When Man created God

by Antonio J. Fernández de Oliveira - antjfer

It doesn’t make any sense denying there exists an intelligence, precise, synchronic, coherent and perfect in our Universe. That, among many other things, for me, is God.

I was raised in a catholic home, thanks to Roman Emperor Constantine I, The Great, who adopted catholic religion for his Empire and imposed it to the rest of Europe. The Celtic tribes in Western Europe (with some exception), and the Germanic barbarian tribes, had to change The Earth Goddess or The Mountain Goddess or even The Lighting God, etc… by one single God, Jehovah. Additionally by the son of God, Jesus, from Nazareth, better known as The Christ, The Messiah; by the apostles, saint men by definition; by the saints (called in that way because of their virtues in human life). There exists a character, The Holy Spirit, if you ask something about it, no one knows much, however, Holy Spirit has been the material author of some “God’s misdeeds”, as the pregnancy of Maria when she was married to Jose. The catholic religion, as other religions, has wonderful people, thus considered because of their personal quality and strength of spirit, people whose existence is or was full of dignity and virtues. However, there are other characters, as the Popes, Cardinals and Bishops; political beings, cynical men trying to convince us about some “mysteries” they know in advance are not true… They’ll say “Everything is done for the good of the church” … I’m not against or for any religion; at the end they are all necessary to trigger the spiritual processes of all human beings.

The first western reference we found from God was written about three thousand years ago and it is found in The Old Testament of The Bible. In The Bible, it is said God created our World in seven days, the book speaks about Adam and Eve, speaks about some sins, there are two male sons from Adam and Eve (Cain and Abel), nobody knows how but there were more descendants… then, we reached the time of Noah. There was a destruction of all that existed above the earth ground, except Noah, his family and some chosen animals. The Bible speaks of more descendants, etc... And I wonder: Why God took seven days to create our World, why not ten or even five or whatever they were? In my opinion at that time seven had become a Kabalistic number in Jewish culture (corresponding, approximately, the amount of days every sidereal phase of Moon lasts turning around Earth). I have tried to find any other answer without success yet. As I cannot justify, even when I can understand, why in a year calendar we have twelve instead of thirteen months (where every month has twenty eight days, with one or two exceptions to complete 365 or 366 days). Thirteen has been a cursed and forbidden number, why?

It is said that probably Maria Magdalena was one of the Jesus Christ Apostles, but obviously, they had to be twelve (possibly Maria Magdalena had a power struggle with Peter and instead of being recognized as an apostle or even Jesus’ couple, she was posted as a prostitute in the New Testament). The Gospels comprising The New Testament were written by people who existed after Jesus existence (I have read periods ranging from 80 to 150 A.D., very probably those people who wrote Gospels never knew Jesus Christ or even Maria Magdalena). Why all theses inconsistencies and kabalistic numbers? Answers are not easily found in The Bible (which is a wonderful and inspiring book) but all the unquestionable influence we have received as God’s words in Christian, Islamic and Jewish religions; seems more belonging to a particular reality of Jewish culture than a global God’s manifestation. If we read the whole Bible, seriously, we will find such an amount of inconsistencies, accepted sins, etc… unbelievable (Sins were accepted and documented in The Bible; from some point in time and on they were forbidden).

The Lord hasn’t been willing to talk to us in the past centuries, two millenniums perhaps? In the case of Catholics God has sent Virgin Maria. In the case of Jews, since God talked to Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc… several Jewish patriarchal, including Jesus, he has never talked to them again (or I wasn’t learned). No one has seen God physically but he is described as a good man, a benevolent father. Even when God created all in our Universe, he created a powerful being, The Demon. This character created by God faces him as a peer, and I wonder again: what was the purpose of creating a being to fight against him, a being whose purpose is spreading evil in the world? Additionally, God created man, but man has all the responsibilities of what happens in our planet, God is never blamed by any creation error… These are part of the things religions have been trying to make us believe…

