FOOD FOR THOUGHT: "Ignorance is an affront. Get rid of it"
	YOU ARE IN DARKNESS.
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Christianity is not as ancient as Judaism, and it lacks the appealing rituals of paganism. Paganism was a potential threat, because Christians insisted, their supreme overseer was the only one and all the other deities were fantasies. Christianity had no coherent  theology. It could only be described as a 'carefully cultivated attitude of commitment.' That was why the Christians were feeling uneasy. They felt the need to develop a theology. They borrowed it from Mithraism, Zoroastrianism etc. At the same time scholars, theologians and the people who were interested in the matter have begun developing new approaches and ideas related to god. From amongst  the theologies that Christians have begun developing in haste, let us have a look at the radical propositions put forth by the gnostikoi-gnostics. First of all they turned from philosophy to mythology (Rightly so! Because philosophy did not solve anything, as we can easily see today). Their starting point was an absolutely incomprehensible reality that they have called the godhead. That was the source of the supreme entity we call god.  Mankind had nothing to say about it. It was beyond the capacity of man's limited intellect(!). Here is the description that was presented by the Gnostics:

• " Godhead is perfect and pre-existent...

• Residing in invisible and unspeakable heights.

• This is the pre-beginning and forefather and depth.

• It is overwhelming/uncontainable and invisible, eternal and ungenerated..,

• It is Quiet and in deep Solitude for infinite aeons.

• With It was thought, which is also called Grace and Silence."

Did you understand anything? Let alone grasping the 'thing' that is described, even the description itself is incomprehensible. One Gnostic, Basilides, taught that in the beginning there had been not god but only godhead. It was neither good  nor evil.  It could not even be said to exist.  It was Nothing because it did not exist in any sense that we could understand. At one point in time - our time also, because Nothingness is timeless! - this Nothingness wished to make itself known (tradition has it that the god of Islam said to the Hagarene Messenger that he has 'created' because He wished to be known!); there was an inner revolution in the depths of its unfathomable being which has resulted in a series of emanations; the first of these emanations was god; and even this god  is inaccessible to us; then came further emanations from this supreme creator in pairs, a male and a female; after thirty such emanations the process has stopped; the Pleroma, the divine world, was complete; then the last of the emanations, Sophia (wisdom) fell from grace because she wished for a forbidden knowledge of the godhead, and fell from the Pleroma; the consequent grief and distress of hers had formed the world of matter. Some other Gnostics have even claimed that 'god had not created the material world because he could have had nothing to do with a vulgar activity like this.' This creation was the work of one of the aeons (subordinate-lesser-inferior deities) of a demiourgos, or creator. He became envious of god and wished to be the centre of the Pleroma, as a result of which he fell and created the world in an outburst of defiance. Valentinus says that this demiourgos "had made heaven without knowledge, he formed man in ignorance of man, he brought Earth to light without understanding Earth." But the logos, another of the aeons, came to  rescue, has assumed the appearance of Jesus, and descended to the earth  to teach mankind the way to god.

Absolute nonsense of course! All this  effort is just to find an explanation for the inexplicable invention.

Look what Hippolytus (Heresies) had to say on the matter of where to look for the supreme being: "Give up the search for god and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. In seeking god start from yourself. Learn who is that within you that makes everything his own and says, my god, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body. Get to know the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate. Get to know how it happens that one watches without willing, loves without willing. If you carefully investigate these matters, you will find him in yourself." Also according to this approach some divine sparks had also fallen from the Pleroma during the Primal fall of either Sophia or the Demiourgos, and was trapped in matter. Man is  'matter', hence a gnostic could find a divine spark in his own soul. If he becomes aware of this it would help him to find his way back home. Where do you think this home is? 'Up there' of course, the realm where the divine entities and supreme beings live.

