Fiery Sunset. by DigDoug
Does God bless America? Are we really a nation under God; a God who has shed "His" grace on us? And if you answered yes, why -- what is the nature of this God who loves us such that "He" would choose us above all the other nations on Earth and make us special? What about the universe? Did this God create a universe that defies human understanding just for us who inhabit a thin film of life on an insignificant planet in an ordinary galaxy?
Well in America, this God is clearly a male figure, one who favors some and not others of "His" own creation. One with very human attributes. An all knowing, all powerful entity who can be convinced to produce positive outcomes in the midst of negative circumstances "He" created. But only for those who pray well enough.
You know what I mean: The god who saves one person in a natural disaster where several thousand of his fellow human beings perished. Or the God who helps a high school team win a Friday night football game while millions of uncomprehending and innocent children die of starvation.
Here's the key question: Am I being blasphemous by asking these questions or are those who believe in this particular god? Let's explore together.
Humans have tried to understand and explain the mysteries that surround us since the beginning of humans. That mystery is the one we call God. And that God has taken on as many faces as there are societies on planet Earth.
And in America, a particular face is becoming a threat and hindrance to us all. That face is the face of Christian Dominionism: A regressive, fascistic, anti-intellectual god who has anointed the special few Republicans to tell us how to live our lives.
This kind of movement can only exist where people believe that the face of their god is the true one. That their limited explanation of a supreme being is the entire story. That human beings can comprehend a god that can create the universe and everything in it. Human beings who don't understand their own inability to understand. Human beings who cannot distinguish the difference, in John Caputo's terms, between a confessional theology of human beliefs and a radical theology of faith in the unknowable.
These are people who cheapen the mysteries of the universe by injecting earthly political agendas. These are people who use their limited explanations of this god to create fear and obedience to a set of principles they derive from the delusion that they alone have the proper interpretation of god's will.
These are the people who have infiltrated our government and provide fuel to fire the catastrophe we have in Washington, DC today. These are the people who use our hard fought freedoms to assemble and speak their primitive ruminations as though they represent reality. The ones who go to Washington and blame the president for the mess their own party is making while invoking others to, "Demand that this president leave town"put the Quran down" get up off his knees"and come out with his hands up."
As bizarre as this seems to the rest of the world, it is the effect of the well thought out, well funded attacks on the American government by religious terrorists as dangerous as any attack could ever be, being conducted in the full light of day, being sold as saving the country by destroying the government.
Finally, this ruse is allowed to fulminate by a main stream media who has decided on neutrality in the name of profit.
With my limited human reasoning abilities, I cannot understand a god that would bless this craziness.
Robert De Filippis
1
1
1
