posted on Jun, 11 2003 @ 09:01 PM
Answer:
This question has already been "answered" too many times.
As the British author and socialist George Bernard Shaw said, "There are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to
reveal the Will of God on every possible subject."
To determine God's will, one would need to identify God's characteristics and intention.
The late British geneticist and biologist J.B.S. Haldane, one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century, analyzed everything that
biology revealed to him about God and concluded, "He seems to have an inordinate fondness for beetles."
I'm sure we can do better than that.
Due to man's misperceptions, God has often been misdefined by man, followed by imperfect translations of all ancient religious writings. All those
misperceptions, inaccurate definitions and alterations have resulted in multitudinous misunderstandings about God.
God is customarily misdefined today as "the Being perfect in wisdom, power and goodness whom people worship as creator and ruler of the
universe."
Therefore, worship would seem to be what God wants, since worshipping God is what people do, per their definition. That, however, is just one example
of man's numerous misunderstandings.
Perfect wisdom, power and goodness are admirable traits that induce respect and reverence; therefore, man considers them sacred. Man, however, long
ago misinterpreted respect to mean worship, which no Being who is perfect in wisdom, power and goodness could ever need or, therefore, would have any
reason to demand.
The more wisdom that one knows, the less respect he requires.
To require anything reflects a need, which is short of perfection, which violates man's definition of God.
Only imperfect man, in his irrational arrogance, could conceive that any entity could so urgently need respect that it would require, much less
demand, worship.
Only by entirely ignoring man's own definition of the word "God" could one conclude that God's will is to be worshiped. Any house devoted to the
worship of God is, by man's own definition, a house of misunderstanding of God.
Many would say that God's will includes prayer, which, along with worship, people offer God continually, but that is another example of man's
various misunderstandings.
Communicating to God either aloud and verbally, or silently and telepathically, is called prayer. When God replies, it's called schizophrenia.
By definition, a supreme being who is perfect in wisdom, power, and goodness is all knowing and, therefore, knows everything that is in a person's
heart, and his or her every feeling and desire, and the person's every thought, at least by the instant it is formed.
God never needs to be told; God already knows.
Consequently, modern man's belief that he needs to continually act out the appropriate steps of praying to somehow get his messages across to God
again irrefutably reflects man's misunderstanding of his own definition of "God."
The call to worship and pray, however, helps funnel vast funds into the coffers of the many churches that blatantly fail to abide by their own
definition of the word "God."
Religious teachers who preach with the most anger, or instill the most fear, or incite the most judgment, or vocalize the most fervently about
condemnation and "hell, fire and brimstone," are the most deficient in wisdom and have the greatest misunderstanding of their own definition of
"God."
The eighteenth century French writer Fran�ois Voltaire noted, "If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated." All our ideas of
God being jealous, angry, vengeful, wrathful, and the likes, are all false attributes and human frailties assigned to God in error by man and are
clearly inconsistent with perfect wisdom and goodness.
Imperfect humans may throw tantrums, but a perfectly wise, powerful and good God would have to be understanding. After all, having created the
physical universe, God would have total understanding of it and everything in it.
God's primary characteristic is total understanding, of you, and everyone and everything else, and of the entire physical universe.
God's intention � and therefore will � is for each person to have total understanding of himself or herself, and of everyone and everything else,
also.
Unfortunately, we have a long row to hoe, having gotten off on the wrong foot long, long ago. In the beginning was the word � and the word was
misunderstood.
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Source withheld until permission granted.
JHAustin