WHERE IS GOD NOW?
Part 1
By Lionel Gayle
Does God really exist? If your answer is “yes,” where is He or She
now? Who created Him or Her?
It’s not my style to holler, “God is dead,” or “There is no God.” Nevertheless, I remain open-minded that science and technology could unearth evidence to prove or disprove, conclusively, whether God is a real entity. But that would be into the future, way beyond my time.
I have great doubt, though, that
He or She exists outside the confused minds of liars, religious zealots, and
fanatics. However, you’ll have to wait
for Part 2 of this blog to get my opinion on the creation of God, and where He
or She is now.
FAITH ISSUE
In the meantime, I admire the
sentiments of people like the California Christian school administrator who
believes “it’s a faith issue.” That is,
the tenuous argument surrounding the age-old discussion about “the existence of
Jesus”—the Son of God. Obviously, the
evidence that supports the “Christ myth theory” and that against “a historical
Jesus” seemed to have impeded Dr. Ronald Sipus in knowing if “what the
scripture says is true.” He was one of
the subjects interviewed for the 2005 documentary The God Who Wasn’t There.
The film was written and directed
by Brian Flemming, a former fundamentalist Christian.
Another thing, I make no
apologies for being so ambivalent when it comes to God’s gender, despite the
fact that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each identifies God as an
Alpha-male—the supreme deity who runs the world.
I’m certain of one thing, though:
It is not Beyonce and her rambunctious divas “Who run this motha…world.” Depending on the company you keep, you might
think it’s Yahweh, or God Almighty, or Allah.
You can check their credentials in the Hebrew Bible, the Holy Bible, and
the Qur’an.
Did you know that Jews,
Christians, and Muslims “were all called atheists by their pagan
contemporaries?” Ask theologian Dr.
Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God. She’ll tell you that it happened when those religions were “at an
early stage of their history.”
It is clear that from way back in
history, the three monotheist religions had decided, “This is a man’s
world.” To that, the late American soul
singer James Brown would’ve added the line: “But it would be nothing, nothing
without a woman or a girl.”
Ancient Greece, it seemed, had no
tolerance for misogyny among its deities, and obviously, had scoffed at the
males-only rulership over its earthly and celestial affairs. For instance, in Greek mythology, a number
of gods had ruled alongside goddesses such as Aphrodite, Artemis, Hera, and
Athena. Their counterparts among the
Romans would’ve been Venus, Diana, Juno, and Minerva, respectively. And you can find similitude in other mythologies.
WORD OF GOD
The Bible is still being touted
as the Word of God. If you believed in
the Good Book, then the earth was created in six days. But there’s overwhelming evidence elsewhere
that it took science more than 3,000 years to discover that the universe
started with what is called the Big Bang; that’s some 15 billion years
ago. So, for a very long time man has
known that “time” began at the moment of the Big Bang.
Now, Planet Earth is about 4.5
billion years old. Let’s say it was God
who had created it. What was God doing
during the preceding 10.5 billion years?
Could it be that God had entered the scene a mere 4.5 billion years ago
just to enslave us with a multiple authoritative dogmas?
Just like how there’s no place
south of the earth’s South Pole, “Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang,”
theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking says.
“So there was no time for God to make the universe in.”
Check out his 2011 documentary, There
Is No God, in which Professor Hawking, research director at the University
of Cambridge, England, also says, “No
one created the universe and no one directs our fate.”
Some of Hawking’s publications,
including Did God Create the Universe, and The Grand Design drew
a lot of adverse criticisms, even from the scientific community.
One religious blogger who had
objected to his pronouncement that “There is no God,” claimed “God lives
outside of time and space.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t offer even one iota of evidence to support his
preposterous claim.
Who created God? Where is He or She now? Look out for Part 2 of this blog.
