{"id":55578,"date":"2017-03-29T15:33:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T10:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org\/?p=55578"},"modified":"2017-03-29T15:33:28","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T10:03:28","slug":"a-god-who-plays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=55578","title":{"rendered":"A God Who Plays"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would never trust a God who does not play. \u00a0This is because \u2018play\u2019 represents the simple and spontaneous joy in being. \u00a0It is an small eruption into human experience of the absolute freedom of the transcendental <\/span>Paramatman<\/span><\/i> who is self-projecting this phenomenal world of appearance as His play. \u00a0Thus, a God for whom play is alien is separated from one of the key elements of Divinity and we must question if this entity could be the true sovereign of the Universe. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The same can be said for a God which must command he be loved (Deut. 6:5) with the same voice of authority with which he demands fear (Deut. 10:12). \u00a0The word \u2018love\u2019 in such circumstances is conditional and only a mask for fear. <\/span><\/p>\n

The God who Commands Fear<\/strong><\/p>\n

We find such an entity in the Near Eastern god Jehovah. \u00a0In the Ugaritic texts (which predate the Hebrew language) it is revealed that he began his career as a lesser son of the Canaanite god El and a war god (<\/span>KTU 1.1 IV 14)<\/span>. \u00a0Later, as the Hebrews developed he became exalted by them as the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9-11) who thunders from his floating throne of strange chimeras (Ezekiel 1) or burning winged snakes (Isaiah 6:2). \u00a0He is the god of the Hebrews, the First Person of the Christian trinity and also Allah. \u00a0Thus, he is the lord of the Abrahamic Faiths. \u00a0\u00a0There is a strong current in these faiths that the inner life of their adherents is driven by this fear which he demands (Deuteronomy 6:13, Acts 5:11 & Quran Al-Baqam 41,): so much so that fear is often the foundation of these systems. \u00a0This is not a god who plays since that would reduce anxiety. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This emotional state reinforced by authority can create a psychology of self-loathing to justify and therefore hopefully placate that authority by agreement. \u00a0One hopes a pleased bully will stop his bullying. \u00a0What can result is that self-humiliation and suffering become idealized virtues as one is locked in a spiral where everything human is stained as sinful simply by virtue of its existence. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another way this fear manifest itself is an outward projection as various wars against sin and the struggle to constitute the chimerical kingdom of god upon this earth. \u00a0As in the case of Calvin\u2019s Geneva and ISIS these cult communities can become horror shows in their doomed war against human nature. \u00a0This dynamic in its inner and outer expressions has driven a great deal of suffering across the globe. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Christianity in particular, the basis for this anxiety it seeks to inculcate is the Fall of Man. \u00a0To Fundamentalists Christians, the Fall of Adam 5777 years ago brought the curse of Jehovah upon all human beings who, they claim, merit eternal torture (Romans 5 & 1 Corinthians 15) as a result. \u00a0This is the doctrine of Original Sin. \u00a0While degrees vary among Christians sects, they share this basic view. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An exaggerated degradation of human life and the material world is characteristic of Christian literature from an early point. \u00a0Human beings are \u201cgloomy bodies amid phlegm and blood, among these bags of filth and vessels of urine\u201d (Arnobius, \u2018Against Heresies,\u2019 Book 2). \u00a0In this view, man is contaminated. \u00a0Tertullian writes \u201cOn account of his transgression man was given over to death, and the whole human race, which was infected by his seed, was made the transmitter of condemnation\u201d (The Testimony of the Soul 3:2). \u00a0The very act of being born results in condemnation by Jehovah, which applies even to infants and young children, as Cyprian of Carthage wrote, \u201cborn of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the old death for his being born\u201d (Cyprian, Letters 64:5). \u00a0For this reason, infants and young children who die unbaptized also must suffer judgement from Jehovah for Adam\u2019s sin (Augustine, \u2018Against Julian,\u2019 Book 5, Chapter 11). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the extreme view, that of Calvinism, man\u2019s nature is not only revolting and corrupted but is \u201ca seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God\u201d (Calvin, \u2018Institutes\u2019 Book 2, 1,8) and further man \u201ccannot move and act except in the direction of evil\u201d (ibid, 3,5). \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Within these currents of Christian thought, the \u2018spiritual life\u2019 is founded upon \u201cdistrust of self\u201d and we please Jehovah when we \u201clearn to despise ourselves as wretched creatures\u201d (\u2018The Spiritual Combat,\u2019 Scupoli, Chapter 2). \u00a0In some circles, such as those of Francis de Sales representing the Counter Reformation, it is advocated that believers are to make a mantra of knotted cords to psychologically reinforce these views by whipping the psyche. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am only the corruption of the world and a sink of ingratitude and iniquity \u2026 I have left neither a single sense nor one of my mental faculties uncorrupted, unviolated and undefiled.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n