by God. If he (in Christianity, as well as Islam and Judaism, God is never a she) is the Great Architect, why do we have wars, pestilence, starvation and an endangered ecology? Are these horrific aspects and prospects for humanity not the products of a grand designer also?
And if such a grand designer exists, where, pray tell, is his or her intelligence?
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5 Responses to ““God said it. I believe it. That settles it””
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Thank you Michael!
I feel the thoughts banging around in the back of your head, ricocheting in that deep, fibrous, cavernous mind of yours, while gracefully layering words upon words. We mortals have the power to comprehend, which by the way, is shocking to many of those that are offended by human thought, because their process is the lack of individual reflection, and consequently do not understand what happens after human feelings and critical thinking come together.
ID has a different meaning within these types of religions vs. scientific and the melding of ID.
Let me explain: Carl Sagan took mathematics as far as it could go. When the equations and analysis were done-he commented that there is a God beyond our mathematics because what exists after the equations, which have taken us to the very depths of a galaxy beyond our own, only proves that a God does indeed exist. (Paraphrasing of course)
Frogs, insects, ducks, sharks, turtles, monkeys and humans have two eyes and a nose. This is what I believe to be a product of intelligent design. A design manifested by a higher being, a creator if you will-a Master! Nothing else that purports to be ID is the true ID, unless we can acknowledge where science ends and God provides the answers until we collectively grow in spiritually to understand more of our wonderment..
Religion is corrupt.
God came before religion.
God has always existed, even before religion. Religion is not of God-God is and will always be!
God would never be so arrogant to short-change his or her creations with dribble and/or trickery by playing with dialog and harming people’s faith.
Trickery and dribble are man made.
God is spiritual and speaks to the least of us through our hearts, dreams and through nature.
No one can say God said this and hope to sell it to the masses unless the entity is a Church, a corrupt political official or dictator.
I do not believe what God said unless it moves my spirit through benevolence, kindness for another, compassion with doable deliverables, and by living examples which practice patience and love.
Lyle K’ang
Posted on 15-Aug-05 at 7:58 pm | PermalinkThank you Michael!
I feel the thoughts banging around in the back of your head, ricocheting in that deep, fibrous, cavernous mind of yours, while gracefully layering words upon words. We mortals have the power to comprehend, which by the way, is shocking to many of those that are offended by human thought, because their process is the lack of individual reflection, and consequently do not understand what happens after human feelings and critical thinking come together.
ID has a different meaning within these types of religions vs. scientific and the melding of ID.
Let me explain: Carl Sagan took mathematics as far as it could go. When the equations and analysis were done-he commented that there is a God beyond our mathematics because what exists after the equations, which have taken us to the very depths of a galaxy beyond our own, only proves that a God does indeed exist. (Paraphrasing of course)
Frogs, insects, ducks, sharks, turtles, monkeys and humans have two eyes and a nose. This is what I believe to be a product of intelligent design. A design manifested by a higher being, a creator if you will-a Master! Nothing else that purports to be ID is the true ID, unless we can acknowledge where science ends and God provides the answers until we collectively grow in spiritually to understand more of our wonderment..
Religion is corrupt.
God came before religion.
God has always existed, even before religion. Religion is not of God-God is and will always be!
God would never be so arrogant to short-change his or her creations with dribble and/or trickery by playing with dialog and harming people’s faith.
Trickery and dribble are man made.
God is spiritual and speaks to the least of us through our hearts, dreams and through nature.
No one can say God said this and hope to sell it to the masses unless the entity is a Church, a corrupt political official or dictator.
I do not believe what God said unless it moves my spirit through benevolence, kindness for another, compassion with doable deliverables, and by living examples which practice patience and love.
Lyle K’ang
Posted on 15-Aug-05 at 7:58 pm | PermalinkThank you Michael!
I feel the thoughts banging around in the back of your head, ricocheting in that deep, fibrous, cavernous mind of yours, while gracefully layering words upon words. We mortals have the power to comprehend, which by the way, is shocking to many of those that are offended by human thought, because their process is the lack of individual reflection, and consequently do not understand what happens after human feelings and critical thinking come together.
ID has a different meaning within these types of religions vs. scientific and the melding of ID.
