It really aggravates some people that we don't all see things in exactly the same way.
But if we're to continue as one peaceful global community we need to allow for diversity. I will have certain views and you will have others. And that's ok.
Imagine a garden where all the flowers were the same colour. Or, if you're no gardener, a wardrobe where all your dresses and accessories were identical. And to be fully gender-free, trying to find your car in a parking lot where all the cars were the same.
Depending on where on our planet you live, the Creator of this existence - if you believe such a being even exists, and more and more people don't - is variously known as Yahweh, Atua, Dieu, Krishna, God, Jehovah, 'he who has no name' or any one of many others, depending on our languages.
In the past many people understood this diversity of names to mean that the religions concerned worshipped many different gods. However, it is increasingly recognised that these seemingly diverse names merely reflect a variation of language.
Some religions use in the place of God those names that express various divine attributes, such as Peace, Love or Glory, often with different names for feminine or masculine qualities, yet they still describe that single God. One God.
Rejecting former primitive anthropomorphic concepts, this complex Creator is increasingly recognised as a vast unknowable force of indefinable nature whose influence is capable of creating vast solar systems, the size of which is beyond our mortal capacity to comprehend. The influence of Science is informing our limited concepts of the past.
We are recognising a God that needs no feminine or masculine name and is beyond gender. However, due to our extremely limited consciousness, the very idea of a limitless eternal existence daunts the human mind, so it's not surprising that we have needed to develop much simpler, often childlike, embodiments of this 'force' or 'being' that will also embody the attributes of knowledge, intelligence, attraction and love that are associated with such a Being.
So what does all this lead to? In my own personal paradigm as described in this blog, I believe that there is only one God known by different names.
Humanity is one common race and our different Prophets have come to different places on the planet at different times, bringing messages inspired by our one God with the purpose of healing the diverse problems that have been unique to each age.
Humanity's great challenge in this day is to recognise the extent to which in the past we have 'anthropomorphised' this vast force that is God, and find a new way of exploring what is meant by that great Reality which is beyond our limited human minds to comprehend.
We are being called to a new way of being in this wonderful family; now is the time for the unification of the whole human race.
'The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens'. - Baha'u'llah
More like this at https://www.bahaicomment.com/blog
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