Whose God Is It Anyway?
Okay,
I am a donating member of Americans United which is an organization made up of folks from all over the country who believe in the founding principle that religion should play absolutely no role in government/politics and vice versa.
So, I got my quarterly newsletter and I peruse it to read what crazy things the religious (not so) right are doing to blur that line that the Founders (whom they seem to put so much, pardon the word, faith in) thought was necessary to the preservation of this foundling nation.
And then I came across this:
http://www.au.org/media/church-and-state/archives/2009/10/mich-school-board-member.html
Now, my question for this man is this:
Why do you assume that the "God" that is mentioned in the phrase "In God We Trust," is your god alone? Could it not be a generic statement for anyone who believes in a god? Why do you assume that this god is not the god of Abraham or of (gasp!) Muhammad? (History teaches us that Yahweh, Jehovah, and Allah are all the same god, but history, especially religious history, remains one of those "inconvenient truths" we hear about.)
What if a person's god has no form, warrants no sacrifice, denounces all praise as human (i.e., imperfect) flattery, and just exists to make sure the cosmic balance remains? What if a person's god rides about on golden wings made of the fires of the sun and causes earthquakes and tsunamis because people like this wingnut blaspheme in his "name?"
And, by the way, "god" is not a name. "God" is a job description.
Athena is a god.
Zeus is a god.
Buddha is not a god.
Jesus is the offspring of a god and a mortal woman. Just like Perseus and Heracles.
But not Achilles. He was the offspring of a goddess and a mortal man.
Just so you know it goes both ways.
Allah is just the Arabic word for "god."
Angels are not gods.
Demons are not gods.
Whatever Satan/Lucifer was, is not a god.
Alanis Morrisette and Morgan Freeman have both played "god." Though, I enjoyed Alanis' a bit more, mainly because it blasted the stereotype to pieces. Yeah, I know, Freeman is black but he's still a dude.
I like god in the feminine.
Like Artemis and Demeter.
Kali.
Her Supreme Regent Isis, Mother of All.
And my beloved Bast Et.
I think of them when I see "In God We Trust."
Because I do.
I am a donating member of Americans United which is an organization made up of folks from all over the country who believe in the founding principle that religion should play absolutely no role in government/politics and vice versa.
So, I got my quarterly newsletter and I peruse it to read what crazy things the religious (not so) right are doing to blur that line that the Founders (whom they seem to put so much, pardon the word, faith in) thought was necessary to the preservation of this foundling nation.
And then I came across this:
http://www.au.org/media/church-and-state/archives/2009/10/mich-school-board-member.html
Now, my question for this man is this:
Why do you assume that the "God" that is mentioned in the phrase "In God We Trust," is your god alone? Could it not be a generic statement for anyone who believes in a god? Why do you assume that this god is not the god of Abraham or of (gasp!) Muhammad? (History teaches us that Yahweh, Jehovah, and Allah are all the same god, but history, especially religious history, remains one of those "inconvenient truths" we hear about.)
What if a person's god has no form, warrants no sacrifice, denounces all praise as human (i.e., imperfect) flattery, and just exists to make sure the cosmic balance remains? What if a person's god rides about on golden wings made of the fires of the sun and causes earthquakes and tsunamis because people like this wingnut blaspheme in his "name?"
And, by the way, "god" is not a name. "God" is a job description.
Athena is a god.
Zeus is a god.
Buddha is not a god.
Jesus is the offspring of a god and a mortal woman. Just like Perseus and Heracles.
But not Achilles. He was the offspring of a goddess and a mortal man.
Just so you know it goes both ways.
Allah is just the Arabic word for "god."
Angels are not gods.
Demons are not gods.
Whatever Satan/Lucifer was, is not a god.
Alanis Morrisette and Morgan Freeman have both played "god." Though, I enjoyed Alanis' a bit more, mainly because it blasted the stereotype to pieces. Yeah, I know, Freeman is black but he's still a dude.
I like god in the feminine.
Like Artemis and Demeter.
Kali.
Her Supreme Regent Isis, Mother of All.
And my beloved Bast Et.
I think of them when I see "In God We Trust."
Because I do.
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