Let me explain: Carl Sagan took mathematics as far as it could go. When the equations and analysis were done-he commented that there is a God beyond our mathematics because what exists after the equations, which have taken us to the very depths of a galaxy beyond our own, only proves that a God does indeed exist. (Paraphrasing of course)
Frogs, insects, ducks, sharks, turtles, monkeys and humans have two eyes and a nose. This is what I believe to be a product of intelligent design. A design manifested by a higher being, a creator if you will-a Master! Nothing else that purports to be ID is the true ID, unless we can acknowledge where science ends and God provides the answers until we collectively grow in spiritually to understand more of our wonderment..
Religion is corrupt.
God came before religion.
God has always existed, even before religion. Religion is not of God-God is and will always be!
God would never be so arrogant to short-change his or her creations with dribble and/or trickery by playing with dialog and harming people’s faith.
Trickery and dribble are man made.
God is spiritual and speaks to the least of us through our hearts, dreams and through nature.
No one can say God said this and hope to sell it to the masses unless the entity is a Church, a corrupt political official or dictator.
I do not believe what God said unless it moves my spirit through benevolence, kindness for another, compassion with doable deliverables, and by living examples which practice patience and love.
Lyle K’ang
Posted on 15-Aug-05 at 7:58 pm | PermalinkMichael, I’ve read each of your posts. I agree with some, and others I do not, but this latest one just makes me very, very sad. I wonder if you are asking the questions retrospectively or if you really do want to know. As a life-long practicing Christian, I can tell you that I think it takes a lot more ‘faith’ to believe that all of this world just ‘happened’ than it does to know and believe that God created it and us. You’ve known me for over 30 years, and I don’t think you’d consider me or some of your other Christian friends as wild-eyed radicals. Maybe you shouldn’t paint with quite such a broad brush.
Posted on 15-Aug-05 at 8:03 pm | PermalinkIf the day comes that you truly would like to know about God, I hope you’ll take up that conversation with those of us who love you but also love, and are loved by, God.
One can also believe that we have not grown up enough, yet to understand
the true mind of man. We have cutoff our growth spurt by relaxing our vigil, by
damning our souls and attaching shortcoming’s on everything else.
We don’t understand ourselves, let alone a ‘God’. We pretend to know about him
and of him. With this type of logic-we can’t imagine nor comprehend that the
Bible is not correct. If we understand the Bible’s limitations because of
translations and truths; we are most vunerable and many go to the extremes of
thought. Extremists in religious thought can be somewhat confusing-just look at
what our world has produced with the extreme left and right for any country.
How about the fact that we have yet to experience…experience.
I don’t understand GOD and do not ever profess to know HIM.
I don’t understand HIS powers nor HIS opposite, who is also extreme yet most
powerful. IS GOD extreme? IS SATAN extreme?
Some accept the knowledge that the Earth has changed from its conception and is
basically OUR HELL here on Earth…We don’t have enough knowledge to understand
the duality or do we want too. Yet, some try to understand and that is GOOD.
Trying to understand and accept that there in a whole, produces two identical
halves with different makeup and plans. One has an agenda which most arrogant
people seem to know deeply. The other, almost a brother, has an agenda likened
to the first and a few know of him and profess to know HIM also-this can be
equated also to arrognace.
So what do these two beings (material formed of particulate matter-a.k.a. cosmic
void? Or do they exist in another material form or entity? Who knows-can we see
them? Who touches us? Did the finger of GOD touch me or was it my departed
Grandmother?
Clearly, this has an end; one must acknowledge the other half in all faiths,
beliefs and thought. Never mind what you call them or however close you may feel
to either side, you still don’t know-no matter who you are…we are thrown (
many say they chose to come, others say its destiny) here together, to
normalize, to standardize, to conjecture and actually earnestly endevor to make
sense out of it all.
Whether there is or there isn’t, is not the question nor answer. The point of
this discussion was to show myself and you, the reader, that we have yet to
evolve in understanding. Many of us have been blessed through history,
especially the ’60’s-which actually gives us several points more than those that
try to negate that era as wasteful and essentially non-growth (spiritual).
What’s with the point system?
In earnest, you and I are trying, but we stumble along the way, however noble.
That is GOOD!
Lyle K’ang, MBA/IM
Posted on 17-Aug-05 at 8:48 pm | Permalink