The Day God Died.
It was a very cold winter night … so cold that the snow squeaked under our feet and our nostrils felt frozen solid.
Although I was only about three or four, I remember the event vividly. My mother was taking me to the midnight Christmas mass. I was excited. My excitement wasn't about going to church: Except for a few glimpses at the Father, mass was usually boring. The masses were in Latin and I didn't understand them. Then again, mother told me that God was beyond human understanding, so it seemed reasonable enough to me that we couldn't understand what was said. It was God's way.
In reality, my excitement was because I got to be up late way beyond bedtime and my siblings weren't allowed to go.
But then it turned into a religious experience that had a different kind of thrill to it.
A full moon hung in the icy cold sky. It had a magnificent rainbow all the way around it. My mother told me that this was a sign from God that it was truly a holy night.
Mesmerized and in awe, I stared up at the moon all the way to the drive to St. Agnes Catholic Church.
At that young age, the church seemed like a castle. It was huge. The ornaments were fit for royalty. The stained glass was beautiful. The only thing I didn't like was the bleeding Jesus on a cross and the statues. Like clowns, these images gave me the willies. Instead of looking at the creepy stuff, I would try my best to get a glimpse of the Father. He was hard to see because of all the tall adults seated in the front pews but worth the effort of a strained neck.
Maybe I was slow for my age, but I honestly thought that the Catholic Church was the house of God. The pomp and circumstance, the foreign language, the ornate costumes, the reverence people seemed to have all made me a believer. And because we called the priest "Father," I believed that he was God. In my pre-kindergarten mind, the Father and God were one. After all, we were always praying to Our Father, who art in heaven.
The service went on and we went home. The rainbow was gone. The Event was over. I said my prayers, thanking God profusely for such a magnificent evening.
On Christmas morning, we were awakened to sad news. The Father had died in his sleep. It was a heart attack.
It was bewildering to me. If God and the Father were one, how could He have a heart attack?
I was never so terrified. I thought the world would end, that we were all headed to hell, and there was no one to intercede on our behalf.
I was afraid to eat. I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid to be awake. I was afraid to breathe. The fact that God was dead was inconceivable and horrible. Any second, we'd be engulfed in the flames of hell, screaming for eternity with no one to help. Hope had died with the Father.
We did the Christmas stuff. For some reason, no one seemed as concerned as I was. I didn't understand it. The day finally ended and exhausted, I fell asleep. I didn't pray that night. There was no one to pray to.
The sun rose. It set.
It rose again. It set.
Life went on.
And for the very first time in my life, I questioned what I was told.
God As Man.
I knew the new Father who presided over mass was not God. He was a man.
As I got older, I understood that men live and die. They hope, they dream. They do good things and also do rotten things. My introduction to this fact was benign. I cannot even begin to imagine how kids who were sexually abused by the clergy felt.
My dad thought that Catholicism was ridiculous, so he had never joined. But years later, when my mother quit the Catholic Church to join a cult, he joined the cult too. Had it not been for that priest dying, I might have bought into what the cult was selling. I definitely had some fear because of the cult's endless teachings and abusive tactics, but for the most part, saw it for what it was … a bunch of emotionally unstable, greedy men seeking control of others and gaining unlimited access to their members' bank accounts. Compared with the cult, the Catholic Church truly was the house of God.
Religion is run by men. Churches are built by men. Holy books are written by men. They are, therefore, subject to error and should be scrutinized and questioned.
I do not believe that any human being has the right to say that he or she is more divine or holy than anyone else. Counseling and good works are one thing, but commanding others based on religious authority is another. Their only motive in doing so is to exercise religious control.
Personally, I am a deist. I do not subscribe to any religion but I do feel that there is a higher power — albeit an impersonal one that is neither male nor female — that expresses itself in nature. If it were not for consciousness, I would probably be an atheist. Yet, all life expresses consciousness to some degree or another — and to me, that is the Great Unknown that is "perfect" in its expression.
There is no such thing as perfection. It is only a standard that changes with knowledge and consciousness. Consciousness evolves.
I've heard the saying that GOD stands for "Generator of Dimensions." It's an intriguing thought and one that implies that God evolves.
Death of the Post-Christian God?
Newsweek published an interesting story today about the post-Christian era. Writing about recent polling data that shows that a growing number of Americans are not affiliated with any religion, author Jon Meacham writes:
This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.
Meacham goes on to write:
The present, in this sense, is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods. The rising numbers of religiously unaffiliated Americans are people more apt to call themselves "spiritual" rather than "religious."
Morals in a Post-Christian Society.
A common argument against non-religious affiliation is that there is no definition of morals. But as Christopher Hitchens said, "Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer." I am not aware of anyone who has been able to answer this question.
The Council for Secular Humanism is North America's leading organization for non-religious people. It describes the philosophy secular humanism:
Secular Humanism is a way of thinking and living that aims to bring out the best in people so that all people can have the best in life. Secular humanists reject supernatural and authoritarian beliefs. They affirm that we must take responsibility for our own lives and the communities and world in which we live. Secular humanism emphasizes reason and scientific inquiry, individual freedom and responsibility, human values and compassion, and the need for tolerance and cooperation.
Is this not moral?
As Above, So Below.
The Christian God is not dead, but perhaps evolving. As this consciousness evolves, maybe we humans will, too.
The Cartwheel Galaxy (source: NASA) - Click for Story
Somewhere, in some dimension unknown to us, perhaps the consciousness of that priest who died on Christmas eve may be evolving. I didn't personally know him, but am grateful. He taught me my most valuable life lesson: Always question.
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Great article! I read the Meacham article as well, which I take as a positive sign that Americans are no longer willing to take on blind faith what they are told via their religion. Meacham is a great author; I have his book America's God: Faith of the Founding Fathers, which is also very good.