Spirituality,
Religion, Nature
The Interventionist
and Supernatural God
Religions
of the world as they are practiced have taken a course for the worse, in my
view. God is meddling in the world; he is intervening in all events of nature
and the world; and most importantly, he is constantly intervening in all the
details of human life and destiny. God has a sovereign domain and control of
the universe; nothing moves unless by his will. His power is infinite; he may
change natural order and the course of the universe at
his will.
Irony With the Theistic
God.
In spite of what Thomas Aquinas—the highest exponent of theistic doctrine—says,
that God is an impassible and immutable being, and that the relations humans
have with God affect them, the humans, but not God,[1] in practice they contradict themselves when they practice a
religion in which God is “affected” by prayers and changes his will, and/or the
course of nature. This is one of several contradictions we see between doctrine
and the practice of theistic religion, as when believers, men and women, exert
themselves to prolong their lives as long as possible, “mourning and
weeping in this valley of tears,” instead of hastening the encounter with God,
and the bliss and rest of heaven.
A Supernatural God: It
is a Belief. The interventionist God is therefore supernatural, because he is over the laws of nature or
super-nature; he is unlimitedly all-powerful. In order to have an idea about
how solid and true the affirmation of a supernatural God could be, let us
suppose that someone says that there is a planet so tiny and so far from planet
Neptune, that it is impossible to see it. What validity would this affirmation have?
If there are neither proofs nor evidences of the existence of such a planet,
how could we believe in its existence? The idea of a supernatural God is like
that of that planet: an affirmation without merit.
Since the idea of a supernatural God started with no proofs (as we
saw previously), and there is no evidence that a supernatural power was
required for the existence of the world, it would be presumptuous to take for granted
the existence of this supernatural God without proof. The idea of a supernatural
God is therefore an unproved postulate, a thought, a belief, [2]
nothing else; that credence is no more than a possibility.
Indoctrination. Most religious people are indoctrinated early in their
life with the idea of this super-natural God; an over nature God, able to do
everything he is asked. Persons indoctrinated are supposed not to question or critically
examine the doctrine they learn. This belief is so profoundly
rooted in the mind and behavior of people, that it
becomes as a second nature; or, to use a modern word, it is a meme. [3]
Religiously Cultured. The religious meme is engraved so strongly in the mind of
some cultures, that even people who say that they do
not believe in God, spontaneously say: “I wish that God would do… something!” The
mind of these professed unbelievers is “impregnated” with religion, and they
cannot avoid its influence; it is in their subconscious. Those who from their
early youth learned otherwise have better luck, and do not experience this
pressure of this religious meme in their minds, and they are able to see nature
and the world as they really are.
Honest Attitude. But, regardless of
the strength of this meme, we must be honest and rational, and do not deceive
ourselves. We must be open to new visions and new discoveries; the search for
truth has no end. Science is opened to unveil the unknown “mysteries” and gaps of
Nature; a position that contrasts with the religious approach of being immovably anchored in a set of
“truths” born from ignorance.
Revelation Closed -
Revelation Open. Believers consider the revelation of their prophets closed, but
they overlook the constant revelation of God through nature. The understanding
of the universe will progress indefinitely, although the full knowledge of the
origin of the world will always be blurry, uncompleted, uncertain;
there were no witnesses or electronic devices to catch and record the birth and
development of the universe.
To Believe by Force. During some historical periods religious power and civil
institutions made institutional beliefs mandatory, and the teachings of the
Church were imposed through menace and force. Similar circumstances and
consequences surround the Koran and the sacred writings of other religions. It
is thus understandable that the belief in a super-natural Creator was almost
uncontested and massively accepted mainly by Western civilization with few
exceptions, and by the Arab world.
Go to Content
HTM NATURE / INTERVENTIONIST 03-03-11
[1]
Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Qu. 6, art. 2; Qu. 3, art. 8.
[2] For the meaning of
a religious belief, please see the footnote for this word in the previous essay
“Religion and Spirituallity”.
[3] A meme is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or
practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing,
speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. (The word is a blend of
"gene" and the Greek word μιμητισμός
[mɪmetɪsmos] for "something imitated".)
Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that
they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures. (Wikipedia)