Posted by:
schrodingerscat
(
)
Date: January 19, 2021 09:23PM
You have probably heard the old story about the astronaut who went out into space and when he returned to Earth they asked him if he went to heaven, did he see god?
And he said, "Yes and she is black" and although this is a well known and well worn story, it is profound.
If you are intelligent and reasonable, you cannot be the product of a mechanical and meaningless universe. You as an expression of the universe, cannot be a mere fluke. Because as a tree brings forth fruit, the energy that underlies the universe, ground of your being, must be intelligent. When you come to that conclusion you must be very careful, because you may make an unwarranted jump. You may jump to the conclusion that the intelligence, that marvelous, designing power that created all of this is the Biblical God. That God is a tyrant god of the ancient near east. It's very easy to fall into that trap. Because it's all prepared, institutionalized in the churches and synagogues, It is very natural to assume that when somebody uses the word, God, it is that Father figure, which is intended. But nowadays, we are in rebellion against the image of the authoritarian figure of the Father. But to reject the paternalistic authority figure of God as an idol does not necessarily make you an atheist. An experience, contact, with the ground of your being, Does not have to be embodied in any specific image.
Theologians don't like that idea.
They want to tell you that God has a very specific image, with rules, and doctrines. There is this idea that there is this authority in the world, and it's not you. It's something else, outside of you and therefore this Judeo Christian approach makes a lot of people feel rather strange, estranged from the root and ground of being. Now naturally of course, we intelligent people don't think of God in those kinds of terms. I mean we think of god as spirit, that god is very undefined and infinite. But nevertheless, the images of God have a far more powerful effect on our emotions than our ideas. And when people read the bible and sing hymns, they still got that fellow up there with the beard on. It's way in the back of the emotions.
We should think first of all, in contrary imagery.
And the contrary imagery is, she's black.
Imagine instead of God the Father, god the Mother
and imagine that this is not a luminous being, blazing with light,
but an infathomable darkness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihgsh0RLopE