Suppose there is another, possibly higher, form of life out there in the universe? - There could be, probably is. Would they be loved (by God) more than us? Would they regard
us as we now regard chimps, dogs, porpoises or even insects? It’s a bit of a cheek to suppose that God would give preference to this planet.
To borrow from Plato, I view God as "a rational essence, a free-floating, eternal intelligence". I cannot envisage God as a Caucasian man with a long white beard, up in the sky somewhere anymore than as a black woman.
All life on this planet had a common source and it would seem to me to be somewhat arrogant to claim that God resembles or is in the form of our particular species.
Personally, I do not think that God, as a cosmic intelligence, would give individual attention to any race of people let alone an individual. That is only a personal feeling. I am no more likely to be right than anyone else as I have no hot-line to heaven. Neither have the Pope nor the Chief Rabbi let alone Abu Hamza.
It’s a fact, though, that my prayers often have an adverse effect.
I did 3 years of philosophy at the LSE, many moons ago, together with logic and semantics. It helps clear the mind; so do a couple of glasses of red wine.
My father was headmaster of a C.of.E school and I was indoctrinated in that environment - church 3 times on a Sunday. In my late teens, I began to see through the posturing and woolly-mindedness of some of the clergy and lay-persons and thought I would switch to a more disciplined church so joined the R.C.s and underwent 6 months training in theology but left a severely rattled tutor-priest as I could not accept and questioned in depth some of the dogma (on sex, divorce, birth control etc. ( St Paul’s doctrine, not Jesus’s) and was not prepared to say I believed in order to be admitted. In fact, on leaving, I bet the tutor priest £5 (a lot then) that within 50 years the RC Church would have to change tack on a lot of issues. Pity I lost touch with him - he would, in any case, be about 150 years old by now - as I would have won the bet. No one noticed the changes, as it was done imperceptibly, but change it did. Much more tolerant today. The last Pope Paul even discussed the probability of bringing back divorcees as communicants and condoning condoms to combat H.I.V.
I realised when studying theology that what has been passed on through the generations, from a very primitive age, has changed greatly - mostly for political reasons. All religions today differ greatly from what they preached only 50 years ago, let alone 2000 years. Many ideologies arose from economic or political concepts that were incorporated into religion as a means of getting the people to follow without questioning, or because something was known but not why. All seemed based on the fear of reprisal and/or punishment. What the church advocated during the Albigensian Crusades makes Al Quaeda and the Taliban seem very tame stuff.
About 5000 years ago it was almost suicidal to eat pork due to the parasites the meat contained. People then had no knowledge whatsoever of liver fluke, bacterium etc so the powers that be in the Middle East declared it to be "unclean" and made a religious issue of it. The condition no longer applies today but the belief persists as do many others. Hindus and other Indian tribes regard the cow as holy. Must find out why. Perhaps in the mists of antiquity some rich rajah or, more likely, a wealthy cleric declared it such in order to stop the hungry hordes from illicit barbecues?
I have only just discovered this blog section in FTF, and have never been a blogger. But I read your post with interest.
I totally agree with you. How dare we earthlings be so presumptuous if not downright "superior" to assume we are the only life form in our universe!! And "God" in whatever form or name various religions adhere to, is downright ridiculous. This subject has been a contentious one around my family's dinner table for ages.
I was brought up as RC. My mother was a devout RC as were her parents. My mother would go to church at every oppportunity until such time as she was banned from the Church. This happened because she was told if she ever had another child, it and she were at severe risk of losing their lives. being a good Catholic she went and saw the priest. He banned her, cause she could not have any more children. (As it turns out she did have another one, and he was her biggest and healthiest baby, paternity has been questioned but that is another issue! LOL!)
My father was also RC, but mostly non practicing....see that's cause he believed that God was an astronaut! ( major hints to Azimov there, and he was an avid reader of Azimov).
