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Wednesday, April 19, 2006In response to today's Dilbertblog, how do you know which religion is right...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven... This is a wish, not a declaration, as far as I understand. It means Christians ought desire to make life on earth as life is/would be in heaven. How to go about it is a trickier question. Different parts of the Bible are more or less specific, but the New Testament has some pretty heady stuff about loving God who created you, loving your fellow man and treating others as you would be treated. I have a suspicion that anything in the text that contradicts this was either miscopied, mistranslated or put in out of sheer bloody-mindedness by folks who errantly slipped their commentary into the divine transcription, as it were. God is welcome to appear to as many people in as many guises as He pleases. I'm not going to try and pin Him down. I know my own personal experience with faith, am glad to share it with those who think it might help. But remembering the "do unto others" bit, I'm hesitant to knock others' experiences with faith if those experiences have brought them love and comfort - have brought them closer to that heaven on earth that we pray for God to help us to make. I fail to see how slamming airplanes into the WTC was an expression of divine love, however. Mostly, it was an act horrible enough in nature and scale to be committed by humans, but not so magnificent in size, scope or delivery of finely meted judgment as to qualify as divine at all. Therefore, this can be written off as nutcases who were messed up, even if they thought they were doing God's work. By contrast, whether Hindu, Muslim, Jew or Christian, if you help those around you to live happier lives whose joys they can appreciate and whose sorrows they can bear, you're probably on the right track, and it'd be pretty goofy of God to have it in for you - though if that be His will, it's beyond my power to stop Him. It doesn't seem likely to me, though, based on my own experience of faith. Jesus taught us to pray that God's will would be done on earth and His disciples taught us that God is love. Where love is, God is. Where love lacks, God lacks. Discussions of holy books, including mine, are interesting, but whether you use the Bible, the Koran or the Rig-Veda to justify hatred, you're off course. Whether you're using the Tao, the Dhammapada or the Elder Edda to call for compassion and understanding, there is something of the divine spark at work. 
posted by gbarto at 1:21 PM |
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