Including song: MY GOD!
Saturday, January 31, 2015
SUFFERING & GOD
(Includes song:
My God)
By
Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
1/31/2015
Why do people suffer if we are all "children of God"? I am asked to explain why it is that I believe so strongly that we are all equal children of God - and yet it seems that God treats us all unequally - resulting in suffering on the part of many. How can it be?
My answer to that is "children of God" does not mean what it seems to mean. When talking about God, we cannot talk about God as "just another person." It is in thinking that God is a Person Who creates us all that we find ourselves in a bind trying to figure how such a "Wonderful Person" could treat us all differently.
Importantly, then, get God straight - and get ourselves straight as related to God.
So, if God is not a person, what is he - or He or She or It? Well, to begin, God is not a He or She or It - in that God is not an "individual" that can take on the properties of a He or She or It. When I think of God now, I think of but one thing - INFINITY. In that INFINITY can have no boundaries because it must be everywhere and in everything, God, then, cannot be a "Person."
From where and from whom does everything derive, then, if we do not come from a "Person of God"? Ah, that is the question, isn't it? Let me keep speculation about that for a future article, but let me say for now that it does not really matter how we got here - just that we got here; and that our existence, in a way, has nothing to do with God, or "probably" has nothing to do with God, individually speaking.
I will admit, however, that the question of our individual origins is a very interesting question - perhaps as interesting as any I have ever encountered. Practically speaking, though, (as opposed to metaphysically speaking or spiritually speaking) I think it is a very easy question to resolve; and, again, somewhat soon I will attempt an explanation - or speculation - of my own. Standby for that, if you wish. I intend to call that one: WHAT AM I DOING HERE?
Anyway, for the topic at hand, having redefined God as INFINITY only, we can now go forward to answer why people suffer if we are all "children of God." The answer: Everything comes from God in that all exist because of an INFINITY we can call God; however, INFINITY only "includes" all that exists. It does not "make" anything in existence - nor does It relate as an individual to anything in existence. Individuals cause suffering, not God, at least when the source of suffering is personal and not "natural." If God is not an Individual, then God can't cause suffering. Right?
In truth, things in existence "make" other things in existence; but if God is truly INFINITY itself, It cannot "make" anything - or define how anything should act. At least, that is how I see it now. I admit that earlier in life I believed like so many do that I came from God like God made me an individual; but having realized that it is completely unlikely that God can be anything more than INFINITY itself, it has become clear to me that my earlier thinking about God was completely wrong.
Rational thinking, I think, especially about spiritual or moral matters, requires questioning on the part of a searcher if an alleged supposition or truth is to be of any use. All too often, I think, religion oriented teachers who have some objective or strategy in mind either lead students to ask questions for which those teachers have already prepared an answer - or skip allowing questions in the first place while dictating ideas as if a student was really inquiring about them. The result is the students are never encouraged to find their own way by asking their own questions. Dictatorial teachers simply prepare their own way - and alleged wisdoms - and students never know they have been compromised.
If your answers are to be your own, especially about spiritual or moral matters, so also must be your questions. If you are in a mode of inquiry, in my opinion, never let another lead. Lead yourself with your own questions - and insist on answers that make sense. Ideally, ask your own questions - and answer yourself by pondering a matter on your own. That is owning both a question and an answer - and not letting another pretend that he or she is more suited than yourself to both question and answer.
My earlier thinking about God was strictly based on "what others told me." I did not even think I had a right to ask questions about God because various "superiors" had already volunteered alleged notions that I was not supposed to challenge. Thus, like almost everyone I knew, I did not challenge what I was taught; and the result is that I was awhile in finding out that the various notions of my "superiors" were totally irrational - and thus, "probably" wrong.
But eventually I did start to ask questions. Who is God? What is God? And I did not let my former "superiors" answer the questions for me. I insisted on finding my own answers. Who is God? I started there, but soon found out that the real question in which I was interested in is: What is God, not Who is God?
