NO GOD?
If there is no God then there can be no clear purpose to life. According to some ‘evolutionists,’ life could have started by random chance about four billion years ago. Part of this life evolved into mankind, as we know it today. I am here today because of random chance; I don’t have to answer to anyone or to any creator. I can live my life as I please. Laws were invented by people in power who wanted to enforce their will on others. Why should I have to comply with their law?
This is the moral path I could take if I thought that life was the result of random chance.
TO FIND THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE.
For an ultimate truth to exist, there must be a God.
If a God who has no beginning even contemplates creating the universe and life, there must be a reason, or purpose, that would motivate him to do so.
What would this ultimate motivating force be that would compel God to create a whole universe so that intelligent life could exist on at least one planet - a planet like Earth
The greatest reason God can have to create life is love.
Therefore the ultimate God humanity can have is a God who loves in the greatest way.
1. There must be a God who willingly loves all of mankind as he loves HIMSELF, for all time and unconditionally.
This is the greatest reason to create life.
If the greatest reason God can have to create mankind is to love each and every one of us as he loves himself, then God must have created mankind with the freedom to return God’s love
2. All of mankind is created with the freedom to love God the creator unconditionally.
God willingly loves everyone as he loves himself; we also need this same freedom to love everyone in the same way, so that the truth can be complete for God and mankind.
3. All of mankind is created with the freedom to love all of God’s children (neighbours) as they love themselves, unconditionally.
We can marvel at the great attention to detail that is evident in everything from the tiniest single cell of life right up to the giant structures of galaxies. The greatest reason for all this to exist is so that God and humanity may have the freedom to fulfill one uncompromising purpose.
Look at some choices that must have been available to an all-powerful God. If God wanted to create everyone as a Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu he must have had the power to do so. Can it be that God needed everyone to have the freedom to love rather than to have everyone conform to any one way of life?
You can find the ultimate purpose for the existence of the universe and life for yourself by challenging the above statements in your mind in an honest way, test them against any religious beliefs, test them against any form of logic.
Can there be any greater purpose for God to create life? Can there be any greater purpose for humanity to exist? In human terms this is the ultimate truth, the ultimate purpose for the existence of the universe and life.
As you challenge this purpose in your mind it will become final and ultimate - by this you will perceive and understand it for yourself.
CREATION
To make any sense of the creation of the universe it is necessary to start from an ultimate purpose.
If God were to create life with one supreme purpose in mind, it follows that he would sacrifice other less important elements so that he could then satisfy this one main intention.
What would God have to sacrifice if his one uncompromising goal is to create life that can love?
What price would humanity have to pay if they were created to love?
PURPOSE- DESIGN AND RISK.
When you design anything and have a demanding and uncompromising purpose to accomplish, it means some other aspects are sacrificed so that you may achieve your one aim. The more demanding the purpose is that you are trying to fulfill, the more you must be willing to sacrifice so that you may achieve your one goal
For example, if you were to design a car purely for speed and acceleration it would look something like a dragster. This car is intended to reach its maximum speed in the shortest time then come to a stop. This design for a car would be useless if you wanted to comfortably carry a family. If you have a very exacting purpose to achieve such as speed then there is a price to pay - you must be willing to forgo comfort, quietness, economy, and the choice of shape so that you may obtain maximum speed. Throughout humanity’s history countless thousands of people have died in the pursuit of speed in many different ways, from horse racing right to space travel.
These people, like test pilots or racing drivers, who were aware of the dangers in advance, knowingly risked their life to try and achieve a purpose.
Look at the risks involved in making the first flying machines; the pilots must have known that if they ascended a few hundred feet from the ground they would be risking injury or death. Without these risk-takers humanity’s feet would still be firmly on the ground.
If there were no risk takers, how would anything new begin? How would humanity progress?
LOVE AND FREEWILL.
Many people doubt the existence of God because of all the suffering that mankind has endured; surly a loving God would not allow this to happen. If you think life is a mess, try and think of all the options open to God in the way that he could create the universe and life.
We have a general knowledge about the workings of the universe and the history of life. This puts us in a unique position as it gives us the power of hindsight.
With your knowledge you now have the free choice to look for all the ways that life could be created; so there must be a greater way to create new life in a new universe.