Plotinus believed that to find the underlying truth of reality, the soul must reform itself, undergo a period of purification (katharsis) and engage in contemplation-meditation (theoria) as Plato had advised. Tto see into the heart of the reality one must look beyond the Cosmos, beyond the world of the senses, and even beyond the limitations of the intellect . This is not going to be a climb to a reality outside ourselves, but a dive into the mind. Plotinus has called the ultimate reality, 'One', which was the primal unity. Following is the characteristics of the overwhelming reality to which all things owed their existence:

• The One was the simple simplicity so there was nothing to say about it. It had no qualities distinct from its essence. Therefore ordinary description was impossible. It just was. The One is nameless. There would be more truth in silence. It cannot even be said to exist. The Being itself, it is not a thing. It is distinct from all things. It is everything and nothing. It cannot be one of the existing things. But it is all. It has no physical being. It has no gender. It is not interested in us.

Here the discerning intellect will detect almost all of the basics of the present day perception of god.

Arius of Alexandria must have felt it was the right time, so he asked a crucial question: "How could Jesus Christ have been god in the same way as god the Father?" Arius has accepted Jesus as god, but it was a blasphemy to think that Jesus was divine by nature. It was immediately realized that Arius was asking vital questions about the nature of the supreme creator. Arius, Alexandros and Athanasius have started believing in a doctrine enough to shock all the Platonists. They believed that god had created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing). They had taken the scriptures as their base. There was nothing written to this effect in Genesis. This was a completely new proposition. This new doctrine emphasised the gnostic view shared by the Christians that Cosmos was intrinsically frail and totally dependent on god for being and life. God summoned everything in creation from nothingness. Therefore god and mankind were no longer akin. God had his sustaining hand behind it all. There was no longer an eternal chain of emanations from god. There was no longer an intermediate world of spiritual beings who transmitted the world divine mana which was the power of the elemental forces of nature embodied in an object or person. Mankind could no longer climb up the chain of existence to god by his own efforts. Only god could assure their eternal salvation. Arius' god was 'the only unbegotten, the only eternal, the only one without beginning, the only true, the only one who has immortality, the only good, the only potentate.'

There was a gulf between the supreme cerator and the mankind. If Christ had crossed this gulf, how had he done it? On which side of this divide was he? Either Christ the Word has belonged to the divine realm (it was now the realm of god alone), or he has belonged to the 'lowly' created order down here. Athanasius has placed Jesus in the divine world, and Arius in the order of the created. Arius claimed that 'Christ the Word' could only be a creature like ourselves.

Ex nihilo creation was made an official Christian doctrine for the first  time at the Nicaea Council at 325 A.D. Who did this? The bishops who were  attending the Council,  in other words, human beings did it! Who wrote the story of Genesis? Man! Who were the first ones to think of a supreme being? According to the tablets found, the Sumerians. Again men! Who were the first ones to invent the story of  'man made of mud'? Sumerians again. Men again! Who were the first ones to invent the story of woman created from the rib of man? The Sumerians. Human beings!

In the beginning gods lived side by side with mankind, rode an ass, walked, talked, slept, loved, fought, died, fell ill etc. like man. But later on, they began to move away as the fact started to dawn on the leaders of the belief systems that  this idea of  anthropomorphic gods had very serious shortcomings. Gods have started receding or mankind  has  thought that they should  be doing just that. Where did they move? To the sky! That was the only place befitting the supreme beings. One of them, YHVH, resumed contacts with mankind which meant that a god has revealed himself to a human - Moses - again. Then came a god in flesh, the son of god, the Messiah, the anointed one - Jesus Christ. A god in the shape of man.

Now, back to our subject..  If the Council of Nicaea, a congregation of human beings, has decided that the creation was ex nihilo, then someone must explain the story in Genesis? The Old Testament is said to be the word of god. Either the story in Genesis is the invention of the mankind or the Council of Nicaea is against the concept of creation by the supreme being. Let us go back to Jesus Christ. He gave his life as an atonement for the original sin. What was this original sin? It is supposedly the first sexual intercourse between a female and a male, Eve and Adam. If god had created two sexes, and if the sexual intercourse was not intended, what was the reason behind the creation of the two sexes? Does anyone have a sensible answer? Apparently god was disturbed by the sexual union. Why should he be? Well, by indulging themselves  in this new found and extremely pleasing pastime these couples have opened the gate that leads to overlooking everything that is related to god, haven't  they?