I am no scientist, but I don't think it takes a scientist to know that in all probability, the world we are privileged to live in must be INFINITE - in that it is a total irrational that the world - or existence - can end. How can it end if galaxies within it go on and on and on? But if existence does not end, then if God exists at all, God must equal that INFINITY. Makes sense. Right?
I have repeated that notion that GOD MUST BE INFINITE again and again and again in my life since I started asking questions about God; and that notion of an INFINITE GOD has led me to my notions of liberation from a "Personal God." How can God be "personal" if God must equal INFINITY? Can it possibly be so that there is some God roaming about as a "Person" or "Individual" within INFINITY? Well, that makes no sense to me; and thus I have long discounted the notion that I was taught that I can be related - or be subject to - a Personal God.
Can I talk to INFINITY? Not in a way that INFINITY can hear me. To hear me, INFINITY would have to be an "individual"; but it should be clear that INFINITY cannot be an individual - or a person - for reasons stated. For what it's worth, though, I intend to explore that idea that some men have "talked to God" - and I will write about it. Look for an article about the subject that I intend to call: TALKING WITH GOD - coming somewhat soon. OK?
For now, I am only attempting to answer why we are all "equal children of God," though we are not all treated equally - or seemingly treated unequally. Why do some of us live in Paradise and others of us live in Hell? The answer: We are all "children of God" in that we are all "children of Infinity;" but that is where it all ends - related to God. We individuals who have come from "other individuals" have to decide matters of Paradise or Hell. God (INFINITY) cannot do it for us. Can It?
In truth, INFINITY - being only a Presence and not a Person - cannot deal with individuals. That means the dealing with one another has to depend entirely upon ourselves as individuals - not God as only Presence.
So, why do we choose to terrorize one another and sometimes claim we are doing it "for God"? Because in our ignorance of what God is, we imagine that we are relating to God as an individual. Thus, we "imagine" that we are doing something "for God" - or "with God" or whatever.
Rationally speaking, God cannot be one with eyes and ears and mouth. Those are the properties of an "individual," not the property of an INFINITY. By making God one of us, we have confused entirely the entity or reality we call God. I think it is because we have confused God with being one of us that we have trapped ourselves into believing that one of us (God) can speak to another of us (a so-called prophet); but assuming God to be like one of us will not make it so. Will it?
But to answer my friend who asked the question as to why God allows so much suffering if God is indeed a "Good God," the answer is: He (or She or It) doesn't "allow" anything. We do. In the end, it is not a matter of what "God allows." It becomes only what "we allow" - or what I allow. Take God out of the picture of pleasure or terror - and place it squarely where it belongs - on each of us as "individuals."
Or so it seems to me now! How about you?
My God
(A song including recitation)
By
Francis William Bessler
1/31/2015
I ask my God - why do You make me suffer?
I ask my God - why don't You give me ease?
My God tells me that It is not an other;
and if I suffer, it's because I am not pleased.
I ask my God, please let me go to Heaven.
I ask my God, please save me from Your Hell.
My God tells me that Heaven is only forgiving
and that Hell is only living to kill.
Recitation:
But living to kill - or injure -
can be real
as well as virtual.
As long as I approve
of your execution - or injury,
I am guilty as Hell.
For Hell is only living to deny
another his or her right to live
as Heaven is only being free
and being free to forgive.
I ask my God, please take me for Your own.
I ask my God, please adopt me as Your child.
My God tells me that as the wind does blow,
we have all been Its children all the while.
I ask my God, please show me all Your glory.
I ask my God, please take me in Your arms.
My God tells me Its glory resides within me;
and if I believe, I will not suffer harm.
My God is not a He - nor is He a She.
My God is only Divinity;
and that Divinity's in me.
Yes, My God is not a He - nor is He a She.
My God is only Divinity;
and that Divinity's in me.
Indeed, that Divinity's in me.