For John, BLUF: Tyrants are a bad thing. Only God deserves worship or adulation.
I am not trying to take over Renee Astee's turf, but I thought this was an interesting take:
We are made in God's image. God desires worship/adulation and kills (bans from heaven) those who don't obey. This is just like Stalin but Stalin, being created not divine, is not due worship/adulation, but having been created in God's image still desires it. This is why we have tyrants—men who desire to be God.The actual author is unknown.
UPDATE: My wife noted to me that there are many men trying to be God, but only one God willing to be Man.
Regards — Cliff
6 comments:
I very much like what your wife says.
Hmm, does that mean there are other "Gods" who haven't been willing to become man?
I think Joe has an excellent question. I am thinking that there may well be other "Gods" who haven't been seen as being willing. That said, my wife's comment is almost creed like and very useful to her (and of value to me). Your mileage may vary. At the end of the day, faith is a gift. But seeking is very human.
Regards — Cliff
So you are professing at least a philosophical flirtation if not literal polytheistic belief system? Or am I missing something, perhaps a suggestion that the Biblical record of God becoming man is merely myth?
While I agree that seeking is very human, I would strongly suggest that one cannot profess faith while simultaneously testing the veracity and validity of that in which one professes faith. If you must seek or test.....you don't quite have faith...only a "strong suspicion." Faith seems to me to be absolute. It calls for a belief in the existence of that which we cannot see or touch.
Actually, no, I don't think I am flirting with a polytheistic belief system, but rather accepting that there is a multitude of ways that humans conceive of God, including the idea that there is no God. If that is due to God or man, I can't tell, but regarding my own faith I am comfortable as to my belief. A thousand questions, but no doubts, sort of paraphrasing John Henry Newman. God became man in order to save the human race.
Yesterday's Second Reading, from Galatians says "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." Adoption is good.
Regards — Cliff
Perhaps it is just semantics. I too am comfortable with my faith and believe in the monotheistic entity that we humans today refer to as God. He has gone by many other names throughout human history, most we don't even know today. I have been roundly accused of blasphemy for suggesting that in other parts of the word, He still goes by different names...perhaps a Buddha, Allah (though not in the context of the current interpretation of Islam), and so on. I don't think white folks of European ancestry have an edge on Christianity....or God's favor. Seems like He speaks of ALL my people.....and Jesus spoke of there being many mansions in my fathers house.....
Questions are NOT a mark of being unfaithful, unless they turn to the very existence of a higher power that controls the entire universe...as we know it....and far, far, far beyond that. One need only look at Hubble and nano views.....and there can be no doubt.
But......that is just my mustard seed view...
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