Selected Editorials - The Sikh Bulletin

Chapter 12, ‘Concept of God’. In preparation for that I decided to look for a book on evolution of the
concept of God.
The book that I chose to read on this subject was “The Evolution of God’ by Robert Wright, published
in June 2009 by Little, Brown and Company. This book put into words my thoughts that I had developed
over time. It was gratifying to learn that I shared a basic belief with Aristotle. According to the book of
Genesis, God created man in his own image, but according to Aristotle, men create gods after their
own image.
Religion was created to bring order to the social organization in the absence of secular codes of
conduct and means to enforce their implementation. God did not appear on Mount Sinai to
Moses. Moses himself chiseled the Ten Commandments on a slab of stone to put fear of God to
control the desperate and increasingly unruly people. Evolution of God and religion also came in
handy for the powerful to stay powerful and for ambitious and charismatic characters like Joseph
Smith, Jr. (1805 – 1844), the founder of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Like Mohammed he
too was led to God’s word by an Angel, Gabriel for former and Moroni for the latter, and if God was
accessible to Moses and Mohammed then why not to Joseph Smith and he got witnesses to prove it
although they had not witnessed anything. Today there are plentiful Evangelical Christian preachers who
claim to have been commandeered by God himself to do His work.
Human nature, governed by evolution, being the same prompted the Shamans, Medicine men,
Chiefs and Kings, from the Pharaohs to rulers of more recent times and some even today, with
their divine right to rule, to use religion and God to perpetuate their special and superior status.
Kings of Egypt, Mayan Kings and more recently English Kings claimed to be the sole agents of
the Gods. Henry VIII in England dissolved the monasteries and abbeys of Roman Catholic
Church in 1536 and set the Anglican Church apart from the Roman Catholic Church.
Constantine the Great (272-337) became the first Roman Emperor (306-307) to convert to
Christianity that his predecessors persecuted because it suited his political ambitions.
Mohammed was a political ruler. His moral compass made necessary adjustments depending
upon the circumstances.
Beginning of monotheism is generally attributed to Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity
and Islam. But here is an interesting point to ponder. The concept of Indo-European Languages,
and therefore people, is well accepted. This is the largest language family group with three
billion speakers. Of the twenty languages with the largest numbers of native speakers twelve are Indo-
European, English and Punjabi among them. Take the English word CREATOR and Punjabi word
KARTAR that Guru Nanak used to address ‘God’. Word sounds come from consonants. So when we
remove the vowels from both of these words we are left with C R T R and K R T R. Now C and K in
English produce the same sound unless they are followed by letter H which is not the case here. Would it
be a stretch to suggest that perhaps, at least among the Indo European speaking people, monotheism
preceded the concept of multiple Gods It is very tempting to have exclusively your own God. In ancient
Israel each city state had its own Yahweh until the most powerful tribe’s Yahweh triumphed over the
other weaker Yahwehs.
While reading this book I also came across a couple of Hebrew words that carry the same meaning in
Punjabi.
Hebrew word for RIVER is NAHAR (flowing water) and Hebrew God of death is called MOT (mOq).
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