God
God has played many roles since his inception. He's been a rule maker (Leviticus), an instigator of war (Joshua), a revolutionary (Ezra), a hope for the future (Daniel), and an influence and guideline on how someone should live in society and under foreign rule (New Testament).
However, I think it's most important to know where the idea of God was first inspired.
It seems to me that God is an embodiment of nature.
"In the beginning God created (was) the heavens and the earth."
Take a look at the first book of the Bible and maybe it'll jump out at you as well. Adam and Eve are living in a lush environment. Everything they could ask for is virtually an arm's length away. But then they get greedy and force (eat) themselves out of house and home. This can be taken literally, or it can be taken that people who were once hunters-and-gatherers are now forced to live beyond that lifestyle and becoming more sedentary with the new generation (Cain and Able) eking out a living through the advent of agriculture and pastoralism. But after a stroke of bad luck (the killing of one's brother) drought comes and makes difficulties in providing for one's self and family.
So God once provided, but then progressively makes life harder with a changing environment coincidentally at the fault of human err.
Again this is shown in the story of Noah, where God steps up once more to throw around his nature-based weight. This is actually what brought me to this topic. Reading in my latest book, The Winds of Change, the author points out a possible site of this recorded flood. 5200 BP (3200 BC) due to the planet's alignment, the earth saw very warm winters. These were enough to raise sea level (including water levels in the Mediterranean) to the point of breeching what was the small isthmus of Bosphorus in Turkey near modern-day Istanbul. Prior to 5200 BP, the Black Sea was 500 feet lower than sea level, but after this breech, waters 200 times as powerful as Niagra were gushing into the Black Sea at a rate of 6 inches a day.
This, of course, would ruin anybody's pastures and farmland with that 500-foot increment. Now that is a disaster worth remembering, and was, through the travails of Noah and also Gilgamesh.
These being the early Genesis stories show that nature was once the ultimate deciding factor in the way people once lived and the writers of the book personified nature through the advent of a supreme overlord, which in effect, nature is actually one of the few things that people as a whole must fear and respect. Later on as societies were becoming more complicated and populated, issues arose where cultures began warring over who could best occupy the land.
Then by the time of Roman rule, somebody decided to step up and create of forum for how to interact peacefully with your bretheren. Go Jesus!
It's not like a guideline for human interaction hasn'tsprung up elsewhere in the world, but considering it's the most affluent form of manipulation in my homeland, you have to give him props.
Which confuses the hell out of me. The cradle of this religion lies right in the heart of region where all our current strife seems to reside. Many fundamental Christians despise the people of Mesopotamia but celebrate their ancestors. Maybe it's just so difficult because half of the world's powerhouses of religion were spawned in this small valley. Maybe if agriculture didn't have such a profound effect on giving power to those people who possessed it, other religions might not have gone to the wayside.
In any case, if God was primarily conceptualized as nature, maybe that's who he really is, meaning that nature should be feared and respected. As one of the major conclusions in the book that started this line of thinking, there is a point made that even though we have figured out some of the oscillation patterns of the earth orbit, rotation, and revolution, there are still major holes in our understanding of how climate works and is effected. Ocean currents, is one, and is now thought to be a considerable player in the transferring of heat throughout the continents. If glacial deposits decrease, making fresh water over abundant in the eyes of the ocean currents, then the ocean currents will quit acting as conveyors of heat. This is big when you consider that they move up to 25% of the heat brought to given continents.
I'm getting nowhere with a non-existant point, so I guess I'll try to make one here:
Our time of living in relatively comfortable temperatures was always on some sort of time frame, but we don't have to shorten its lifespan with an ever-increasing population and eventually very harmful carbon dioxide and methane emissions.
(That wasn't really a point, that was just a pathetic attempt at a threat with no offered solutions.
It's far too complicated for me to even want to approach.)
However, I think it's most important to know where the idea of God was first inspired.
It seems to me that God is an embodiment of nature.
"In the beginning God created (was) the heavens and the earth."
Take a look at the first book of the Bible and maybe it'll jump out at you as well. Adam and Eve are living in a lush environment. Everything they could ask for is virtually an arm's length away. But then they get greedy and force (eat) themselves out of house and home. This can be taken literally, or it can be taken that people who were once hunters-and-gatherers are now forced to live beyond that lifestyle and becoming more sedentary with the new generation (Cain and Able) eking out a living through the advent of agriculture and pastoralism. But after a stroke of bad luck (the killing of one's brother) drought comes and makes difficulties in providing for one's self and family.
So God once provided, but then progressively makes life harder with a changing environment coincidentally at the fault of human err.
Again this is shown in the story of Noah, where God steps up once more to throw around his nature-based weight. This is actually what brought me to this topic. Reading in my latest book, The Winds of Change, the author points out a possible site of this recorded flood. 5200 BP (3200 BC) due to the planet's alignment, the earth saw very warm winters. These were enough to raise sea level (including water levels in the Mediterranean) to the point of breeching what was the small isthmus of Bosphorus in Turkey near modern-day Istanbul. Prior to 5200 BP, the Black Sea was 500 feet lower than sea level, but after this breech, waters 200 times as powerful as Niagra were gushing into the Black Sea at a rate of 6 inches a day.
This, of course, would ruin anybody's pastures and farmland with that 500-foot increment. Now that is a disaster worth remembering, and was, through the travails of Noah and also Gilgamesh.
These being the early Genesis stories show that nature was once the ultimate deciding factor in the way people once lived and the writers of the book personified nature through the advent of a supreme overlord, which in effect, nature is actually one of the few things that people as a whole must fear and respect. Later on as societies were becoming more complicated and populated, issues arose where cultures began warring over who could best occupy the land.
Then by the time of Roman rule, somebody decided to step up and create of forum for how to interact peacefully with your bretheren. Go Jesus!
It's not like a guideline for human interaction hasn'tsprung up elsewhere in the world, but considering it's the most affluent form of manipulation in my homeland, you have to give him props.
Which confuses the hell out of me. The cradle of this religion lies right in the heart of region where all our current strife seems to reside. Many fundamental Christians despise the people of Mesopotamia but celebrate their ancestors. Maybe it's just so difficult because half of the world's powerhouses of religion were spawned in this small valley. Maybe if agriculture didn't have such a profound effect on giving power to those people who possessed it, other religions might not have gone to the wayside.
In any case, if God was primarily conceptualized as nature, maybe that's who he really is, meaning that nature should be feared and respected. As one of the major conclusions in the book that started this line of thinking, there is a point made that even though we have figured out some of the oscillation patterns of the earth orbit, rotation, and revolution, there are still major holes in our understanding of how climate works and is effected. Ocean currents, is one, and is now thought to be a considerable player in the transferring of heat throughout the continents. If glacial deposits decrease, making fresh water over abundant in the eyes of the ocean currents, then the ocean currents will quit acting as conveyors of heat. This is big when you consider that they move up to 25% of the heat brought to given continents.
I'm getting nowhere with a non-existant point, so I guess I'll try to make one here:
Our time of living in relatively comfortable temperatures was always on some sort of time frame, but we don't have to shorten its lifespan with an ever-increasing population and eventually very harmful carbon dioxide and methane emissions.
(That wasn't really a point, that was just a pathetic attempt at a threat with no offered solutions.
It's far too complicated for me to even want to approach.)
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