One night he sat me down, with the Reader's Digest Atlas in front of him. In this atlas at the front were pictures of our solar system. It had details about how far we were from other planets etc, and was very interesting. Another night he sat me down and we started talking about Darwins theory of evolution and how we are supposed to have been descended from apes. Interesting topic. ( my daughter is a biologist and even she agrees it is highly plausible).
Based on this new information at the tender age of 11, I was in my religion class at RC school, and dared ask the Nun a question:
"If we are supposed to have descended from apes, how come Adam and Eve are depicted as looking just like we do today?"
She answered:
" Well, we all know that Adam and Eve are a myth."!!!
I replied:
"Well, if the first chapter in the bible is a myth, then I am outta here!" And never went back to a religion class again.
God is NOT a figure in the sky who pointed a finger and made us! Any person with half a brain can figure that one out......lets face it...if that were the case then who made Him! What comes first....the chicken or the egg???
When it comes to extra terrestrial life......well why on earth not? Who says there is not another planet, in another galaxy ( not ours..the Milky Way ), that cannot support life. Who says they have to look like us. They may well be a civilisation that has evolved to a point where they are smarter and cleverer ( but may look like lizards!), than us and can travel and "view" our planet. They are probably sitting out there, Like God is Above Us, looking at us and saying:
" that poor planet and it's people.....they are so backward...when are they going to get it right?"
Religion in all it's forms when forced down people's necks has a lot to say for itself.
Love your idea about the wealthy holding the cow sacred....haven't they figured out yet that people are starving over there??? BTW Len, fancy a steak???
JT
I have only just discovered this blog section in FTF, and have never been a blogger. But I read your post with interest.
I totally agree with you. How dare we earthlings be so presumptuous if not downright "superior" to assume we are the only life form in our universe!! And "God" in whatever form or name various religions adhere to, is downright ridiculous. This subject has been a contentious one around my family's dinner table for ages.
I was brought up as RC. My mother was a devout RC as were her parents. My mother would go to church at every oppportunity until such time as she was banned from the Church. This happened because she was told if she ever had another child, it and she were at severe risk of losing their lives. being a good Catholic she went and saw the priest. He banned her, cause she could not have any more children. (As it turns out she did have another one, and he was her biggest and healthiest baby, paternity has been questioned but that is another issue! LOL!)
My father was also RC, but mostly non practicing....see that's cause he believed that God was an astronaut! ( major hints to Azimov there, and he was an avid reader of Azimov).
One night he sat me down, with the Reader's Digest Atlas in front of him. In this atlas at the front were pictures of our solar system. It had details about how far we were from other planets etc, and was very interesting. Another night he sat me down and we started talking about Darwins theory of evolution and how we are supposed to have been descended from apes. Interesting topic. ( my daughter is a biologist and even she agrees it is highly plausible).
Based on this new information at the tender age of 11, I was in my religion class at RC school, and dared ask the Nun a question:
"If we are supposed to have descended from apes, how come Adam and Eve are depicted as looking just like we do today?"
She answered:
" Well, we all know that Adam and Eve are a myth."!!!
I replied:
"Well, if the first chapter in the bible is a myth, then I am outta here!" And never went back to a religion class again.
God is NOT a figure in the sky who pointed a finger and made us! Any person with half a brain can figure that one out......lets face it...if that were the case then who made Him! What comes first....the chicken or the egg???
When it comes to extra terrestrial life......well why on earth not? Who says there is not another planet, in another galaxy ( not ours..the Milky Way ), that cannot support life. Who says they have to look like us. They may well be a civilisation that has evolved to a point where they are smarter and cleverer ( but may look like lizards!), than us and can travel and "view" our planet. They are probably sitting out there, Like God is Above Us, looking at us and saying:
" that poor planet and it's people.....they are so backward...when are they going to get it right?"
Religion in all it's forms when forced down people's necks has a lot to say for itself.
Love your idea about the wealthy holding the cow sacred....haven't they figured out yet that people are starving over there??? BTW Len, fancy a steak???
JT