By Dr. Y’Shua Yisrael
God is the main character in the international best-selling book; the Bible. While the word god is used universally, it is full of mystery, there is no consensus regarding the lexical meaning. The African-American community, owing to its dispossessed status, has not created its own theology with exegesis and god-head. Therefore; the god of the slaves and their descendants were crafted by the slavemasters. This explains the paradox of seeing a Black people worshiping a White god; the inverse would be unthinkable to a White person. The white god Jesus was inherited and passed down to the present-day Afro-American generation.
The god, יהוה of Hebrews in the Old Testament created the universe singularly in seven days. However, in the Babylonian creation myth; The Emuna Elish, considered one of the oldest creation stories, the creation arises from a great battle between two gods; the storm god Marduk and Tiamat. In the Enuma Elish, the creation erupts, there is no seven-day timeline in which the creation unfolds sequentially. The concept of god varies across cultures, while some cultures have one god, other cultures have more than one. The Hindu Religion has three gods; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The Christian Faith, borrowing from the Hindu model, has a singular god-head with three faces, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. African rituals offer beer and assorted home-brewed intoxicants to their gods. Asian cultures appease their gods by offering them food, fruits, flowers, and drinks. The Christian faith offers bread and wine to god in a sacred ritual called Holy Communion, and afterward, it is consumed as divine nourishment. Although in the minority, some cultures have a matriarchal goddess, i.e., Kuan Yin, the female Buddha goddess, as well as the goddess Yemaya, the water queen in Santeria.
The infant Jesus of Prague is also worshiped among devout Catholics. God has many different names throughout the world and is prayed to daily with the sincerest devotion in a variety of Languages. For example, the gods, Ogun, Obatala, and Shango are renowned Yoruba gods in Nigeria. In addition, the god Yurugu is the trickster god of the Dogon people of southwest Mali, West Africa. Humanity swears by a litany of gods, and has fought brutal wars against other nations in the names of these gods. . The names of god are all sacred unto those that revere them, yet most believers hold- dear a god that they have never seen. However, there are exceptions; Rastafari, the new god in the world’s pantheon of gods; Haile Selassie is a 20th-century African King; adored and worshipped throughout the African diaspora as God incarnate. In the great Indian classic, the “ Mahabarata, there are Vedic gods, such as Indra the god of storms, Agni, the god of fire, and Varuna, the God which presides over the orderliness in the Universe. In addition, there are many personal gods called “Devas” which manage the infinite cosmic laws of the universe. The god concept in the Western world, like everything in modern times, evolved. Subsequent to the birth of science, the god concept has been threatened; the traditional anthropomorphic view of God has been carefully scrutinized and refuted. In his masterpiece “The Ethics” the Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinoza views god as the quintessential substance of the universe; expressed through different modes. Spinoza’s views were considered pantheistic and therefore, absolutely rejected as incompatible with the Jewish God who is seen as a transcendental ”Creator”. Spinoza was eventually X-communicated from his Jewish community in the mid-1600s in Amsterdam.
Today, Spinoza is celebrated as perhaps, one of the world’s greatest rationalists. The rationale for the author’s assertion that God is a relative concept is evident in the Bible. Let’s examine the facts. The Bible is compiled, packaged, and sold as one book, but in reality, it is two completely different books, with two different Gods. The first part of the bible is actually, the sacred text of the Jewish Religion called, THE TANAK. The Tanak” consists of the 613 laws, prophecies, and the writings. The first half of the Bible is called The Old Testament. The second part of the Bible is called The New Testament. In the second book the conception of a new god is born; god as a man! The god Yahweh in the Old Testament is a spirit without a body. The Christian god Jesus in the New Testament has a body. However, similar to the gods Zeus and Hercules in Greek mythology, Jesus too, is born of a virgin and doesn’t have a human father. The god Yahweh of the Old Testament is biased, he selects one nation over all others, and advocates tribal division, and appoints a King to rule over the nation. In the New Testament, the godman Jesus is not a great king, he is an ordinary citizen; a carpenter. Unlike the god Yahweh, He does not kill his enemies, rather; he forgives his enemies.
The God-man Jesus is eventually falsely accused, adjudicated, and found guilty. He is deserted by his followers, beaten, pierced, scourged in a public execution, hung on a tree, and dies. He, according to the belief of his disciples, was resurrected and ascended into heaven. From the above examples, it is evident that God is a conception of man that continues to evolve. Why is the idea of god found universally? I believe the reason is owed to the very substance of man’s nervous system, which has been found to be comprised of pure consciousness (Dr.Tony Nadar). The fabric of man’s deepest being is an aspect of an eternal creative intelligence. The gods of the world are the reflections of man’s subconscious need for unity with the ultimate reality; pure consciousness that is generically called, God. The concept of god, like all relative ideas, evolve and changes with time. Owing to the pace of the twenty-First century, an instantaneous response is demanded of god, a transcendental god is no longer tenable; he is just too slow. The new god must satiate the immediate multifarious needs of an infantile,ego-centric, impatient society that demands instantaneous gratification. Therefore, the new god of the21st century is Technology; the cell phone with emails, Instagram, and YouTube. The new god is hand-held virtually at all times, to ensure that text, emails, or YouTube channel messages are never missed. The new god is diametrically opposed to the ways of the old god. For example, the idea of marriage, and family has been modified to include pets and animals. The old god said that homosexuality is an abomination, the new God apparently approves of homosexuality and sanctions same-sex marriage.
The 21st-century god has eradicated the concept of sin, there is no more sin in the 21stcentury. The future of god will be driven by the power of technology and its artificial intelligence and virtual reality. It is this author’s opinion that the future god is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and unless programmed to do so, the future god, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), will not hear the cries of the poor or answer the prayers of the faithful. The marginalized will be forgotten and the poor categorized as non-essentials. The new god, Artificial Intelligence will be super intelligent with quantum speed, algorithms, and efficiency. Indubitably, Artificial Intelligence will accelerate, the already prolific pace toward collective dehumanization of the world. Artificial Intelligence is just that; artificial, non-caring, dispassionate, stoic, precise, and devoid of personal affection. With Artificial Intelligence as god, the question it will face is what to do with the human race?
Dr. Yisrael offers a introductory Hebrew Reading Course (2) Personal instruction in the Art of the integrated life- with Self-Reflection Technology (SRT). Interested parties should contact:Babayshua@gmail.com