Inconsistencies without end…

God’s description in “holy writings” has human details, but God can’t be a human like, if God were human he would be imperfect and his imperfection would have created some massive disasters in our Universe. Finally, we are assuming God has sex and is a man…

From where comes that description of God? In my opinion, comes from the creativity of human mind. Why God was presented in such a way in the “holy writings”? I think it was done by convenience of the leaders at that time, let’s consider that even when the people who wrote the Gospels were smart and wise by the time they wrote them, it would never be the same to say Gospels were written by a such Joseph than saying Gospels were written exactly based on God’s word and will. Additionally, the collective intelligence of Jewish people, at the time Old Testament Gospels were written, was very poor, people were not smart on average and their behavior were instinctive and basic; the way rulers found to control Jewish people was implanting fear to God, punishment was the answer the means were very cruel. Religious leaders were God on Earth… (Well, some of them still think they are). How much cynicism and perversity… For a long time there were religious leaders who controlled people’s fate, it still happens, in some way, but it is weakening. In the Medieval Europe, a king was not considered as such, without Pope’s blessing (obviously, decision was political and negotiated, with a price in gold and accepting full obedience of the people from that kingdom to the catholic church of Rome). Catholics were very persuasive spreading religion and faith in Europe, or you were catholic or you were heretic. The fire would purify the heretic soul of any human being smart and challenging. The excesses committed along the time were brutal and genocide. The way Catholic Church handled the “Truth” opened space to creation of secret societies and several other religions based on Christianity.

The intelligence of the true God (the one who created our Universe) it is clearly visible; our planet is just a small example of this. This Bubble of Carbon has all the ideal elements for human life to be developed (as we know it). The distance from Sun to Earth is perfect. The gravity force is perfect to keep planets turning around our Sun in a steady and balanced way. This spaceship has mechanisms to protect us before extraterrestrial threats, provides raw materials and food to support our existence and evolution, etc... With this and so many other evidences, I must say all the things we see around us were made by a perfect intelligence.

Carl Sagan wrote a statement that I liked a lot. It says something like this: “The Astronomy and The Archeology have been releasing responsibilities from God”. This is a statement that I consider a hundred percent true. Any new major discovery in both areas unveils realities that impact severely some stated truths. Let’s consider this, in our Universe there exists around a thousand million galaxies like The Milky Way, each one of them have a thousand million Suns as the one we have (feel free of estimating the amount of planets and moons there might be in our Universe), in any case the number of planets will be over ten to the power of twenty (1020), a huge number. If God had lasted one terrestrial second creating every celestial entity in our Universe, the poor God would have taken not less than thirty billion terrestrial years to create our Universe. It seems than seven days of creation only considered The Sun, The Earth, The Moon and some far away stars (decorative in the sky), give me a break!… Scientist around the world support the theory our expanding Universe was created in a “Big Bang”, hard to believe, if that is true there is still so much to learn and many cultural notions, paradigms, we have to change.

One aspect regarding human living, from a more philosophical point of view, is the unexpected events we experience at some point in our life. These events are “apparently” random events; afterwards we assimilate they are not. These sorts of situations are increasingly calling our attention, leading us to think life is not what we were taught; challenging our beliefs and our culture. This makes me think there must be some sort of Universal Rules (not massively known or informed properly), rules that once inadvertedly broken will make us pay some sort of price. Human life is based on Love; Hate and Rage impact our emotions and severely damage our existence. Some authors have posted Universal Rules, by the way, some say they are twelve, some others say they are seven. Regardless how many they are, Universal Rules exist, are real and deserve to be analyzed. So far, we have discovered that everything materially created is not eternal: our lives, our planet, our solar system, the Milky Way and probably our Universe; some day in the future will disappear. We have been discovering the power of our minds and long distance communications based on thinking. A thought has energy and there is energy in matter creation, will we be eternal in the form of energy? Who knows? What seems to be true is Carbon entities later or sooner will disappear.