What was the central idea of the Sumerian story about the creation of man? It was the necessity felt by the superior beings for servants. So, the sexes losing themselves in this 'lowly' act, meant neglecting their creator, which is a serious sin. They acted against the needs and wishes of the supreme creator. All right!  Who was the   inventor of  this story? Man! So, this was the sin that Jesus had to give his life to redress.  But the Christian Church needed something much more crucial than that. It was Resurrection. Apostle Paul told this story in writing for the first  time, accompanied with the confession that resurrection was the central doctrine of the Christianity, without which neither the religion nor the Church could exist. So according to apostle Paul, who is the real founder of the Christianity and the Christian Church, Jesus Christ has risen from the dead 'bodily'.. Who was the invEntor of this story? Apostle Paul, in other words, a human being!!

Does anyone know where Jesus had gone after resurrection?  Did he rise to the sky, where his Father dwelt? Or did he stay here on earth? Did he go to Kashmir?

Some Christians were saying that the creator and the redeemer are one. Others were saying they are not.  Was Jesus from the essence (ousion) of his Father or was he made from 'the same stuff' (homoousion) as his Father's? Athanasius' creed begged many important questions: Jesus was divine but this creed did not explain how the logos could be 'of the same stuff ' as the Father, without being a second god. Athanasius' friend, Marcellus the Bishop of Ancyra (modern day Ankara, capital city of Turkey) found a compromise: He found the missing 'i' (!) and inserted it into the word homoousion (the same stuff) making it homoiousion (of like or similar nature). Problem was solved at least for a certain period. Divinity of Christ was essential. No one cared about the difficulty to formulate it as a concept. Now let me ask you:

• Apostle Paul, in other words, a human being has invented this problem, hasn't he?. 

• Who made it more complex? The overseers of the belief system and their believers, in other words,  human beings have made this problem an insoluble one. haven't they?

• A bishop, another human being, has found the solution with an 'i', hasn't he?, 

Then what are we discussing? It is only natural. Human beings have  invented the problem and now they are making every effort to solve it. There is nothing divine. Everything is here on this earth!

Let us carry on. The debate that has started with the arrival of Jesus Christ is going on. If there is one god, how could logos be divine as well? Three theologians par excellence of Cappadocia (again in present day Turkey) came up with a solution: Only religious experience could provide the key to the problem of god. Which means that;

• There are no objective rules or conditions which would explain this dilemma or open the door to this enigma called god.

• A distinction was made between dogma, which is the deeper meaning of the biblical truth, which could only be apprehended through religious experience and expressed in symbolic form; and kerygma which is the public teaching of the Church.

• In addition to the clear message of the Gospels, a secret or esoteric tradition had been handed down in a mystery  from the apostles; it is a private and secret teaching. The uninitiated are not permitted to behold these things: their meaning is not to be divulged by writing it down.

If you remember, a similar secret knowledge was given to Moses as well, which led to the apocrypha. Jews and Muslims have also developed esoteric or secret  traditions. It was the only thing they could do, because the open knowledge, free observation, or reason were unable to prove anything. Therefore the overseers of the belief systems took the necessary steps to hold on to their privileged status. To cover-up the fact that there is no such thing as a supreme creator, the superibtendents of the belief systems have introduced the concept of a secret knowledge. This was beyond the comprehension of the uninitiated. In actual fact this meant that  there is an alleged reality but it was for a few to see, to understand, to comprehend, to speak about etc., and the rest should just listen to what they are told, and don't ask any questions.

