The Church and the evolution of God.

Faith is divine; man births religion. I am afraid it is fear that brings man to God: at a time, that man realizes his finitude, then out of the fear of various phenomenons  death, accident, social classes …etc.  Man start to look beyond the physical, and out of curiosity he starts to get himself attach to metaphysical entities which of course, he is not sure of such metaphysical being ontological status. Nevertheless, what is true is according to Dan Brown, in his novel -Angels and Demon- we all benefit from a sense of contact with divinity even if it is only imagined. In this think piece, I will underscore a field of science called noetic science. Noetic science simply says, our thoughts can move particles. If God/gods/goddesses exist, at all, we possibly can create them, through our mental state. An explicit explanation of this field of science, and how it is applicable to my meditations is what I will do in latter paragraphs to conclude my think piece.

My greatest concern in this think piece of mine is not about the ontological status of God, but rather on the mutation of his being. This I will use as a tool of skepticism, to doubt his being. This piece is not atheistic but a comprehension of my reasoning. However, you might find it to be atheistic. Nevertheless, unlike the credo ut intelligam of St Anselm, I try to understand before believing. 

From my various reading of History, of the Church, I have concluded, that: there is always a devil in this world, and it is the Church. However, we should be joyful and be happy that no matter what does to keep man in darkness, the truth will always suffix. The Catholic Church is God’s greatest adversary. Because if man is God’s greatest creation, and man, through scientific methods, search and arrive at truths about the world, and the Catholic Church sees these scientists as heresies, then one may categorically say that the Catholic Church is the devil on earth. They torture men of science like Galileo and murdered Copernicus because they reveal universal truths, about human existence, and the Church wants man to be ignorant forever. The Popes have done more bad to humanity than the devil itself: Considering the many orders, they have carried out about the hunting and burning of groups of men and women who seek to fill their curiosity by searching for the truth. The killing of The Knights of Templar should be put in this category. In the 13th century, and even until today, people now enter into the Seminary so that they could feed themselves and not because God did flash his /her phone. I am still curious about the immutable God we worship through conventions rather than revelations. It is because of this devilish act of Catholicism that we have the 14th century “reformation” by Martin Luther, who was born in Saxony, a state of the Roman Empire, in 1438 & John Calvin in the 15th century. This reformations should however be pointed out that it is guided by reasoning and not revelation. Gareth Southgate wrote in his book A TEXT BOOK OF MODERN ENGLISH HISTORY that:

In 1509, the Elector of Saxony established a University at Wittenberg and appointed Luther as one of its professors. In 1512, the young Friar visited Rome and was deeply impressed with the wickedness which prevailed there, though he had at the time no idea of taking action against it. But a year or two later a Dominican friar named Tetzel was sent into Germany to sell indulgences to the people, the money so obtained being used for the building of St peters church in Rome. For a time, Tetzel did well, large sums being raised. In his travel from state to state, he is not always welcome, for the princes did not altogether approve of so much money being sent out of the country. But none of them ventured to incur the wrath of the Pope by forbidding his agent to continue the sale. When, therefore, Luther called the proceeding of Tetzel in question he had at once the sympathy and support of many of the prince. In 1517, Luther gave notice of his intention to debate the subject of indulgences against all comers. He nailed on the church door at Wittenberg a paper containing Ninety-five statements on the subject, including assertions that indulgences that were bought and sold are valueless, that the penalties of sin were not evaded by the payment of money, and that pardon for sin was to be obtained only by repentance and faith in God.  Luther intended to start a university debate, but before long the whole town of Wittenberg was talking of nothing else, and the matter soon spread throughout the state of Saxony and far and wide through the Empire.

At first, Martin Luther was acting as though he was defending the true doctrine of the church against an error which crept in, but later he realize and boldly defied the Pope, whom he described as antichrist. The Church has abolished the selling of indulgences, but the selling of it at the first instances indicates that:  God might be real, but the church is tantamount to fraud and deception. I purposely mentioned fraud because other men have criticized the church, but they were not excommunicated. However, Luther criticism of indulgences affected papal revenues, and this led to his condemnation.
  
