Relativism in Religion?

Does the Universe reflect the attributes ancient cultures assigned to God?

7 min read

Human beings often marvel at the cosmos. We might hope to find meaning, inspiration or signs of a creator. Religious figures such as Christ's Heavenly Father or the Gnostic Monad, I say; were shaped by non-religious ideas found in ancient Greek philosophical works about nature and the heavens. In churches today, people are expected to simply believe in creeds and the supernatural occurrences in religious text. Questionable propositions such as walking on water and resurrection. This relativism, believing in that which is usual unacceptable but only when situated in church, but retaining ones british skepticism in their private life, is quite baffling. 

If we stripped away all our religious belief systems the unimaginably supreme cosmos will not change one iota. We might hold some conventional ideas of the supreme being, usually a male figure, and decorated with adjectives fit for the cosmos itself, but, upon reading old testament scripture, we find he was defeated by an old Moabite army who worshipped a deity called Chemosh in Kings 3:26-27. This equated to Chemosh winning somehow. 

If we multiplied the ancient Moabite army a million times over, and turn them into planet sized warriors they would disappear in the vast eternity which houses hundreds of billions of galaxies. 

When it come to adding attributes to deities we often take inspiration from from the universe. The Online Etymology Dictionary (2021) notes universum, universus meaning all things as one, everything. Versus from vertere means to turn back, transform or be changed. For hundreds of years, the universe meant all things in one. Entirety. 

It sounds Neoplatonist but the universe has been seen as God by various traditions some way or another. Simple answer, the universe was here before himanity, religion or philosophy, therefor, why isn't the eternal universe more closely bonded with God across all abrahamic faiths?

The majesty of the universe is self evident to me, it's awesome! If God is all things, or almighty, then surely, this universe is under his control, less powerful than he is, right? How do you prove that? Even smaller ideas if God and his Angels, Demons and Fairies will all require proof, given the attributes we have for them you might imagine it to be easy, but no, it's not! Why? 

The mountains were shaped long before anyone proclaimed El Shaddai as their lord. We wrote stories setting ourselves above nature, but still; it's our biology that emerged from that what we call nature; it provided us the skills to develop literacy to question it. Nature and the universe are essentially the same, we contain stardust, ingredients from the cosmos. That's kind of like a DNA positive result, not forgetting the origin of DNA. 

To represent a general definition of God, you should examine the following common words I gathered and narrowed down. Sifting through popular sources including: Merriam Webster, Britannia Dictionary, The Free Dictionary, I grouped common denominators leaving a clear picture:

Being, Spirit, Mind, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Worshipped.

The words 'Being, Spirit and Mind' encapsulate existence and consciousness, perfectly well—same meaning. Indeed, you can argue and reduce your soul here, but, the same consciousness and being central to the human being. It is not unreasonable to agree with materialists, who might argue that ancient devotees projected the human mind onto the universe in some act of anthropomorphism. Right or wrong, notions of the almighty in pantheism or panentheism aren't cognitive biases, but other perspectives. 

If we consider worship, one of the popular key descriptive words; the act itself indicates a perception of a God—it's as if worship itself contributes to the existence of the deity. Faithful engagement with a perceived deity reflects back on to us, the relationship of devotee and deity. Absolutely, belief is powerful and effective and will often result with human ascribing attributions to their deities and defining them.

 

Cosmologists say the universe is unlimited energy/power, which relays to me, what religion has been calling omnipotence. Our galaxy alone is 100 000 light-years long. Photons, (light particles) move at a constant of 670 616 629 miles per hour. A light-year is the distance it travels in one earth year, typically about 6 trillion miles. NASA say we have hundreds of billions of galaxies in our observable universe, it is all powerful, given it is undeniably everything we know with much more packed away in the cupboard. The idea of omniscience is openly debated, while rejected by certain Eastern religions philosophy of mind, quantum mechanics continues to make slow progress. 

We can't scientifically prove or disprove consciousness. However, the universe is believed to support basic microscopic life at the very least. Subatomic partical connected lightyears apart are connected by quantum entanglement. The universe does not have to meet our criteria to be supreme and almighty. Heracletus said that no man or god created this eternal cosmos, but that is refutable by the global religions, regardless of how such philosophers as he, unintentionally inspired their theologies from which they might argue. 

Consider The Logos, Rhema, Panta Rhei, and Plato's Timaeus. We all know how Aristotle inspired Saint Thomas Aquinas. Christ was held synonymous with The Logos and Gnostic Christians pretty much copied and pasted Plato. If we simply put Hellenic/Jewish cross-cultural pollination under the lens it would explode!

Reference

The Old Etymological Dictionary (2021) Universe [Online] Available from: https://www.etymonline.com/word/universe#etymonline_v_4519