One of these aforementioned theologians of Cappadocia, Basil, called attention to the fact that not all the religious truth was capable of being expressed and defined clearly and logically. And those who did not 'see' these truths with the eye of the spirit  (in other words, the inexperienced people) could get the wrong idea. Therefore, scriptures also had a spiritual significance besides their literal meaning. This spiritual significance is not always possible to articulate. We could not 'see' god intellectually. But one could feel his presence if one lets the cloud that descended on Mount Sinai envelop oneself. Basil said: "We know our god only by his operations (energeiai) but we do not attempt to approach his essence" (Islam has taken over this doctrine exactly). This would be the central theme of the future theology in the Eastern Church (and of course one of the basic themes of Islam). Our three theologians employed the formula that Athanasius had used in his dispute with Arius: God has a single essence (ousia) - which remains incomprehensible to us -- but three expressions (hypostases) which makes him known.  Cappadocians left the matter of ousia aside and  have started with the hypostases. What are these hypostases? The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit of course. God's ousia is unfathomable we can only know him through his manifestations, and these manifestations have been revealed to us as Father, Son and Spirit. Ousia of an object was that which made something what it was. It is applied to an object as it is within itself. Hypostasis was used to denote an object viewed from without. Our theologians used the word prosopon instead of hypostasis. So according to the Cappadocians the supreme being was one ousia in three hypostases. There was only a single divine self-consciousness. When the supreme being allows something of himself to be glimpsed by his creatures, he is three prosopoi. Thus the hypostases - Father, Son and Spirit - should not be identified with god, because 'the divine nature (ousia) is unnamable and unspeakable; Father, Son and Spirit are only terms that we use to speak of the energeiai by which he has made himself known. This excellent ability to prove a point deserves commendation!

• As transcendent: The Father, hidden in inaccessible light;

• As creative: The Logos;

• As immanent: The Holy Spirit.

Divine nature is far beyond such imagery and conceptualisation. Christians have  tried to make the supreme being rational and comprehensible, because the Age of Reason had caught up with them. With the debate related to the Trinity the Christians have realized that the reality called god could not be understood by the human intellect. The incomprehensibility of the Trinity doctrine made us come face to face with the absolute mystery of the supreme being, according to Gregory of Nazianzus.

The Latin theologian Augustine (Augustinus)  has  defined the Trinity for the Latin Church. He was a Platonist, devoted to Plotinus. Only apostle Paul has been more influential than Augustine in the West. Augustine sought a theistic belief system. The supreme being was essential for humanity. His thoughts remind us the first creation stories of Sumer: "You have made us for yourself " says Augustine in the beginning of Confessions (the account of his discovery of god). He was converted to Manicheism (a Mesopotamian form of Gnosticism) but abandoned it because he found its cosmology unsatisfactory. He  found the incarnation offensive, a defilement of the idea of the supreme being. He descended through his inner world to find his supreme being, who was both within and above him (what a solution!). A search for the proof of the supreme being in the external world was useless. He could only be discovered in the real(!) world of the mind (what an observation!).

• " The supreme being is not an objective reality..

• The supreme being is a spiritual presence to be found in the complex depths of the self. "

But the most important thing is, this insight also pointed to a sharing of this thought with the Buddhists, Hindus, and Shamans, all of whom are  the members of the non-theistic belief systems.

Augustine's god was not an impersonal deity, but the highly personal supreme creator of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Augustine has believed that god had condemned humanity to an eternal damnation, because of Adam's one sin (the original sin - the sexual union between Adam and Eve). Augustine has shared the views of Tertullian, who, addressed women as follows:

Augustine has agreed with this sick verdict of the deranged mind, and added:

Furthermore Augustine was really puzzled about the reason why god had created the female sex. He thought that Adam only needed a good company and conversation. Therefore it would have been much better if the arrangement was, two men together as friends instead of a man and a woman.  (Here, the believers of Islam must have seen now one of  the origins  of the anti-woman concepts in their belief system.) Such a ridiculous approach could only result in the alienation of mankind from their belief systems, from themselves, and from each other. There is no use in continuing with the sick views of Augustine because they will not lead us anywhere.

Let us look back in history: In Sumer there were gods riding a donkey or an ass - like Asherah - whenever they traveled from one place to another; They have created man from mud as servants; They have built cities for the mankind and invited them to inhabit these cities etc. Then there were the gods of the Patriarchs. Then came the gods of the messengers, gods of the Faylasufs (philosophers), gods of the mystics (advocates of a theory of mystcism), and the gods of the deists in the 18th century A.D. One is lost in reaching a decision on  which one of them is the supreme entity that  symbolizes the one and only divine truth. These concepts of  a supreme entity were used by the Jews, Christians, and Muslims after the necessary adaptations were made in line with their needs.