At first, the Catholic Church was against the men who protest against the doings of the church. In addition, like all other men who want to bring men out of ignorance, the Catholic Church wants them dead. It is however worthy of note that my major concern is with the Catholic Church of the days in which the Pope is seen as the God on earth.  
  
My claim that “the church is not real” might not succeed in empirical verifications, but with no modicum of skepticism, I am sure it will succeed if one follows rightly his/her mode of reasoning. Have you ever wonder why we have mutations of God? By mutation I mean that the “God” Jesus in the Bible served have drastically change from today’s God, considering the way he is been worship then and now. My argument that the church is unreal can also be justified by the act of the church. The church coordinator (Popes, Pastors, Bishop) do not teach according to revelations again, but with conventions that have been laid down by men like them who choose to work close with God. Doctrines and its subsistence evolution is another justification for the unreal parody of the church.

I still hold on to my claim that the church is unreal. Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of Sun worship. Christianity is filled with example of sun worship. December 25th is the ancient pagan holiday of Sol Invictus  unconquered Sun coinciding with the winter solstice. It is that wonderful time of the year when the Sun returns, and the days start getting longer. I bet you had never wonder why Jesus birth is celebrated in the 25th day of December when the Bible, vehemently, indicates that he  Jesus- was born around early March. Christianity, historically, started from Rome  a nation that was formerly polytheistic  with the help of its Emperor then  Emperor Constantine, who had formulated the council of Nicaea in 357AD- a council that formulated most of Christians earliest doctrines. Christianity conquered paganism in Rome, before spreading to other nations, through evangelism and colonization. Conquering religions often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It is called “transmutation.” It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. But I am curious with all the attributes of God- omnipotence, omniscience, alpha and omega- he still needs the process of transmutation for people to adhere with his governance. 

Christianity did not borrow only from Sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient god-making rite of Ephemeris. The practice of god-eating- that is Holy communion was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl. Modern religion is a collage: an assimilated historical record of mans quest to understand the divine.      

Due to criticisms from mortals, the church, which worship an immortal being, have adjust many of its doctrines. Until 1520, the church had possessed one good feature, which it lost in time. It had been, as Christ intended it to be, one church. The church has now split up, and the division that began in 1520 has never been healed. Instead, divisions have multiplied, and there are now hundreds of bodies, large and small, that claim to be part of the Christian Church. This is what makes me curious: these churches claims to worship, just, one God, and yet they have different doctrines, which clearly shows that they are claiming that there is possibility of contradiction of holy spirits, since it is the Holy spirit that, according to them, provides divine illuminations for their minds. However, it will be obnoxious to think that way, since according to the Bible both the God the father, God the Son, God the holy spirit are one. By logical implication, therefore, one could conclude that only one of these churches can be true, if at all, God ordains it. By implication again, therefore, others will burn for eternity in Hell, since they did not adhere with “Gods true doctrines.

For a religion to be true, it must be conservative and static. Not liberal and dynamic. Alternatively, one might rightly argue that God is evolving. To make such claim that: God is evolving is synonymous to “humans create God” since we decide, through conventions, his/her attributes. But do we not actually create God/gods/goddesses? The ancient gods were Apollo. Zeus, etc. the ancient people prayed to these gods, did it not work for them. Perhaps it is possible god is evolving, and the capability of man to make complex ideas, through the power of reason, helps him/her  god- to fashion his own existence, since our thought is capable of bring things into existence.

References:
A TEXT BOOK OF MODERN ENGLISH HISTORY BOOK ONE THE TUDOR AND STUART PERIODS 1485-1714 by GARETH Southgate
Angels And Demons by Dan Brown
*To read more about noetic science, check ORIGIN by Dan Brown

Idowu Odeyemi

Idowu Odeyemi is a Nigerian poet, essayist and writer of fiction. He was shortlisted for 2018 Nigerian Students Poetry Prize and the 2018 Christopher Okigbo Interuniversity Poetry Festival. He is the winner of the 2018 Ekiti Future Awards Prize for Literature. His works have appeared or are forthcoming on Tuck magazine, Kahalari review, Constellate journal, Praxis magazine, Opinion Nigeria among others.

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