Who is this God person anyway?

***DISCLAIMER: If you are incredibly sensitive about religion, God, or matters of faith then the following may or may not offend you. Everyone has the right to believe what they choose and this is just one small part of what I believe about God (as I understand Him).***

So many different opinions exist regarding God. It is a matter of fact that the vastly diverse systems of religious belief in the wide variety of deities worshipped around the world throughout human history has been the single source of disagreements that have resulted in more and bloodier wars than anything else in our society. No mere economic or political conflict can hold a candle to the horrific chaos that results from dogmatic differences when it comes to religious beliefs.

There is an interesting quote that I would like to use as a basis for the diatribe to come. It comes from the song entitled Dear God by Sarah McLachlan and is as follows... "Did you (referring to God) make mankind, after we made you... and the devil, too?"

Before anyone gets their feathers too ruffled, I should explain something very simple. I have no problem with God or a belief in Him. I personally believe and feel that I have a close connection to this supremely spiritual being. There is, however, and important distinction that should be made. God (as you choose to understand Him) is an integral part in every religious belief, but religion is NOT necessary to maintain faith in God. Something that we all tend to forget is that, just as the various civilizations rise in power, prosper for a time, and then crumble into ashes only to be replaced by new social groupings, the various religions of the world, throughout history, do the exact same thing. It is the nature of anything that is created by man that it must only be temporary.

You are now probably just burning with fury at the insinuation that religion was created by man and, therefore, can not be an agent of God. Think on this for a moment - just a few thousand years ago (not terribly long in the grand scheme of history), the known world was ruled by the ancient empires of Rome and, before that, Egypt. In other parts of the world, the dominant cultures were those of the Native Americans (the Maya, Incas, and Aztecs to name a few) and before any of these were ever even thought of the ancient Sumerians and other groups had control. The thing that is most pertinent about the rise and fall of all of these prominent cultures (and the others like them) is that, long before any of our modern beliefs in God (or any derivation thereof) were even conceived of (let alone preached from pulpits to the sheeplike masses) these cultures retained their VERY OWN systems of belief that were all unique and were all entirely unlike the major belief systems as ascribed to today. That means that the religious dogmas of today must have been created long after the creation of man.

There is a point to the history lesson above and that is this - if God made religion then why are all religions NOT the same and why do the "right" religions of our time (for every culture that believes also believes that IT is the only one that has it right) not date back to the beginning of human history? One would infer that, if God had created religion for us, He would have created it when He created us, yet this is not the case.

We can, therefore, deduce that organized religion, in all of its various forms throughout human history, is a product of the minds of men. Furthermore (and here is the kicker) one might draw the conclusion that, as all organized religions are man-made belief systems centering on a variety of different and unique deities (yes there are still some polytheistic cultures in the world) then the particular deities at the center of each individual dogma must also be creations of mankind.

This is not to say that God does not exist. I am actually quite certain that God (of my understanding, for I think that everyone has their own unique relationship with the higher power, spiritual creator, or whatever one might choose to call the supreme being) does, in actual fact, exist. I am also quite convinced that He is NOTHING like what we have made him to be. Man, after all, has the tendency to use organizations and groups as a means of controlling other men. This is simple fact. That is why, therefore, all religions, and indeed all of the different gods (I will no longer capitalize when referring to man-made gods), reflect the characteristics that the leading groups of people responsible for their creations chose for them to reflect. That is the reason that all of the many different gods are simply so very different!

Now that I am quite certain that I have offended all of the religious believers in the world, I might as well go ahead and finish the job with a final declaration: though some of the ideas of the many different belief systems are inherently good, for the most part the creators and leaders of the religions of man are LYING TO YOU! The lies are descendents of those perpetrated generations ago in order to make groups of people succumb to the will of those either in power or who wished to be in power. Religion, as made by man, is a FRAUD!

For those of you who are faithful (I use this term to refer to the very small number of people who have faith in something more without following a man-made dogma like cattle) I hold out hope. I know that, as non-traditional believers who do not subscribe to any religion in particular, we are, therefore the most persecuted of all. We are often called atheists, though that is a different group entirely. As agnostics (those who believe in a higher power but feel that organized religion is unnecessary) we are condemned and slandered by ALL of the other, more powerful groups (including, as it were, the atheists)! There is a shining light at the end of the tunnel though for those of us who are faithful and choose to persevere, knowing that there is something more to believe in than that which was just conceived by the powerful upper echilon. Like all of the other dogmatic beliefs in human history, even those that are currently in power will, eventually, either evolve and change with the times or one day fade away into the dim light of history. Luckily for us, we will still have the God of our understanding even as all of those organized beliefs preached from the various pulpits of the world wither away.