Article in Stretton Focus, October 2013
Any sentence with the word ‘God’ in it, should carry a health warning – be careful with this word because nobody really knows what it means. Religions generally think that they have access to the meaning of the word ‘God’, and they have made far-fetched, and often contradictory, claims on the basis of what they believe they know. Each religion has its own book or books, which are regarded as the sacred scriptures. They are thought to contain words which have been directly written by God, dictated by God or inspired by God – the result of which being that those scriptures have been regarded as authoritative, unquestionable or even infallible.
The word ‘scripture’ simply means ‘writing’ – and any writing will need to be interpreted in order to get the message. Ah – there’s the rub! Who will interpret these infallible words and tell us what they mean?
As there is no satisfactory answer to that question, it would be better if religions showed a bit more humility and accepted what to many is blindingly obvious, that all scriptures are man-made (with the emphasis on ‘Man’). They are part of our human attempt to understand what the word of God means, and how it can be a guide and inspiration for us to live up to our highest ideals of goodness, beauty, truth and love.
I shall be saying more about this in a lecture for Engaging Issues on November 5th under the title of “Who or what is God?” This is not just an academic question, it has far-reaching implications for world peace and for the harmony of life on our planet earth.
We humans have made for ourselves, and got ourselves embedded in, a religious quagmire from which we need to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. Perhaps a new understanding of the word ‘GOD’ will help us do it?
Donald Horsfield
