Article in Stretton Focus, June 2014
A few months ago, in a letter to Focus (December 2013) a correspondent enquired about which God I worshipped. It was a ‘loaded’ question, designed to show that I didn’t worship any God; or at least not the right one!
Certainly for me, the word ‘worship’ has connotations that I don’t accept. If worship involves fawning and flattery and excessive adulation, then count me out. The philosopher Wittgenstein said that regarding any God who desires (or worse still, demands) to be worshipped, he would regard it as his duty to defy that God (and I would agree!).
The big question is not so much about worship itself, as about the God who is being worshipped. Even the simple question ‘do you believe in God?’ is loaded with the massive assumption that we can know who or what God is. What we DO know is that ‘God’ is a word in the English language. It’s our word, and it’s up to us to say what it means.
It will mean different things to different people. Those who claim that God is some Divine Being (or even, person!) who created the world, and intervenes in it from time to time for ‘his’ own purposes, are no different in kind from people who think otherwise. They are not telling us something about someone called God. They are telling us about themselves, and how they interpret their own experiences.
They may claim to have been ‘born again’ through some life-changing drama; but that too is their own opinion, no matter how much it is wrapped in religious language. Lots of people have similar kinds of experiences without resource to any Gods. There is no escape from this position; we are all in the same boat. Whatever happens to us are our own experiences which we have to understand in whatever way we choose.
If the word ‘God’ is our way of projecting ‘out there’ all that is best in human nature, all that we hope for, and long for, in terms of compassion and love, justice and peace, that’s fine by me. I’m prepared to be inspired and drawn by such a concept. But during our time on Earth, we humans have projected a lot of violent, negative and other unworthy attributes on to our Gods. It’s time for some new thinking about who or what God is; and thankfully this is happening. There is a paradigm shift going on (a movement of the Spirit), and when outdated ideas have crumbled, it will be time for re-building.
Donald Horsfield
