A Layman's Theories on Religion

This is a volatile subject area to be exploring. Emotions often rise when questioning religion. Even so, I still carry the basic beliefs and values of my past religious experience, but do not necessarily have a need to congregate and reinforce them. There is nothing wrong with people feeling a need to socialize with others in common faith. It just seems that it serves only to benefit the congregation, and the religious sect. Each sect on earth has their own version of the human story, insisting that their teachings of God are correct and spread among the masses.

Consider how many forms of religion are out there in the world. What you have is a smorgasbord of various sects for every taste and pleasure. Which one is the true way? Who is right and who is not? We have spilled each other's blood countless times in history over these issues. How this serves the whole of humanity is difficult to comprehend. There are local sects that attempt to spread their message, but the message is so vague and mysterious that it likens to convincing someone that Peter Pan really does exist. You just have to believe. When they approach, the messengers have a prepared testimonial with vague words about how God now guides them, and enriches their lives. If probed further with specific questions, they wind up falling back on their handy unquestionable faith. Is it just because they are new to the spirit and do not understand it fully?

One reason for my early teenage exit from the church was that there were no satisfactory answers. It was all about the spiritual meaning in the text, normally interpreted by whoever the congregational leader was. The usual answer to my nagging questions was, "It is not our place to question how it was done, only that we have faith it is possible by the power of our almighty God." My opinions about religion are from my experience in Christianity. It is not my intention to overlook the others, but my knowledge is nil when it comes to other sects. In spite of this ignorance, the reality is that none have changed the world to live in peace and love anyway. If one did such exist it was more than likely conquered by the other more powerful ones. The truth is that the remaining victorious earthly sects mostly all have blood on their hands. This is not an attack on religion. It is just a simple fact in most cases. Despite this often-violent separation of each other, it is surprising to find that most all religions believe in the same values and human understanding.

The stories and events vary, depending on where it took place, and they usually relate to a specific people or their neighbors in the area. However, events surrounding our creation and interaction with a supreme being are very often similar in nature. The names and cultures may be different. Those who wrote about things they saw or experienced wrote in descriptions understood by their own people. Despite this, the events most religions speak of have many similarities. What is more, their stories contain the same message of kindness and understanding towards our fellow human beings. Even the most primitive of cultures has ancient stories about such things, before the Christians converted them. If religions all speak about similar messages and events, is it reasonable to suspect that they might indeed be connected? In spite of the distance these societies were from each other, could a supreme being have given the same message to them all? Human skin color, features and languages differ. Could it be possible that it is the same with gods? First, you would have to accept that there is more than one God. Despite the 'one supreme being' belief, there are a surprisingly numerous amount of angels or deities that coexist with God in the legends and stories. Many angels supposedly look just like us. Some believe that angels are not really gods, only servants created in His image to make contact with us. This would mean that God could create living humans that evolve and propagate, while He surrounds Himself with only unequal servants He creates on a whim. There are even those who believe that humans in fact, are more important to God than these angels or cherubs.

It is difficult to imagine a single lonely God out in space somewhere not knowing the comforts of friendship. Why would He teach to love thy neighbor if He had no neighbors to love? How could He understand Adam's need for a mate if He Himself did not know the comforting companionship of one? One must imagine God sitting on a throne with angels fluttering about His head, waiting for His next command. Insisting that God is a single entity that is capable of seeing to the needs of every single human on this planet, and base that on pure faith is asking too much of me anyway. God cannot be a single being. It makes better sense if God was a race of beings. It would help to explain angels and so much more. This goes against the very foundations of major religions and hopefully, the one thing they will someday compromise on. To them there is only one God, and that is that. It is the cornerstone of their faith. To think of God as a race of people is to think like a pagan. Paganism, unfortunately now associated with occult worship, is the belief in a race of gods. The major religions insist that this kind of thinking is uncivilized and primitive. Even so, pagan stories and legends survive to this day. We now know them as mythology.

Like an onion, we must peel away the outer layers of mysticism, occult worship, and lonely souls in robes. Going back deeper through the centuries will reveal the great ancient civilizations. The thought of numerous gods was common among them. The Egyptians, Greeks, Sumerians, Mayan, Eastern and American Indians, Asian and others all had a wide variety of gods in their myths. Some still do to this day. What is more, a few of these still existing beliefs are actually older than the current major ones. This is what paganism was at the time, not myths, but religious beliefs. Many of these civilizations eventually fell, bringing and merging their religions with the conquerors. The victorious allowed this to make things easier for the transition into their society. Eventually it became confusing with so many deities to worship. There would be attempts at associating one deity with another, but that did not always work. A change was in order to centralize the people. Christianity is a more recent phenomenon, stemming from another source. Therefore, the concept of one God came from the Hebrews. Stop! This is not being anti-Semitic in any way. It is only a proposal viewed from a historical context. For you see, the concept of one single God was necessary at the time. With everyone running around worshipping one specific god or another, the segregation was beginning to have the same effect on the whole society as well. A single God made better sense, but it is not likely that the Hebrews invented the idea.

The single God concept centers on what happened to the Hebrews, who were only interacting with one God. Understandably, they were concerned about their plight, and did not consider that this god, or possibly other ones, may be doing the same thing for other humans elsewhere on the planet. We should not blame the Hebrews because their only concern was survival, and they needed aide from a powerful God that took interest in their hardships. He likely instructed them that He was the one god, well, because He was probably the only God there at the time. Another possible reason could have been to not confuse the wandering mass of people. The situation was intolerable, and people were busy worshiping a whole host of idol gods to help them. One God would centralize the peoples' focus. It would unite them with two common goals, order and survival. Like the old saying goes, too many cooks spoil the soup. It is the same with idol gods. One even gets the sense of an implementation of different tactics. Is it possible that this same race were the ones who inspired the numerous pagan deities in the first place? All religions write that indeed the gods do eventually leave. What if the God on Mount Sinai was one of several still left on our planet? Could they have been attempting at the last possible moment, to instill their values in us before they finally departed? Could the God of Moses have simply wanted to make things less complicated by telling the Hebrews that they should only listen to Him now and not their idols anymore? Did the deities who may have inspired the idols already leave by then? This would be a great leap in faith for those of the major religions.

Was there one God or two, three Gods or four? Does it really matter in the end? Whether it is one God or more, a race of advanced beings or a spirit, the message remains the same. Each of us must conform to their ways, their lessons, and their way of life. Only then can we achieve acceptance into their society. It does not matter if you are Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim. The same message of love, unselfishness and human consideration is the foundation of them all. God, whoever He is, found it important that these instructions live on. Even as human empires rise and fall. Just because one faith has a different way to worship than another, should we hate and spill each other's blood over the same message? Acceptance is the key to understanding. If that means changing a long held concept to understand the overall meaning of why we are here, then it is something that we must do.

The message does not get lost in the process, because the lessons are the same. Is that not the most important thing? I do not think it blasphemous to believe a race of advanced people had a hand in our creation instead of one single being. We all now know that there are limitless possibilities outside of our galaxy. Is it not time for us to consider reexamining our beliefs in a different light? Will we sin in doing so? How will the leaders of these religions react if we do? Will it threaten or frighten them? Can they, or we for that matter, accept an idea that could alter everything we have had faith in for generations? Every story would have new meaning. Every thing we thought we knew would change. Every act we commit would have new implications. Why is it blasphemous to consider that God is more than one person? Will it ruin the status quo for some? We should just have faith that the reason for rejecting the idea of multiple gods will not be about control. If we all can get over this hump, it will help us in moving on.