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