The Mind of God

There are many people and institutions who claim to have an insight into the mind of God. The established religions like The Roman Catholic Church and varying Christian denominations all the way to the individuals like the TV Evangelists and the nut preaching on the street corner. Of course we have the non-christian religions like Judaism, Islam and the far east religions. They have their theologians past and present who describe who God is and what he thinks. From all this mish mash comes the philosophy of sin, redemption, heaven and hell. They all have their sacred books which can be taken literally or not. They all have their tradition, orally passed on truths, which when all put together can tell the faithful what to believe and what not to believe.

If one believes in God as a supreme being who put this whole world together and retains an intense interest in its inhabitants and survival of all what He has created how can that person believe he can have even a small inkling as to what the heck goes on in the mind of God? The pat answer is that God reveals to mankind, bit by bit what he has in his mind and eventually we will get to know what His Plan is even if it occurs in the after-life. Of course He reveals it through the holy scriptures, and tradition and revelation. BUT these three things are subject to interpretation and one has to believe in the interpreter in order to believe in his interpretations. This all begets the question; "Are we following the will of God or the will of whomever is the flavor of the month, or year or millennium?". This can get very confusing.

Many religions want to tell you what sin is and what it isn't. Then these very same religions go ahead and commit the very things they are telling you not to do. Sin is evil. Evil is lack of good. Lack of good is when God is not present. Many will say that evil is the presence of the Devil which is another concept of a supreme person, not as supreme as God, who can influence the actions of people and the world in general. All of these esoteric arguments to me muddle the waters rather than clearing them up.

Evil is in the world. Even those of us who do not believe in a supreme presence can agree with that statement. Whole populations are starving. Children are sex slaves in places like Thailand. Wars are fought resulting in rape, plunder and murder. Certain illnesses are left to continue because there is not enough profit in research and development of medicines to cure them. We all share in this evil as a collective society. There is enough of this type of thing going on in the world so that we all share in the sin. This is the overall evil. Then there is the personal evil, sin. This is where those in charge, be it the priests, imam or Rabbis, whomever, tell the individuals what he is going to hell for doing, or not doing. They have determined that excessive sexual activity is a way to hell. The Judaic-Christian concept of self exploration is based on a brief passage in the Jewish scriptures, Gen 38:9, Onan spills his seed and is going to hell for that. Whereas some radical Muslims think self sacrifice in a Jihad leads to heaven and a bevy of virgins. Isn't there something wrong with both lines of reasoning? As a society we find murder a terrible sin but many of us justify executions as just. It is OK for the state to murder but not individuals. The State is not always right in their decisions. Killing a baby just born is horrendous but late term abortions which suck pieces of a viable human out of the womb is justified. Meanwhile God just looks down, observes and continues with his plan.

If there is a Supreme Being who created all this, set it in motion and loves all his creation there is no way I am going to try and figure out what ever is going on in his mind. There is no way I can figure it out. The mind of God is far too big and wonderful for me. I do fear him, the way I used to fear my father while I loved him and sought him out for protection and safety. For me "fear" translates to respect, a very healthy respect. I will practice my faith without fear and try to atone for the collective sins of society while I stay away from fearing I am going to hell. I figure, if there is a God and he will stay with me there will be no vacuum for evil to creep in. But I am through trying to figure out the mind of God nor believe there is anyone here on earth that has come to grips with the universal truth of eternity.