For this exercise to have any meaning, there is a need to ask these questions from the creator’s point of view, so that you may experience the emotional conflict of creation for yourself. Only search for the greatest meaning and the greatest purpose as you read this, try and make allowances because it is written in human terms.
If I had the power of creation I could create all the beautiful stars and planets of the universe. I would become God the builder - would that satisfy my creative needs, or could I do more?
I could create a whole variety of life with almost no intelligence like plants; they will not cause me any grief with their conduct. I now become God the gardener - would that satisfy my creative needs, or could I do more?
I could create life with more intelligence to hunt for food, look for shelter, mate, and breed a future generation. If the knowledge and intelligence is limited and they do not have the freedom to love I have now created the animal kingdom. I am a farmer, a pet owner. Their behaviour should not cause me too much trouble, but how can I act in accordance with the ultimate truth by creating the animal kingdom?
As God I could create life with the means to gain knowledge and intelligence. As God I could create life in my own image, a life that could understand me. Creating life in my own image is the greatest form of creation open to me. I now become God the parent; my children must be real children to me in the literal sense. I can create nothing greater because I cannot create anything greater than myself.
As a parent, or as God the parent, would I put off having children in case they may become evil? I know that any children that I have will be open to the same kind of temptations and feelings that are open to me: greed, lust, anger, pride, envy, covetousness, sloth, and love. These are the temptations that we all can succumb to. As a parent, or as God the parent, with free will would I control my children and prevent them from making their own decisions, or would I teach them the difference between right and wrong and allow them to grow and make their own decisions? The choices open to any loving parent in creating life seem to be the same choices that were open to God. Can it be that we have the same needs as God when it comes to creating? It is not enough to be a builder, gardener, and farmer; there is a greater need to be a parent. As a parent, or as God the parent, I should love all of my children, even if they turn to murder and by their actions they show no love in return.
As God the mother or God the father, how do I give out free will? As the creator of life I have the freedom to choose between good and evil, as the creator I do not misuse this great power. If I pass it on, I know this gift can be abused; what choices are open to me?
I could withhold free will and create the ideal society where no one would succumb to the temptations. Everyone would work for the good of others, putting the needs of society before their own needs freely without argument. This would be like the ant society; there is no free will involved. As God, would I be satisfied in creating creatures with predictable behaviour and with no freedom to love like the ant society? Would mankind swap free will to live selflessly like ants, or can I create a greater way?
As God I could create life that is programmed to do anything as long as it is good and not harmful or offensive to anyone else. Would this be the greatest form of creation open to me? But how can they have the freedom to love?
I could create life on another planet the same as we have on Earth with total freedom to love. It is an awesome risk; I know that great things good and evil will happen if I do because I have already witnessed what happens on Earth.
We can be disturbed when we watch news programmes on the television and see in graphic detail the horrors and extreme conditions of life. These are God’s children, just imagine what God the parent must go through being the creator. He must feel responsible for all the good and evil that his children commit on Earth.
What kind of an emotional burden does humanity place on a loving God? It seems that God must pay a very high price emotionally to create children with the freedom to love.
If I were God how could I live with myself when I look at life on Earth? How could I put things right? Should I intervene and stop evil from happening? Do I only intervene in extreme cases like murder, rape, child abuse, and violence? What about the murder of a drugs dealer, or injustice, theft and fraud? Where do I draw the line that determines when I should intervene?
If I know evil is about to happen, how do I prevent it from happening? Do I have that person executed? Do I cause events to happen so evil is prevented? Do I have them locked up before the event? Do I impose my thoughts on a person’s mind so they will do things my way?
To do any of these things I am ‘God the Dictator’ because I become judge, jury, and executioner, probably thousands of times every day. Intervention takes away free will because I am going to decide what I will allow you and everyone else to do.
If I had the power of creation to create a completely new structure of life on another planet would I have the emotional courage to create children in my own image and give them total freedom to love? Or would I create a lower form of life and only give them a conditional freedom; that is you can only do the things that I allow you to do.
If God has total freedom himself then I feel that for God to create in an ultimate way he must create real children in his own image and love them as he loves himself: unconditionally. Therefore he could not control them in any way by withholding or restricting freedom.
