Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Books
  • Retreats
  • Interviews
  • Resources
  • Reflections
  • Other Resources
  • Donate
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
Product was added to your cart

Cart

FAST FOOD (2014): Sixteenth Helping

July 16, 2014adminBlog - Fast Food 2014, Fast Food Helpings (Previous)

Again, “We adore God Who is love, who in Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, Who offered Himself on the Cross to expiate our sins, and through the power of this love, rose from the dead and lives in His Church. We have no God other than Him”
(Pope Francis, 6/21/14).

Since a person’s image of God is so intertwined with his or her self image, from where does a person acquire his or her image of God? It is not just the First Commandment; it is a fact of human existence that God is beyond imaging. God is imageless, beyond description, beyond understanding, invisible and incomprehensible. The best that reason alone can do is to say, “God is.” Whether God is love, as Pope Francis proclaims above, or loveless, whether God is a father or a terrorist, whether God supports homicidal violence or finds it an abomination, all this and everything else is beyond human capacity to know by reason. All that can possibly be known is God is–IAM. Other than this, what kind of God God is and what God expects of people is beyond human comprehension. People can pontificate with a passion that God is this or God hates that, but on the basis of reason alone it is all gossamer, 100% pure conjecture. That’s fact, not opinion.

So the images people have of God in paintings, films and literature are just the imaginary products of reason brought to bear on their dreams or nightmares, their loves or hates, their self interests or sufferings, etc. Such image, whether pictorial or propostional have no reasonable theological or moral validation even if a billion people accept them–because the quantity of people agreeing with a picture or proposition about God cannot validate the truth presented by that picture or proposition. When Noam Chomsky, a world renowned academic authority in the field of linguistic, is asked, as he often is, “Do you believe in God,” his answer is always the same: “Tell me what you mean by “God” and I will tell you whether I believe in God or not.” I suppose if someone did tell him what he or she meant by God, Chomsky’s question to them would be, “By what method have you validated as the truth your description or definiton of God?” If they say “By reason,” the ball game is over. If they say, “By faith,” that is acceptable for them. But it is then a subjective understanding of God, which they experience as true but for which there are no means objectively available to others to validate its truth
.
Of course, if God is incomprehensible beyond mere “isness”–IAM–and if people, because of the structure of the human brain long to know, “Where did I come from? Why am I here” and “Where am I going,” then we have the greatest market that ever existed in which to make a buck or a billion bucks–and it is wide open to every flimflam artist, every con-man, every huckster, every entrepreneur on the planet generation unto generation. At which point the word “religion” becomes synonymous with “a den of thieves.” No image of God, pictorial or propositional, is beyond sale, if the need for that particular image exists in a person or a group for some reason. The amount of loot to be raked in for proclaiming, marketing and selling a particular image of God is in direct proportion to how desperate the need is in those who buy it or buy into it.

If a religion is receiving millions of dollars a year from the government or the military or the economic elites of a society, it better not be marketing, or start marketing, an image of God that undermines the moral validity of what the people in those institutions are about–even if it is mass murder.

In most institutional religions, and Christian institutions are no exception, money, its acquisition and its maintenance, is a major, if not the primary, hermeneutic for interpreting the meaning of “God” and of any Sacred Scriptures they may believe that they possesses. It is, for example, the hermeneutic by which Jesus’ teaching, “Love you enemies,” is interpreted as including moral permission to terrorize, torture and slaughter enemies. When Jesus states, “You cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve God and money” (Mt 6:24), did He ever hit the nail on the head! Did He ever put front and center the temptation and the malignant, life destroying, spiritual cancer present within most religious institutions, including Christian institutions, down to this day.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy (To be continued)

admin
Previous post FAST FOOD (2014): Fifteenth Helping Next post FAST FOOD (2014): Seventeenth Helping

Recent Posts

  • Fast Food 2020 1st Jul to 9thAug
  • Our Lamb has conquered; Him let us follow.
  • Our Lamb has conquered;Him let us follow.
  • Our Lamb has conquered; Him let us follow.
  • PRAYER FOR THE FORTY DAY FAST FOR THE TRUTH OF GOSPEL NONVIOLENCE

Recent Comments

    Recent Posts

    • Fast Food 2020 1st Jul to 9thAug January 19, 2021
    • Our Lamb has conquered; Him let us follow. September 29, 2020
    • Our Lamb has conquered;Him let us follow. September 29, 2020
    • Our Lamb has conquered; Him let us follow. September 29, 2020
    January 2021
    M T W T F S S
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    25262728293031
    « Sep    

    Tags

    A Christian Response to Terrorism August 9 The Censer Behold the lamb capital punishment christian nonviolence christians in the military Christmas civil disobedience Collection for the Catholic Military Archdiocese Death electing a pope Emmanuel Charles charlie McCarthy Emmanuel Charles McCarthy emmanuel mccarthy fast food Fasting Gospel Gospel nonviolence jesus journal kingdom of the lamb Love your enemies Meaning Mercy Mercy:The essence of the Gospel Mercy and the Gospel military chaplain Nonviolence Nonviolent Jesus Nonviolent Mercy Nonviolent Way oath pope's final day pope benedict's resignation pope resigns pope resigns 2013 prayer prayer for peace Resurrection spanish swearing The Lamb Rich in Mercy vocations Vocations and prayer issues when a pope resigns zabelka

    Categories

    • Action Against Violence (12)
    • Audio Files (11)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2012 (42)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2014 (40)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2016 (42)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2018 (40)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2019 (40)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2020 (1)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2013 (40)
    • Blog – Fast Food 2015 (40)
    • Booklets (9)
    • Books (3)
    • Edith Stein (6)
    • Fast Food Helpings (Previous) (198)
    • Home (7)
    • Images of War (16)
    • Jesus Journal (8)
    • Other Resources (147)
    • Retreats (3)
    • Special topics (55)
    • The Nonviolent Eucharist (5)
    • Transcripts (10)
    • Uncategorized (36)
    • Videos (17)
    • Vocations and Prayer Articles (26)

    About Us

    The full embracing of Gospel Nonviolence calls for a radical alteration in thought patterns, verbal patterns, behavioral patterns, and emotional patterns. That is, it requires a completely different reality orientation and self-understanding.

    Quick Links

    • Faq’s
    • Privacy Policy
    • Sitemap
    • Terms & Conditions

    Contacts

    8 Moneynoe Park Enniskillen , Co. Fermanagh Northern Ireland, BT74 4ER
    Facebook
    Vimeo
    Behance
    Instagram
    Xing
    SoundCloud
    Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved by Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy