The Qoheleth
One of the challenges in religion is the creation of God as a terrible, fearful being. Because man thinks God is like him and has his nature, he created an extremely higher being that is far beyond his own nature. Since man’s knowledge, power, and presence are limited, he created a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. God, in this nature, became unrealizable and mysterious. It also became the function of man to promote, protect, represent, and defend such being. In doing so, God to man becomes a being that cannot be challenged when there is no need to do so if he were God. He was said to have made laws for man that would not have been necessary if he were to fully possess the nature of God.
To defend the weaknesses and acts of man towards the abuse of freedom he possesses, man created what he refers to as Heaven and Hell. He painted Hell with such gory images which could have been explained with just the absence of God. If God is all-powerful, he wouldn’t need Satan to destroy man, his greatest creation. He may not need to sit on a throne to judge people one after the other if he were omniscient. In short, the whole world would be Heaven for all.
Satan was created by man to justify his cruel acts and abuse of freedom granted to him.
Obviously, Heaven and Hell cannot be places but states or conditions believed to be attained afterlife if there is actually life after life. There has been no evidence that there is physical life after life. Man has two natures, which he acquired; good and bad. The creator obviously must have been good and transparent, like the light. His absence is darkness, ignorance, and bad. His presence is ‘Heaven,’ which is symbolized by piety, righteousness, and integrity. His absence is ‘Hell,’ cruelty, and wickedness.
The creator, as a perfect being, cannot take sides with any of his creations. Man, out of greed, selfishness, and wickedness, created dichotomy. Out of hatred, he brought in division drawn from race, tribe, and language. Man used war and conquest to divide the world towards his selfish interests. When he achieves his aim, he would say that God has blessed him. He foolishly assumed that success was the blessing of God while failure was a curse from Satan. Meanwhile, both success and failure are the architects of man granted to him through the freedom given by the creator.
God is all-loving and cannot bless those he loves and curse those he hates. Love and hatred are acts of man. So God does not hear prayers for some people and rejects the prayers of other people. He is a being in whom every power can be drawn for everything that needs to be done. Forcing people to pray is unnecessarily creating fear in them. Many people have succeeded by drawing power from God, and many have also failed after so many prayers. Because man still does not know the nature of God, he keeps defending him and giving excuses for God’s failure to act like man.
God cannot destroy what he created. Nature is indestructible but rather transforms into a new thing. Why would God destroy the world? What would he gain? Why would God set war between one people and another? Isn’t that wickedness? Why would God take sides between people he created with the same love and care? Man makes death look like a punishment due to his love for life. Death is the end of life. Everything that has life expires at a particular point so that life evolves. So, death is not punishment and was not meant to exterminate people. Different kinds of death are circumstantial.
Nobody is destined to be born in a particular area or die in a particular way. Nobody is born to be rich, and others are born to be poor. All these are conditions of life. So, creating fear through religion is deceitful and ungodly. Let us continue to utilize whatever we find around us to develop the world more and more toward the purpose for which they were made. Life through this will continue to evolve gradually toward its purpose, and through it, the true nature of God will be identified.