To have freedom in this way seems the greatest way that a loving God could create life and this is the model for life that we can perceive existing on Earth today. To create life that can love is a risk, because this freedom also gives us the choice to be a saint or a serial killer or anything else
Is our life on Earth designed to teach us how to make choices between good and evil? Was life on Earth designed to be a fragile and limited existence to minimize the power but not the choices that we have to choose between good and evil? Mankind has used stone, iron and nuclear tools for both good and evil purposes. If all of humanity was born immortal and if we had the ability to gain supreme knowledge, we can imagine for ourselves the chaos that would follow because we would still have the freedom to choose between good and evil.
Sadly to create life with total freedom will mean that the innocent will suffer. In terms of man’s inhumanity to man it can seem that human suffering is too high a price to pay for the freedom to love. A loving all-powerful God must have known the risks involved to create life with the freedom to love. There has to be more to life. The innocent must not suffer in vain.
LOVE GOD
If we are created in God’s image and have the freedom to love, then mankind was created to act in accordance with this ultimate purpose. But how can it make sense for God to say that the greatest quality we can have is to love God, when God can only exist in our imagination. Can we only love an imaginary God?
Would God the creator be content to create life that only lasts a few years? Would he be content if he never had the chance to come into contact with his children on equal terms? If God went to all the trouble of designing and creating a vast universe for the purpose of creating children in his own image, he must also have a need to be with his children on equal terms.
If God has the capacity to create life from nothing then he must also have the ability to resurrect life after death. If we choose to show our love for God and our neighbours in this life, we can then meet God face to face in a greater life after death. That is to say, loving God can then become a reality. The greatest commandment is now making more sense.
Life after death with God must be God’s final purpose for humanity.
CHRIST
How can God teach humanity his ultimate purpose without imposing his will on us by force?
What role did Christ have in the creation of the universe?
Could it be that Christ said to God the Father, if humanity strays too far from the truth, I will take human form and be a role model?
Did Christ plan his destiny, his life, and his death before the creation of the universe? Or was his destiny decided for him on the day he took human form?
Was the plan to use the death of Christ to teach us put in place before creation began, because God knew the risks involved in creating life with the freedom to love?
Did God know that if humanity was to be created with the freedom to love that many of his children would be innocent victims?
Did Christ know in advance the price that he would have to pay if humanity were to be created? Did he know that he would also have to be an innocent victim?
With our knowledge and hindsight could there have been any other options open to God that could have had a greater impact on humanity?
We can look at the choices available to create life in an open way, we can see the risks involved, we know the price that would have to be paid by humanity, Christ, and God.
God’s final purpose for humanity must outweigh all the suffering, sacrifices and hardships that humanity has to endure while we spend our time on Earth, otherwise he cannot be a loving God.
Was Christ’s mission to inform us of God’s purpose for the creation of the universe?
A journey begins to try and understand the power of the greatest commandments; are they the ultimate motivating force that would compel God to create the universe and life?
The text up to this point seemed to be of help to some people who do not really believe in a God.
I have written this story in human terms because I cannot know the mind of God, I have written this story without any authority, I have had no dreams to reveal anything, this is a collection of words for you to challenge
RELIGION.
But how can I guarantee that I have a good relationship with God through my faith? I can believe that I have, I can hope that I have but how can I know for sure that I will achieve life after death with God?
I do not have the right or the authority to make judgments about the relationship that other Catholics have with God. I also do not have the right to make judgments about the relationship that other people have with God through their faith, be they Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Christians of all other denominations.
I am not writing this story to say how we achieve life after death, or to say whose beliefs are right.
I am writing it to show how we can relate in the greatest way to all the people whose choices and beliefs are different from ours. I am writing this story because I believe love should be the primary purpose of our lives.
CHRIST ON EARTH.
Christ asked us to do many things, but what is the ultimate purpose that we can have?
Is the greatest purpose we can have in life to believe in a certain way, is it to acknowledge and obey authority, is to spread the gospels, or to take communion and share communion with each other?
If it were any of these things Christ would have said so very clearly.
If there were one ultimate purpose for humanity, God would let us know this purpose.
There is one passage in the bible that everything else in the bible depends on. The following statement, stands as being ultimate for God and humanity. Jesus delivers these commandments with a great deal of power and authority. No other passage in the bible is so forcefully emphasized.