Those persons or groups rising against the established gods were branded as atheists. First the Jews, then Christians, and lastly the Muslims must have beem branded as atheists by the Pagans, because the established order of those days was not founded by the mankind but by the beings living up there. Mankind had nothing to do but to accept it. Those who did not, were atheists, even if they had their own personal supreme being. The most striking example is Akh-en-aten, who,  despite the fact that he has  introduced monotheism in Egypt, was branded as an atheist by his son-in-law who has replaced him.

It is extremely important for a supreme being to serve the believers. Because a supreme being which has no use at all or does not provide anything, or not beneficial,  has no use vis a vis the mankind.

Why is a god adopted in the first place?

• Firstly with an attractive and acceptable promise (like immortality in return for obedience in this world),

• Secondly through  a possible introduction of a solution to a long-waiting problem.

In short the relationship between the supreme being and the believer must be a two-way relationship based on interest, a give and take. It is this give-and-take that keeps the relationship going. As soon as it becomes only give and not  take, the relationship becomes the subject of debate, and that debate usually results in a search for different solutions. The people who have experienced this problem is Israel, According to their cocebook they had a life-long contract (covenant) with their supreme creator. But following the defeat they have suffered at the hands of the Assyrians, the 12 tribes of Israel have disappeared; then they lost their Temple in Yerushalim; then they were exiled to Babylon. These developments obliged them to think that the idea of 'our god' may not be valid any more, so they substituted that idea with the belief that the supreme creator has belonged to other nations as well, but he has still considered them as the 'closest people to the supreme creator.'  In the past even the orthodox monotheists did not feel uneasy about changing a supreme being when its job was finished, and his advantage was no more, because they knew that their concept of god was not sacrosanct, but only provisional. But these ideas were definitely separate than the reality which they claim as indefinable.

All the major religions are in agreement that transcendence is impossible to define with ordinary language. The monotheists named this transcendence as the supreme being.  They set some conditions as well: Jews banned the free usage of the sacred name of god. Muslims have never attempted  to draw the image of the sacred being (have they seen it?). The most important reason behind these measures must be to keep this sacred invention of the human mind away from profanity. The idea behind keeping it sacred is to remind everybody that it is necessary not to get involved too much with this subject, not to dig it up, and to keep the un-attainability of the reality(!) called god, which is beyond the human experience and perception. There are striking similarities between the understanding of god in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But Jews and Muslims consider the Trinity and Resurrection doctrines of Christianity as blasphemy.

Sky gods were remote. Baal, Marduk and mother goddesses came close to mankind, but after the intervention by Ezra the priest YHVH withdrew to its place up there  again, putting a gulf between himself and the mankind. When the Israelites came to the mountain  Moses warned them to purify their garments and keep their distance. Those who touched the mountain would be put to death. Ten Commandments is another clue that the supreme being has withdrawn to its sacred domain, the sky. The law was coming down from up there  again. In contrast to that let us remember what the pagans had visualised: Everything was here, on this earth. Order, harmony and justice were in the very nature of things. That was that!

We must mention the 'wisdom literature' here. Wisdom was suggested as the master plan that god had devised when he had created the world. Who suggested that? The writer of the Book of Proverbs. A human being! He wrote that wisdom was one of the supreme being's first creatures. Wisdom (sophia) was not divine, but was created specifically by god (wisdom is 'hokhma' in Hebrew, and hikhmat in Arabic). In about 50 B.C. in Alexandria a Jew has warned that not the Greek philosophy but the fear of YHVH constitutes the  true wisdom. He went further and claimed that wisdom cannot be separated from the Jewish god. Now, see  for yourself how far  the imagination of the human mind can get, in the ideas of this Jew of Alexandria: "Sophia is the pure breath of the power of god, pure emanation of the glory of the almighty, hence nothing impure can find its way into her. She is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of god's active power, image of his goodness." This description would prove to be extremely significant, when Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and Christians started debating the status of Jesus.

