"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
- George Bernard Shaw
Most religions presume that God wants something of humankind. Religions demand certain behaviors, diet, grooming & dress, obedience to doctrine, prayer, praise and thanks, etc., without considering why God wants something from us. (Asking why God wants anything from people is a topic for another post.) Across 3000 known religions, the stipulations vary widely – to pray at certain times on these days, to forgo work on that day, to eat these things but not those things, for men to wear a hat here but not there, for women to wear a hat here or a burkha there, to kill these things to honor God, to engage in certain sexual behaviors but not others, etc. Many religions, acting in the name of God, demand to control most aspects of human life.
Taken together, there’s little rhyme or reason to any of it. We should ask why God’s instructions are so vague. God is presumed to be all-powerful. Why didn’t he communicate his existence and his rulebook clearly and consistently to all people through all times? We should expect better communication from an all-powerful god who wants to communicate his message.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are left only apocryphal, unsubstantiated stories of significant communications from God, mostly thousands of years old. Thinking about the most significant direct communications from God, we might think of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Joan of Arc. According to religious tradition, Abraham lived about 4000 years ago, Moses lived about 3500 years ago, Jesus 2000 years ago, and Joan of Arc about 600 years ago. Archeologists have given up on finding historical evidence that Abraham and Moses existed. The only contemporary evidence of Jesus is in two passing references by the Jewish/Roman historian Josephus, writing about sixty years after Jesus’ death. How do we judge the authenticity of Jesus’ works and teachings from such fragmentary evidence? Did Joan of Arc actually experience holy visions, or hallucinations? We don’t know.
There is no evidence of direct communication from God. Nothing in religious tradition passes even rudimentary standards of evidence.
The Gospel of John says that Jesus is God’s only begotten son. The direct communication from God was given only to the Israelites under Roman occupation. Why was that? If God is all-powerful and caring, wouldn’t he have sent his emissaries fairly, to every culture on earth? Why did God wait for 1500 years after Jesus’ death to bring the good news of the savior to the native peoples of the Americas (while bringing genocide, smallpox and tuberculosis, too)? Why is God restricted to only one begotten son? Why didn’t God issue 10,000 sons to communicate clearly to all people? Why did God communicate so directly to one group 2000 years ago, and only erratically since then?
If God exists, and if he were interested in human recognition and compliance with his rules, you’d think he would communicate better to people in modern times. If God can move heaven and earth, why doesn’t he move the stars to write “I am the Lord your God” in every language on earth? Why doesn’t God send a tablet carved in unearthly materials, subject to validation through scientific measurement? Perhaps God could send a single electromagnetic message from the sky to every mobile phone on the planet, saying “I am”. But none of those things happen. We’re left with the stuff of myths from the late Bronze Age.
And as an aside, if God exists, why doesn’t God make life better for all of humankind?
Most religious people believe in the power of prayer to communicate with God. When a disciple asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he responded with the Lord’s Prayer. In it we find the basic attributes of prayer to God – praise, a wish for divine rule, a request for daily needs and preservation from harm, a request for forgiveness of sins. An expression of gratitude is not in the Lord’s Prayer, but is present in other prayers of the New Testament. But what evidence is there that prayer from worshiper to God is real communication, and not illusion? Please see my earlier post, “Regarding The Power of Prayer, or, Did the People on the Titanic Forget to Pray?”
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2016/07/regarding-power-of-prayer-or-did-people.html
We have two alternative explanations. First, we could conclude that God is mysterious, erratic, unclear and unfair in revealing his existence and salvation to the various peoples of earth. Alternatively, we can conclude that God doesn’t exist.
I began this essay with a quote from George Bernard Shaw, "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." For all of recorded history, across cultures and across time, people have succumbed to the illusion that communication has taken place with God. The path toward truth is to ask for evidence that communication with God ever occurred.
THE SILENCE IN THE MIDDLE OF A DESERTED STREET AT MIDNIGHT
THE SILENCE AFTER YOU’VE PRAYED”
Poem by Laurie Anderson, displayed at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
This poem and image are presented without permission and not for profit. They will be removed upon request, if desired by the artist.
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