Mathew 22- ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ Jesus replied ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’
To love in this way inspires people to make great sacrifices and put others first - we need only look at the life of Christ to see this.
Law is used in democratic countries to try and achieve a fair and just society for all its citizens. Jesus said that all the law hangs on the greatest commandments. Jesus said that all the teachings of the prophets must hang on the greatest commandments.
There is a need to try and measure how much greater the two commandments are to everything else in the scriptures.
Did Christ mean that they are one per cent greater than everything else? By using this kind of measurement it could mean that we recognize their importance but it would be easy to see other aspects as being of a similar stature.
What feels right, what importance did Christ place on these commandments, are they one percent greater, or are they greater than everything else by a factor of ten?
Christ died to forgive us our sins. Why did he forgive us? It was because he loved us as he loves himself. Why does he love us in this way? Because it is the greatest love that he can have.
Because God is good he can love himself in a perfect way; if he then loves mankind as he loves himself, his love for mankind will be great.
Christ loves the father as he loves himself; the Father loves Christ as he loves himself; is this how Christ is one with the father, he loves the father as he loves himself: in a perfect way. Is this how Christ wants us to be one? He wants us to love each other as we love ourselves.
When I read the Bible from this perspective it seems to make a greater sense.
Is this the prayer we should make:
Help me Lord that I may learn to love all of my neighbours as I love myself regardless of who they are or what they believe, so that I may strive to be one with them as you are one with the father.
Then there is the other common perspective: Christ died to forgive us our sins. This means that we are born with a debt to pay – that is to say, we owe Christ. This would be like saying that when we are born we have a million pound debt to pay back, we feel guilty being in debt, and we cannot be free until we have paid back this debt.
Which feels right?
Did God create us with a debt to pay back or did he create us with the freedom to love?
You could say that the greatest commandments are like a hook to hang your coat on, without the hook the coat falls on the floor. When anything hangs it means it is being supported by something, it depends on something else to hold it up.
Therefore everything in the Christian faith hangs on is the two greatest commandments
Religion has the use of many tools; there is doctrine, authority, spreading the gospels and sharing communion. These religious tools have a purpose, and that is to encourage people to journey towards greater relationships through the greatest commandments.
BELIEFS.
When two sincere people argue over their beliefs, they both see themselves as being right. By its very nature religion must inspire millions or possibly even billions of sincere people to hold firm and conflicting beliefs.
If we could look at the religions of the world through the eyes of God the father or God the mother could it be that God would see us as children arguing and fighting over whose beliefs are right.
Believing in Christ has inspired people to make great sacrifices to help others, build communities, and work for peace.
These same beliefs in Christ have also inspired people to kill, to extort money, and make people live in fear.
The teachings of Christ have not changed, so it seems that we use our beliefs as a means to achieve many separate purposes.
The way we believe is one thing, but it is what we are prepared to do with these beliefs that matters more.
What kind of an emotional burden do we place on God the parent because we are separated against his will?
FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST.
We have interfaith agendas that are written to encourage dialogue, there are agendas that try and bring people together based on a certain doctrine, there are interfaith statements that try and encourage people to do and share projects together.
An interfaith statement is needed that has a very clear purpose; it must be self-motivating and have the power to drive the religions of the world towards one true goal.
To bring different religions together we have to be very careful in how we choose our words. We can say that we all believe in a God but that is vague and has no real meaning. This statement would be perceived as trying to unite us by settling for a lowest common theological denominator. We can change the words believe in God to LOVE GOD - this is not a lowest common theological denominator because in the words of Christ it is the greatest commandment.
When the two greatest commandments are together they are complete, because nothing can be added to them or subtracted from them to make them greater. Christ did not say that there is a third, fourth, and fifth greatest commandment.
If we are to search for an ultimate union between the faiths where I live, we need an agenda that will make this happen. This is the agenda.
1 HOW CAN WE ALL LOVE GOD THE CREATOR ABOVE ALL ELSE, UNCONDITIONALLY?
2 HOW CAN WE LOVE ALL OUR NEIGHBOURS AS WE LOVE OURSELVES, UNCONDITIONALLY?
Christ said these are the greatest commandments. The language used in the greatest commandments is the ultimate expression of love between God and humanity, and their purpose is so that we may journey towards a relationship with God and all people unconditionally.
