New eyes for reading the Bible: God

English: Bible in candlelight. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is one of those ideas, like my brief taxonomy of spirituality and religion, that I had a good while ago and then didn't get the chance to compose or finish composing. It is almost certainly true some of it has been forgotten or altered since the original inspiration.

A few points to make. This is not about a complex theological argument--it is not about debating theology in any way. It isn't about academic or left-brained discursive analysis. Nor is it about trying to get people to accept, convert to, or practice any form of Christianity. If you are overly argumentative or hyper-sensitive about religion, please refer back to these points if you feel the urge to complain.

I am not endorsing this perspective personally as something that I deeply believe, it just seems like a better/more interesting way to read the Bible. If you don't care for it, that's fine. I have no interest in arguing anyone into using this perspective. I am not endorsing Christianity or the Bible, nor am I trying to ignore or paint over the rough parts of either. But I do think if you are going to read the Bible, it's best to do so in a way that is going to make more sense to a modern audience and that challenges your comfortable (or uncomfortable) pre-conceptions.

So, this is basically a substitution system. Kind of like a translation, but without me actually reproducing the texts of the Bible with all of these changes awkwardly inserted. If you want to try this out, you'll have to remember or print the list and do the conversion mentally while you are reading something from the Bible or something from the Christian liturgy.

Oh, and while I develop things, you can just read the first descriptive paragraph of each major section entry in the series to get the basic translation. But you get much more if you read the rest. We begin by looking at God as Creator, God as Prophetic Authority, and God as Karma. But if you only pick one, try this first one...



God as the Creator

Try reading this as "the source or potentiality from which all energy and matter arises", especially if we are discussing God as "the Lord" or as "the Father".  In other words, read it as something beyond human comprehension or direct detection but whose effects can be observed in the manifestation of what we call existence, reality, etc. In more poetic terms, this also can be: "the invisible light by which all things can be seen", "the utter silence by which all things can be heard", "the unfelt presence by which all things can detected", "the inconceivable consciousness by which awareness and though are possible", and so on.