According to the Christians Jesus was the first and last 'word of god' to the human race, who rendered future revelation unnecessary. In other words they believed that Jesus was the last  messenger. But in the 7th century A.D. a new messenger appeared in Arabia, claiming that he had received a direct revelation from the supreme being (of Judaism and Christianity). He introduced a new scripture to his people. This shocked both the Jews and the Christians. This supreme being [now also, the supreme creator of the Hagarenes (later Islam)] had a plan in the beginning for the whole of his creation (do you remember the story of Noah, the Flood, and the Ark?). Then he chose Av'ram, made a contract with him (do you remember the stories about the patriarchs, circumcision etc.?). Next time round, he  appeared as the supreme overseer of Moses, taking his people out of Egypt, choosing Israel as his people and leading them to Canaan, the Promised Land. In short, this supreme being has started as a creator for the mankind; changed into a personal supreme being (god of Av'ram); changed again into a tribal supreme being by choosing Israel; following the Babylonian exile of Israel, changed again into a supreme entity of not only of Israel but others' as well. Israel later on made this god the sole creator who has created everything (by deutero-Isaiah). So this god became the only god, creator of the Universe, and the supreme overseer of the mankind. But with the arrival of the Hagarene Messenger this god has become a tribal god again with the supposed revelation to the tribe of Kureysh in Arabia.As we shall see later on, as the Arabs conquered peoples and lands beyond the boundaries of the Arabian peninsula this god was raised to the level omnipotence  again by the conquerors.

Before the Hagarenes has entered the stage the Arabs in the region has  already had their belief system. It was a sort of ideology called muruwah which has fulfilled many of the functions of  a religion. Egalitarianism and indifference to material goods were the strong points of muruwah. Generosity was a very important virtue. There was a sayyid / seyyid at the head of the tribe who expected obedience and action from the members of the tribe at a moment's notice. This obedience and action has pushed personal anxieties to the second place. Even life did not mean a thing in the face of an order from this sayyid. Arabs worshipped their own pagan pantheon of deities at their shrines. They did not have a mythology binding the gods, shrines, history, beliefs and spiritual life together. Before the Hagarene messenger has introduced the Hagarene teaching, which was basically the Sabian faith of the Mandaeans, Arabs were in the period which the followers of the literature of Islam called cahiliyya ('period of ignorance'). Arabs were under very strong influences coming from their neighbours - powerful empires. Modern ideas were bombarding the Arabian community. Arabs were in constant warfare with each other. There were individualistic attitudes. These attitudes were very dangerous for the tribal unity. TAccording to the story the Kureysh tribe believed that the Ka'ba in their midst had a tremendous contribution to their trade; their guardianship of the shrine and the preservation of its ancient sanctities put them in a place above the other tribes. But despite all that, and the fact that their tribe seemed to be the chosen one by the supreme being  they had not had a sacred book sent by god to a messenger from amongst  them. They remembered Abraham and Moses of Judaism or Jesus of Christianity. They were feeling inferior spiritually. In the eyes of the 'peoples of the book' Arabs were a barbarous people who had not received a revelation from god. Arabs were not happy about the fact that Jews and Christians had a special (divine!) knowledge which they did not have. In this prevailing atmosphere the Hagarene messenger from Midian (will be transformed into the Arab messenger of Islam later), like many of the Arabs, must have come to believe that al Lah (god), the high god of the ancient Arabian pantheon, was identical to the god worshipped by the Jews and the Christians. The Arabs had had his shrine from time immemorial. It was in the 7th century A.D. that most Arabs had come to believe that Ka'ba, the shrine in the heart of Makka which was of great antiquity, was dedicated to al Lah originally. But at that time the Nabatean god Hubal was dwelling there as the chief god among others. It was the holiest place in the whole of Arabia. Each year Arabs from all over the Arabian peninsula made the hac (pilgrimage to Makka), performing the traditional rites over a period of several days. Under these circumstances, the Hagarene messsenger must have felt confident that a messenger sent by this god would be able to solve the problems of his people. As the story goes, the Hagarene messenger discovered to his surprise(!) that his god has decided to choose him as the one to receive the divine(!) message.  To complicate the matters further for himself, he has decided that this message had to be different from the one given in Torah or the Gospels. It should not be seen as a follow up of Judaism or Christianity.So he chose the Sabian faith, the 'unadulterated religion of Ibrahim' (Av'ram/Abraham/Bahram the Mandaî).