Please disable your Ad Blocker to better interact with this website.

Opinion

This Author Gets It Backwards — God Is Not That Complicated

I’m listening to a new book entitled God – A Human History. It’s interesting – although I wouldn’t recommend it to time-limited readers. Too much detail filling too many pages.

The book relates the known, diversified, religious history of mankind over many millennia. It speculates about even more ancient history based on discovered clues, e.g., from paintings in caves throughout the world and from various archaeological excavations.

The author documents that throughout history, humans had many different beliefs about God and/or the gods. However, there was one universal belief – that almost all religions seem to have in common — and it’s the belief that god or the gods were like humans – but superior humans – with similar but superior qualities, characteristics, attributes and values.

Interestingly, as a young boy, I was taught the apparent opposite in Catholic schools – that man was created in the image and likeness of God, not the other way around as the author postulates.

I was taught the historical search for the living and true God culminated in the biblical accounts of Judaism – of the one true God, and the promised coming of a Messiah.

I was taught that Jesus, a Jew, was the fulfillment of Judaism – that he was the divine Messiah, who took on the human condition, thus giving us a more accurate and understandable perspective of God – of his virtues and values – of his love for mankind – of what he expects of us as faithful followers.

As this new book documents, before the coming of Christ, it was difficult for mankind to visualize and understand what God was all about and/or how he exists. Understanding Jesus, the Son of God, as conveyed in the New Testament and via Sacred Tradition, is not that challenging or confusing. His message of faith, love, charity, sacrifice, and forgiveness are pretty clear and compelling.

In effect, this new book causes one to think deeply about the evolution of religious beliefs and how we got to where we are today – as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.

*****
In God we must trust . . . but we must always do our part – to secure and promote the truth and a better way – to protect our freedom and interests – and to defend the Judeo-Christian American-Way.

Image: By Michelangelo – Web Gallery of Art[1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1551141

Share if you agree some people make having a relationship with God more complicated than it need be.

William Pauwels

William A. Pauwels, Sr. was born in Jackson Michigan to a Belgian, immigrant, entrepreneurial family. Bill is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and served in executive and/or leadership positions at Thomson Industries, Inc., Dow Corning, Loctite and Sherwin-Williams. He is currently CIO of Pauwels Private Investment Practice. He's been commenting on matters political/economic/philosophical since 1980.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *