Divine Humility

Why is this important?

Our idea of God largely determines how we teach morality. It is also a reflection of how we behave or justify our behavior.

Even Brights need to have a conception of who God is - even if they chose not to believe in a god for themselves. Without an idea of what God should be, it is impossible to discuss the matter with religionists and offer a better alternative for them.

What are the options?

I cover this in a prior post on Aesthetic Morality

God started with ancestor worship and animism (for the hunt). Ancestor worship probably started with mediums. Do psychic abilities exist or are seers fooling themselves and others?

City-states had their own gods, some of whom were their human rulers. Pagan gods were created for the natural world and to reflect aspects of human personality. With the rise of nations came national gods. Religion thus became a vehicle for enforcing social order. Prophesy became the voice of social justice, often when at odds with governments. 

The studies of theology and philosophy (including Buddhism) began to examine the meaning of life and the role of God within it. Prophesy is a form of this work - which comments on the social issues of the age more than augury of the future. 

With the One God came wars on orthodoxy within and between the Christian and Muslim empires. Theology and philosophy are thus co-opted by authorities rather than seeking wisdom and truth.

Linking gods and God to cities, nations and empires determined how God was seen and what was moral. This god was triumphant, as were its priests and imams. Scripture and doctrine became authoritative. God became a Divine Authoritarian. Disagreement was heresy and sin was a crime. Wealth and power were seen as a mark of divine favor. 

Progressive theology and atheism took over the mantle of social justice. Even now, a social justice Roman Pontiff is seen as subversive. There is the dichotomy of faith and "The Faith" with the latter being about group dynamics rather than trust in God.

The concept of a personal God or a higher power has begun to evolve. Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery fellowships have led the way in the modern world, with spiritual but not religious becoming a term of art.

God as theodicy or meme study how the discussion on God has evolved, rather than discussing God itself. It is a valid approach to the question of God (and whether God is Dead), and gets us back to the drawing board of how God is used and what God should or should not be.

Can God be saved from religion (can religion be saved)?

Brights are correct when they say that religion - at least as it is now used - is counter-evolutionary. Our lethal toys are simply too strong to keep fighting about God. Nor should we fight about God. We certainly should not kill God's children in doing so. 

For God to exist, She needs to be rescued from Tribalism (and tribalists hate when we call Her a She - although the concept of the Holy Spirit is obviously derived from Shekinah, which is the Jewish divine feminine that includes how God animates the soul.

The Persons of God in Christianity and the names of God in Judaism and Islam are essentially two sides of the same coin. Both are about how we relate to God relating to us. The actual nature of God cannot be actually known in our actual world. Any God that is big enough to fit in the world is not big enough to be God.

When we start messing with God, some people start worrying about whether they will go to Hell for even considering the topic. The reality is that we made up what we believe about God. Orthodoxy is about one COMMON truth. It is what Christians agree to believe in, not about what is so. Does this mean that the Brights are correct? That because we made up what we believe about God, that God cannot be real? Not really. Too many people have had too many spiritual, religious experiences - that feeling of grace - for there to be nothing there.

It is important to distinguish what was made up and what could be real.

We made up Hell. It is the place we send our enemies. We made up evil too. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a story. Original sin is not a curse passed down through female sexuallity because of an act of disobedience. It is about the ultimate human conceit - the desire to see others as evil. The message of Jesus was forgiveness, not justice. Forgiveness is surrendering the right to call another person intrinsically evil.  Only God can judge them - and God may not even do that.

Let's look at the word "Justice." It is not accident that among its uses is justification - which is essentially providing proof and certainty - as in justification for a rental car when on government travel. We try to justify our actions and privileges - especially the sketchy ones. 

Throughout the history of Judah and Israel, it was the failure of charity that invited divine ire - or that is how the prophetic writers like Amos saw it. The more profound truth is that if you sit at the crossroads of the known world, expect to be invaded. Amos was right, however, in seeing evil as our sins of omission rather than commission.  

The sins of commission - the abominations of Leviticus (as Mary Douglass describes them) are a way to distinguish one's own culture from another. We are back to national and group identity. What we condemn serves as a group boundary. The question for human survival is whether we can still afford such boundaries. 

Most such boundary wars go both ways. Churches damning Brights and Brights making fun of the mental capacity of the faithful are two sides of the same border.  The same is true of the mutual scorn between the Queer community and feminists who condemn those asexual priests who find sexuality less than holy. Being on either side of such shouting matches is not good for peace of soul. When outing asexual clerics to themselves, we must use love and charity to do so. They are not responsible for not knowing what they don't know - but not even looking is another matter.

So, let's just say that Justice is out as an attribute of God. Replace justice with acceptance, which is the same thing as Love - a known divine attribute. Charity is the grace from God to Love others - especially "The Other."

What is the essential attribute any God must have?

God must be source. In other words, it does not depend on anything outside itself for its existence. In other words, God does not need to be believed in to exist. 

Humility is accepting yourself the way you are and the way you are not. God does that. God IS that. Humility is acceptance is love is grace is gratitude. Being humble, by the way, is not a hoop we have to jump through to get to Heaven. There are no hoops. Humility is the quality by which we are able to take care of others. It is feeding steak to the homeless - not day old bread.

A humble God does not require us to believe in Her to be saved. Salvation is the way out of the pains of the day, not some future Hell. We have created Hell all by ourselves. A God that needs our belief cannot be God. To thinks otherwise is pride - both individual and group pride. This does not come from God.

The Crucifixion was not about humiliating Jesus in the eyes of the Father as a way to justify our entry into Heaven. It was the entire Godhead identifying with the brokenness of humanity. To identify is compassion - but it is a learn by doing phenomenon. God could not just see it - She had to do it. The passion of the Christ makes no sense any other way. I say more about this here. 

Implications

Belief in accepting God, a humble God, Jesus on a vision quest, whose yoke is easy and his burden light, demands a humanistic morality.

This is where Brights and Christian Leftists find common ground. Brights need to argue with religious conservatives by discussing the logic of who God must be for that God to be worthy of belief. Rejectionism vacates the playing field. It forfeits the game. Religionists must be confronted on their own terms.

What does a humanistic morality look like? It must be based on both charity, forgiveness and simply being a good human. There are things that are wrong because they hurt one's self or others. Murdering or abetting murder leads to being murdered or having loved ones killed.  

Self preservation is a starting point. The preservation of all is the ideal. To evolve requires we be well and whole - or look at evolution as beyond a physical thing. It also means a good space budget. The cosmos is a dangerous place - so it is better to get people into it rather than spending the same money on weapons to fight what are essentially religious wars (and wars on religion are still religious wars).

Common belief in a humble God gets us there. Not much else can.