My Morning Coffee with "History of God"

I am reading "History of God" by Karen Armstrong. The book is a historical account on the formation of the three major monotheist religions:  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. She not only gives a historical backdrop, but she also intermingles her account with "people's experience" of God from a cultural context. It is a "heady" read and I am still mulling through this large paperback, but I find it very interesting.

I thought it was interesting that the writings of the text were heavily influenced by either their political and cultural surroundings. I also thought it was interesting that these religions started out with pure and simple principles of communal harmony and equality for all (including women). But once the politics came in and the texts fell into the hands of generations later, God became something to Fear, Women became  marginalized and God also became something like a Ruler rather than the essence of existence.  Again, since this is a sensitive topic to a lot of believers, I am not by any means putting down these religions since I do see the strength and beauty of spiritual communities. I just find these historical patterns very intriguing. 

We have been very successful with manipulating the natural world for our purposes. When we do that, most of the beauty of what is natural is somehow lost. I am not putting down Science either. I am also a big lover of science with its analysis and breakthroughs. Knowledge is power as in the old adage. However, it is how it is used and twisted is what is disconcerting and unfortunate. Religion has its political and cultural roots that have kept people in check for a many millennia. These roots  do not invalidate people's connection with God. The essence is still there. The troubling part is how this powerful relationship has been used and still being used today. We can look to examples in history and even today where fierce-less rulers will align themselves with religion to get public buy in. You can  question a human, but no one can question God (except for the Atheists). 

So where am I going with this?  Come on now, this is one of my all time favourite topics. If we could cut away all this build up and fat that we accumulated over the centuries and stick to the essence of what God may be to anyone (regardless of what religious backbone), religion would not be such a sensitive topic. Some of our backs wouldn't be up if we talked about science and its explanation of natural phenomenon. There wouldn't such an extreme effort to blot the concept of God from our daily lives.  Who knows?  Or, perhaps we would find something else to argue about?