The 1,001st God

It's Thursday evening and I'm at the aquatic center taking my weekly swim. I go to the bottom of the pool and there I find my favorite thinking spot. There are no cell phones to bug me, no one can reach me. I am all alone and I'm enjoying the peace and serenity.

What am I thinking about? I could be thinking about all the times I had my heart broken or all the bad decisions I've made in life. I could be thinking about my poor country and its broken political system and broken healthcare system, and dying economy. But this time I am thinking about what a dear friend once told me. She said that God is compassion.

Now, my body is wanting to come up for air and I see the lights from the ceiling blurred and swirling on the surface of the water. Nothing is definitive down here because the water blurs the light. But I know that if I don't breathe the peace will soon become darkness.

But I keep thinking. See, here in America the predominant God is Yahweh, the God of the Bronze Age Israelites. It is no secret that the creation of this God was influenced by both the neighbors and invaders of the Kingdom of Judah. The Western God, you know, the "real" correct God is mixed with a little Babylonian and Canaanite theology, and for the icing on the cake is the ancient belief of Zoroastrianism. Later, Rabbinic Judaism emerged and splinter groups emerged as well, including one little salvationist cult called Christianity. The Roman gods just weren't cutting it any more, and in an act of brilliance the Empire morphed from a physical organization to a spiritual one under the umbrella of catholicism. As time went on groups who believed differently continued to spin away from the Roman Catholic Church, and soon there were the Protestants, Calvins, Baptists, and so on.

I let out a little air and see bubbles quickly rise to the surface where they disappear forever. Now I'm thinking about the people who have their own ideas of God. A person once told me that Jesus was an alien from space, while someone else said that God is simply a collective, universal energy.

I don't know, but suddenly air is my primary focus so I rise to the top, take a breath, and return to my own dark abyss. Now I'm thinking about a recent poll on Twitter that asked the following question:

If you could teach everyone in the world one concept, what concept do you believe would have the largest positive impact on humanity?

Now, we are getting somewhere. We are discussing the very reason of why I blog and what I futilely scream about all the time. The survey had 3,900 responses and I could hardly wait to read the answers. As I scrolled down and read hundreds of answers, there was a consistent theme about teaching the world empathy, compassion, kindness, and unconditional love. So, I'm beginning to think my friend is right. Maybe God isn't one of the 1,000 deities invented by men over the course of history. I now realize that God is our more highly evolved attributes that distinguish us from most other animals. God is altruism, compassion, sympathy, kindness, and love. I know that Yahweh remains the main God for Western civilization, but He could be a real bastard at times. He's the guy who murdered little Egyptian babies and ordered people executed for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. He is not my God, nor will he ever be.

And it's easy to talk about "concepts" like compassion but the reality of applying them is far more difficult. From birth, humans are pushed into a pattern of thinking and behavior that is influenced by their upbringing, religion, and other factors. Most people are unable to break from their patterns and mental programming. While they may acknowledge an attribute like "kindness," they may have more overriding behaviors built in like self-righteousness, piousness, arrogance, and selfishness.

The best way for everyone to make a difference is to accept and learn critical thinking, have an open mind, and tolerate competing ideas. This way of thinking creates the foundation for more higher-level behaviors, such as altruism. Many of us grow up in painful environments and the narcissism and sociopathic behaviors arise as coping mechanisms. Many people will go through life self-absorbed and even indifferent or neutral toward the actions needed to save our world, both socially and environmentally. So, those of us who can still feel must feel, and those of us who can still love must love. That is the collective and positive energy that will create the 1,001st God, and the God that becomes the catalyst for real change.

And now I can come up for air.   

Bottom Photo: Lina Trochez Top Photo: Cristian Palmer