The God, the one who created everything in our Universe, that perfect intelligence, which is not benevolent neither evil, whose Universal Laws are becoming clearer day by day, compared with the God described in the “holy writings” seem not to be the same, even when both are magnanimous. On one hand, the first is impersonal and abstract, “cannot be described”, as Lao Tze said in the “Tao Te Ching”, “The TAO that can be described is not the perfect TAO”. On the other hand, the second is more human and paternal. I my opinion, several thousand years ago when Jewish people had evolved enough to start having serious social problems, was the time when man created God.

It is the God created by man to whom the majority of people pray, he is the one revered when people raise their eyes and arms to the sky giving thanks, asking for a favor or blaming him for something unexplained and painful that happened in their lives. In the case of the Catholic Church, he is the one that allows top authorities of the Church of Rome, to live in richness when there are so many of their followers dying from hunger. He is the one that appears as doing nothing for the happiness of the human beings he created, however, he is always forgiven with an excuse of faith that cannot be argued. That God is not perfect, like all of us, he was created by man several thousand years ago to control Jewish people. However, the convenient notion of God created by man avoids the sensation of emptiness people might feel. I consider “holy writings” were more Jewish culture specific than global human reality. The human concept of God it is so internalized in western culture that more than one reader of this article might think I could be crazy for challenging God’s notion, even when reality is before his or her eyes.

The Universal God, the perfect God, the supreme intelligence, does not intervene so much in human being lives and their daily processes. We are the ones who govern our actions and we are responsible for the majority of events that happen in our planet. However, I feel we are part of a more complex puzzle where keeping human life surveillance is the main goal, what happens in between is part of the evolutionary path of humanity. I do believe we all, as everything that exists, are part of God. Our capacity of being intelligent is remarkable and that make us closer to the true God. We all are in a global process of evolution, we, the human beings, as a global living organism have the mission of preserving life, we have to live and survive. We, based on knowledge development, which in turn must be based on the real true, will go through our Universe consuming resources and conquering new places where to live, as our descendants at some point in time will have to leave our planet.

At the end I truly feel and believe we are spiritual beings. It is not an individual or a group of individuals what is important, is the whole; an individual is just a cell inside a major organism. In the near future there will not be any controlling belief that will stop this evolutionary process. I could say dinosaurs existed to support our current development; they disappeared because we had to exist and all happened at the right time. That “supposedly” asteroid that hit Yucatan and killed dinosaurs and changed our planet’s conditions didn’t arrive by chance. 

We have to have the commitment of making our cultures evolve. We have to fight against historical paradigms finding the truth. I don’t believe in apocalyptical messages hidden in The Bible or whatever a desperate mind trying to convince us, regarding human beings destroying themselves. The Bible in The New Testament talked to a particular situation of Jewish people trying to survive from Roman Empire atrocities. May be Jesus when sacrificed his life did it for the Jewish people but not for the rest of the humanity, as has been said. By the time he existed, there were people that existed in many other places in the world he never knew.

I understand Christian religions represent thirty percent (30%) of world population (being Catholics about fifteen percent). What happen with the rest of the world, comprising more 6.7 billion human beings, it means about 4.6 billion people, aren’t they sons of God? All these people have a different culture and therefore different beliefs, as religion and culture are connected. Religions represent different flavors for different cultures and different ways of thinking. In my case I declare myself to be an agnostic but a God believer, I believe in a perfect intelligence which we all are part of it.

Finally, when man created God he never imagined the major impact this might have along subsequent generations. No matter on what you believe or which is your religion, praying is fundamental and prayer has not religion, wishing with heart without expecting anything back. It doesn’t matter if you have or not an icon that inspires you to pray, what is important is to trigger the elements that allow you to have a better life. Behind virtues are peace and happiness. As Lao Tze said, Universe is mental.