The author addresses sensitive issues emerging from changing Christianity's messages to the world and the resulting influence, not only to Christianity itself, but to western world governments. He maintains that Governments and Christianity have both fallen prey to political manipulation of man's sensitive ego; and the only reason that has happened is because official Institutional Christianity now "coddles" ego to enlarge its membership. He concludes that gaining control of personal "ego" is the primary biblical message to living out Christian standards and traces the decline in western culture and the dismantling of free societies to the abandonment of traditional Christianity.

Let Us Create God in Our Own Image

Christianity's Revolving ThroneBy Forrest Davis

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Forrest Davis
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-6604-2

Contents

About the Author.............................................1From the Author..............................................3Man's Beginning Search for God...............................19The Evolving Image of Christianity's God.....................29Politicians and God-A Closer Look-...........................45Does God Micro-Manage Our Lives?.............................75Christian Standards Based on Scripture.......................105Conclusion...................................................191

Chapter One

Man's Beginning Search for God

Just how is it that we stand here staring into space, having some knowledge of the mysteries of the universe, having a keen awareness of the joys of life, having creative instincts, and having such an intense feeling of belonging to and being a part of the whole creation; yet without any power to change the inevitable death that awaits us? As author Ralph Waldo Emerson framed it: "The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying."

Is it just a cruel joke that mankind should accidently exist with such insight, and perhaps the highest intelligence in the universe, only to be discarded while the rest of the universe moves on into infinity? How come? The scale of the universe is of such dimension that it is beyond truthful comprehension, because we can only understand what we can measure. Are we to believe that it has emerged without a single permanent witness?

How many people in all history of mankind do you think have asked that same question? Are we human alone in the universe with the ability to observe its vastness and bow to its beauty? What a strange mystery should earthbound humankind exist alone in such an indescribable expanse. Such short lived intelligence would render us highly insignificant to the universe, that's for sure. Yet, as we observe our surroundings, we find no other recognizable level of intelligence equal to our own. We have named that condition "EGO." Yet, in spite of the ego, most of us deal with the age-old dilemma of an implanted thought process, assuring us that somewhere, somehow, in this universe, there is a higher, more permanent intelligence. What a party to have thrown without having a single guest in attendance! The answers to those unfathomable questions and the knowledge we desperately seek, we have named "GOD." One could take the position that in itself makes God real. It is obvious the earth we stand on and the space we stare into are real. Everything we see and touch is real; so God, then, as a place to begin, is the reality of everything. The universe is its own evidence and spirit. Is it not, then, also a manifestation of God's Spirit? Even so, we are not all satisfied in just making that declaration.

Many feel they have the right and a need to communicate with God because any such God would obviously know about our being here. We have an instinctive need to ask questions about ourselves and what is going on. But wait! That might lead us to conclude the God we search for may have intelligently designed and created the whole "kit and caboodle", and that highlights the largest difference in mankind's thought processes about "God." It conflicts with "EGO."

Those who declare "No intelligence-No creation" envision the universe and everything in it as having accidently evolved as a result of chemical interaction, having no purpose or design; just an explosion of unknown origin. Those who contemplate "Intelligence and Creation" do so because they cannot so easily dismiss a nagging "God exists" instinct that has, somehow, been implanted within them. Besides that, "where did those chemical elements and atoms come from?" they wonder. And, "how come they just interacted?" they ask themselves. They instinctively have a need to believe in something more powerful than themselves. That is especially true when they come to observe and understand just how insignificant we humans appear to be in the overall scheme of things. Being only temporary spectators, not knowing where we came from, why we are here, or where we are going, begs the question how anyone that helpless can, at the same time, be arrogant enough to emphatically declare there is no God.

So, there we have it in a nutshell. The choices are not that complicated. Do we give credibility to the natural instincts of mankind, for as long as we have history of mankind, that suggest there is a more powerful and intelligent source somewhere in the universe that we are to search for and to hope for, or do we discount such a notion because there is no acceptable scientific proof of it? Science is nothing more than what we have learned up to a point in time and no one will disagree that there is still much before us to be learned. Even so, some folks would limit new discoveries to no more than what we have already learned in the past.

Even if a person comes to discount God as being specific, you would still think that person's vision and thoughts of the universe they are a part of would take on Godly dimensions (A power greater than they) by its awesome magnificence alone. It is interesting to observe how differently the whole matter is treated by different individuals. It ranges all the way from hiding under a rock, to personally assuming to be in control of the universe and everything in it (becoming God themselves). There is a lot of room between the two positions for interesting interaction and the history of that interaction is almost laughable.

Over the centuries, various cultures have labeled anything they either don't understand or things they look to for sustenance as being God. Those many differently perceived gods include things like the sun, or the moon, or stars, or rivers, and even cows.

I, for one, happen to be one of those who did not discount God as a myth. My reasoning began with: "How can anyone deny God with any certainty?" Bottom line is: If a person decides there just may be a God they become a seeker. If, on the other hand, a person rejects the possibility that God exists, they likely will not seek God and some go on to vilify those who do.... I am both a seeker and a finder, yet I do not know anyone else that agrees with the all of the details of everything I have come to embrace as truth.

That convinces me that we humans, being individually different and unique will likely look at the same God image and each see it within the framework of our unique and individual understanding. I don't suggest there are millions of different Gods, only millions of different humans, each a little different than the other. I see that as a design by God coming from the same pattern as the universe itself, with every single galaxy or star or planet or moon being uniquely different. In fact, that principle is evident between us humans as we communicate with each other. I myself become a somewhat different image to each of my individual acquaintances, depending upon our common genetic predispositions and the history of our mutual experiences. That conclusion does not contradict the existence of a single universal God. It just means that we're all different, both to each other and to God as well, yet all of the same earth family. That is neat. On the...