Let’s break this down into some parts, but first the random not serious comment to throw this off.
Everyone better wish the Catholic Monotheist Creator is the correct one because with the way we are acting on this planet we need all the forgiving we can get or we are all going to hades in a hand basket.
The first part is some non standard theology musings.
Everyone has heard of the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
And if you do an internet search for acceptance in scripture you get an inordinate amount of different ways the concept of acceptance is viewed.
Then there are the arguments or discussions that we were created ten thousand years ago, or there is no God and we are a fluke and somewhere in this fluke the universe came about, or there is the idea that we evolved yet were still created, or you can find mysticism, or other random mythological creation stories or just do the internet search. To be honest I subscribe to the we are created, but it goes back to the beginning and the big bang is part of our creation. This is important to me because looking at it any other way and you discount creation and the power of our creator. Hold onto this thought.
Go back to the serenity prayer. This is not an ancient prayer, basically this is something written within the last one hundred years, but the concept comes from scriptures, yet lets put this in a different context. Suppose you are trying to communicate with man as the creator and you want to teach ancient man there are things you cannot control, but there are things you can control. This prayer would be helpful. Yet ancient man did not have the control of linguistics we have now. So how does ancient man learn to accept the fact Earth has tectonic plates and everything else that create a vibrant planet so life can thrive. Somewhat difficult of a conversation when science hasn’t been taught in third grade yet. What happens? Maybe some conversations are misunderstood.
Now this ancient man though is dealing with weather, earthquakes, natural fires, tornadoes, heat, cold, wind, and all the other natural occurrences that make this planet work. Ancient mankind has no idea what is going on, yet over time slowly learns to cope, but needs to understand there are some things that can’t be changed and some that can be. Mankind evolves into a society.
And all the while events and disasters, natural and manmade affect the world and are part of the world as it is created.
Now the second part:
Mankind is or has become obsessed with the idea of perfection. Yet who judges what is perfection. Oh we are so good at telling everyone what is perfect, shoot we have the number for perfect: “10″. It can be a movie or it can be a gymnast landing score, but somewhere something is perfect. And what you think is perfect is vastly different from what I think is perfect and this could be true even if we have general agreement on the subject at hand.
Yet even with this agreement of the subject we project our internal concept of perfection on others. And the more we think about it, the more we are right. This goes for the individual and it can expand to a group think. We find like minded ideas for perfection so we feel better about our definition of perfection. And yet if everyone in the group wrote down their definition of perfection separately the group would not be as cohesive as first thought.
So what happens when someone says God is perfect. You now have 7 billion versions of perfect and yet not one of those 7 billion know what is perfect. We know nothing of perfection in reality, but we sure know what is perfect in our eyes. We project a perfect God, but know not of God to know what is the perfection of God. Oh some will disagree with me, they have their Bible or what not, and it tells you straight up who is God and what we should do. Those people scare me and I believe in God. The perfect answer to God is to know you do not know God’s perfection.
The third part
Life sucks right now. People I know who are way more devout believers than myself are struggling. Not with their faith, but with the world. Good hard working Christians that live by the creed you must have faith and yes you will not know everything and there are some things you have to accept because it is all part of God’s plan. And I am being satirical and thoughtful simultaneously with the above thought. I truly believe and understand we have to accept what is going on and there is much more than you or I can understand. And what the heck is God’s plan is way beyond any of us. And yes some people rely on this thinking too much. They live with this belief of accepting God’s plan of what they do not understand because they fear randomness may actually exist and bad things can happen because well life sucks. They need a purpose put upon them. They also project this purpose to others.
So when someone who subscribes to the above creed says I need a visible sign they know they are not going to get one, yet they are desperately searching for one because we are human. They need something.
The Fourth Part
So here we are desperately needing an explanation as to why everything is upside down, what is it that we cannot change and what is it we can change, and why if God is perfect is nothing else perfect.
And here is where it gets ugly. People will now start creating a savior. And yet what do we need this savior for? The Jewish people are still waiting on a King to rescue them as a people. Christians are waiting for a second coming. Muslims the Iman Mahdi, but be careful here, there is some conflict about the discussion of his coming and pre-existence if any. Again be careful. And my ignorance here is dangerous.
And in general, someone on this planet right now is drawing or painting a hero, someone to rescue them, someone to show others how wrong they are and that there is a better place. We project saviors and heroes just as well as we do perfection. Shoot even the counter part to God is made into a hero. People nowadays take the ugliness of hate and draw caricatures of evil and try to make them seem heroic or even attractive hoping that this entity or identity is something special.
We want to be saved, yet as with no understanding of perfection we have no understanding of being saved. Some Christians use the term once saved always saved, but saved from what. Their sins? From themselves?
We call Jesus a Savior, but he did not save us from the Romans or any other tyrants.
Jewish people want the Savior King, yet exactly what would this King bring to them.
I will respectively leave other faiths alone, but in general people hold onto beliefs of saviors because they fear the unknown.
And yet there is no Savior dilemma. We were saved the day the world was created because we are here. We create the dilemma of needing to be saved.
So it goes back to understanding the difference of knowing what you can change and what you cannot. You can build a house to protect you from getting wet. You cannot make it stop raining. You can understand that everything has been given to you, but you have no power to control it. You may know enough science to understand how the dynamics of the world works, but you do not know why God knows this is perfect.
We need a savior because we refuse to accept that we are not in control of this, we want those signs that validate that my beliefs are the correct beliefs.
We are given life and it is perfect as it is given. Why do we want to be saved from perfection?
Post script
I am a Catholic. I stand up and say the Creed every Mass. I believe in the Trinity and all that it entails. I pray rosaries. I know Jesus died on the Cross for our sins. I am human with frailties and faults.
Some Catholics/Christians will disagree that I am Catholic or Christian because I will question my religion. I hope never to question my faith, but again I am human with frailties and faults.
Yet I write this post about the dilemma of saviors, not to question Christ, but to question ourselves. We fail God when we look for saviors.
I saw a modern Catholic lecturer and Bishop once explain that God sees us how he sees us, not how we see ourselves. There is a perfection to us that is always created. Our own insecurity about who we are make us hide. To me this makes us want a savior. Perfection does not mean I have never sinned, and of course it does not mean my sins are part of my perfection, they are part of me though. I do not know what perfection is, yet it was given to me.
People will call Jesus a savior with a capital “S” and they completely miss the point on what Jesus did. Jesus is not the classic hero savior, but so many Christians attribute this to him hoping that one day he returns and makes all the bad go away. He already took the bad. We are the ones who cannot go forward. Sure one day there may a glorious return and all of us will be judged, but there will not be a savior. For again, we were saved the day we were created because creation was perfect. What exactly does a savior need to do?
Jesus did die for our sins and that is something altogether different.
Post post script
Going back to the belief we are part of a much larger creation, that somewhere we were created through a long evolving process does not mean any one idea is right. It just means none of us, and I mean none of us, whether cleric or scientist or in between, none of us know the whole story of how we came to be. We can speculate and I love to, but if anyone says they know the definitive truth, run.
And finally I forgot after all this to say, no one as an idea of what is a savior or what exactly they expect one to be or what one looks like. Misguided dreams
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