Address 20th May 2007
I have been reading reviews of Don Cupitt's latest book, ‘The Old Creed and the New’ in which he is discussing what he sees at the end of organised religion - in Western Europe at least because people have lost faith in the teaching and traditions of religion.
He offers instead a new creed - in fact a new religion - based not on following a God or any sacred book but based on personal experience. On letting go of everything and absorbing your own life in life itself - in the capital ‘L’ life that flows as an energy through the world and the universe. Religion is ‘letting go’, laughing at anxiety and floating free.
Many Unitarians would agree with this and it points us in a humanist direction - but is it enough? Is that where we are really going?
One of the challenges for all religions is to describe their God. God has always been invisible. The Hindu religion use paintings and statues but they only show aspects - qualities of their gods. They are created from the interpretation of belief - the interpretation of experience, the interpretation of sacred books and stories which have been written by human hands - albeit inspired human hands - or stories that come from human imagination.
In our Christian tradition God is always invisible. But now, is God invisible - or non existent? In to-days world - our western world, many have opted for the non existent. Why ? because what the church had taught about the God they could not see, no longer seems plausible today.
Looking through the Old Testament - what we now call the Hebrew Bible, I notice that the humans in all the stories - (with the one exception of Joseph) are all flawed characters. From the very beginning Adam disobeyed his God and eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Abraham disobeyed, Jacob disobeyed, so did Moses, so did David, so did all the judges (Samson, Samuel), so did all the prophets, so did all the kings.
The perfection of God is portrayed incontrast to human weakness and failure. The invisible God punishes their wrong doings, forgives them occasionally and always reminds them of the covenant made with them.
Christianity took an opposite view. Good Christians were made more perfect, more godlike than the rest of humanity. Jesus was portrayed as the most perfect person ever to have walked on the earth. He is closest the image of God, in fact became the same as God He is followed by a succession of perfect saints and holy men and women. St Francis, Saint Cecilia, Mother Theresa etc. Even today the Pope travels around the world changing the lives of dead ordinary people into sainthood. ‘Conversion’ is a transition from imperfect to perfect.
To understand God, then look at the people who are said to have been nearest to God by the way they have lived their lives.
But God remains invisible. Which gives us the better understanding of God? - the human weakness route of the Hebrew Bible or the saintly road of the Christian church?
In the Judaic tradition,, the only way of preventing human failure was to abide by the very complicated rules of life -- about eating, dressing, washing, religious ritual. Do everything exactly as it was laid down by the law of Moses and you would not upset the invisible God.
In the mystical Cabalistic writings these rituals were seen as a spiritual bridge to God. they were the roots of the tree of life. Break the rituals and the link between humankind and God would begin to fade and eventually break off - and humankind would be left on their own.
Christianity used church legislation to keep people within the love of God. They devised the most horrific tortures and punishments, including burning alive, as a means of keeping people in their place because, they said, God demanded perfection.
But it was the Church’s God - the Christian God created upon the perceived perfect body and mind of Jesus. No one had ever seen Jesus who wrote about him - there is no historical evidence for his existence - yet he is the figure of perfection - as Joseph was the figure of perfection that never fitted into the Old Testament. Joseph was the vehicle for showing the weaknesses of the people around him.
It is the organised religion - the old practice of following the Christian God that is fading away. If that goes, what is left? An invisible God or a non existent God?
The choice is ours. If there is no God, what shall we do? All that is left is ourselves - each one of us.
We don’t know if the animals in the fields, the birds in the air of the bees in the flowers ever wonder what life is all about - but we do.
We do want to know why. Why are we here? What is the point of it all? Why do we suffer? Why do know pain and unhappiness? Does our life have a plan or not - or is it all about nothing?
I peeped into one of the books Marijke was reading. It was called ‘How to beat the blues’ .
It makes the assumption rather as Don Cupitt has done that the way to live happily is to be in tune with life itself. Steve Wharton who wrote ‘How to beat the blues’, points out that everything in the world, even solid objects are actually made up of moving particles, atoms and electrons. We are too. That really, because of our vibrating frequencies, we are all like so many radio stations sending out our vibrating signals at different frequencies.
The strength of the frequency reflects our state of well being. The higher the frequency, the happier you are - the more joyful, the more connected with the frequency of the whole expanding creative universe.
We get the blues because our frequency falls, then our energy level collapses, we become depressed, we lose self esteem, we feel so far from being saintly and what is worse we only become comfortable with people and places which also have a low frequency.
When I have finished the book, I will learn how people can lift their life frequencies to a higher pitch - how they can overcome inherent desires to live at a lower frequency and then, by default, get so little pleasure from their lives.
I keep coming back to the thought about the existence of God - invisible or non existent. Religion is losing its place in the modern world and criticised when we see it treating its followers with contempt - treating the rest of the wold with contempt, binding people to a life of low frequencies. What does that prove about the existence of God?
I believe there is a human need to seek to know. Life with a non existent God somehow takes a vital ingredient out of our lives - and that ingredient is hope.
In he Unitarian magazine Faith and Freedom, there are two articles about Don Cupitt’s book. Adrian Worsfield, in his article points out that we cannot live simply for ourselves - life is about the exchange of gifts between people - that is why we live in community - we have gifts to offer we have need of other people’s gifts.
The gift of the invisible God is hope. The gift of the non existent God is nothing.
So it is our challenge - if god is non existent, then lift up your lives for your own good. If there is an invisible God, then lift up your lives for your own good and tune into whatever frequency that makes the invisible God real.
We have words like sacred and holy, beauty, truth, love, charity, peace and there are places where those words become real and you can feel the frequency they radiate to you. There are times when you can feel yourself in total harmony with them.
That maybe is when we come close to feeling the presence of the invisible God. Where do we find them? Only by looking, only by going, only by becoming part of what they speak to us.
Cathedrals, churches, temples, holy books, holy places, open spaces, smiling faces. Ancient rituals, moving experiences.
One thing is sure. No one can tell us. They can only show the way trough their own experience.
God will always be invisible - but existent or non existent - only we know the answer to that.
Amen
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