Do we as Christians have the courage to put ONLY these two commandments down as an agenda to bring us together?
The greatest relationship we can have is to relate to others through both commandments. However there will always be people who do not believe in a God, or if they do, they can believe in very different ways.
If others do not believe in loving God, then we must not put pressure them to love God as we do, because this will mean that any relationship we seek will be conditional on them loving God also.
Most cultures have a golden rule that relates very closely to the second commandment; atheists can also relate to this as being a truthful purpose. The second commandment is what I should do, this is regardless of what anyone else may, or may not believe or do.
We cannot always choose our neighbours, so this next part is hard because it should relate to the community that I live in. We willingly choose to be Christian, we willingly choose the kind of Christian that we need and want to be. There are children of God in the district that I live in who willingly need and want to be Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and atheist.
God created them with the freedom to have these beliefs. If we seek to change them then we are not fulfilling our first priority. We do not need to agree with them, but we must find ways to love them as we love ourselves. This means that we should find ways to love them as they are, and willingly give them the freedom to be a Muslim or a Hindu, a Jew or an atheist
If Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. can all sit in the same room and discuss how we can support the youth, the elderly, the sick and the disadvantaged people in our community, then the world as a whole can make real progress. The aim should be to do this willingly and voluntary, it should not be seen as a business style arrangement where we keep accounts of who does what.
If we can find ways to love each other first, then our attitudes towards each other may change together. We are neighbours in our town; we need to find ways to be one community sharing love for each other.
If we are to journey down this road of cooperation together we can begin to build foundations based on love.
Christ gave us these commandments as a means to achieve many great goals. Christ wanted us to do more than believe in him. These commandments are about doing something; they are greater than beliefs. Doing something means we willingly have to look for ways of being there for each other, of helping each other. We can then recognize separate religions as being opportunities to bring groups of people together for the common good.
The most important word in the two commandments for God and humanity is LOVE. Any union that can be achieved with love as the relationship’s foundation will be far stronger and far greater than any unity that is founded by agreeing on doctrine and authority.
As an example: if Christians seek to share communion with other Christian faiths by creating an agreement on doctrine and authority, then it seems that we are pursuing the wrong objective.
When we can say as Christians that we love each other as we love ourselves then it will be right to share communion with each other.
No single religion can own the greatest commandments. They are the commandments of God for each and every member of humanity to share if they so desire.
When we journey towards a relationship in this way, people with faith will have to make an effort to acknowledge that other people can have and also need to have conflicting beliefs; we are not created to be like sheep without a mind.
We would also have to make an effort to get along with them - especially those who we would not normally have associated with in the past.
When we can journey towards a relationship in this way we will start to understand what one loving God the parent can mean for the whole human family.
There is a need to nurture the greatest commandments to bring all cultures and all faiths willingly together. It must be a goal that we journey towards which is constantly being reviewed, always with the aim of reaching a deeper and greater relationship with more people.
Do I have the courage to stand up for what is greatest?
Do I have to do anything or can I leave it to my children’s generation to sort out?
I am under no obligation to do anything, there is no pressure to act, and I do not have a duty towards peace. If I choose to do anything it is by free choice, willingly and for the love of others. These are the best possible motives - if I want to work towards a relationship of peace, this motive will make the relationship work.
Can I speak to my fellow brothers and sisters about a relationship in this way? Can I talk to the clergy and leaders of my faith to see if they will represent me in this way? Can I pray and share community values with the people of all other religions and non-believers in the district that I live in?
Do I exercise my free choice willingly and with love to try and influence change?
I do not see this as being an easy journey to take.
I see this as being the greatest journey we can take together.
How would Christ accept this interpretation of the two greatest commandments?
I have written these words without authority from any church, because they do not appear to be in line with any of their teachings.
The greatest way to understand this story is to challenge it; always look for something greater for God and for Mankind. The truth you are looking for must be right, there cannot be a ‘probable truth’.
If you sense any truth in this story, then feel free to use any of it or all of it if you wish, as I do not desire to claim any form of copyright. Feel free to write it in a greater and clearer way.
I would welcome any comments.
Yours in peace,
Eric Hyom.
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