Among the many international communities I encountered in Jerusalem, despite being familiar with Arab/Russian/French/British/Australian/German/Israeli culture, I was treated the same way as most Americans: with a cool acceptance but also a barrier of distance. That was because I come from the one culture that unites the world, the one international community that unites all international communities.
Prophecy seems more fundamentally misunderstood at all levels than G-d Himself, despite being essential to the existence of a Divine Being.
As obsessed with theology as I am, religion is not my only interest. Now that the scourges of finals and COL Junior Comps took their tolls and subsided at last, I finally get a portion of my sanity back. To make up for the occasional missed column here-and-there, and to make clear that I am actually not a hyper-religious extremist/zealot/militant/ascetic/all of the above, I am devoting a series to things deliberately outside religion.
There are many consistencies among mythologies across the world, and one of the most noteworthy is the flood story. It always features a flood hero, someone chosen to be a survivor when the rest of humanity will be destroyed.
In an era so suffuse with logic and science that everything must make perfect sense in order to be believed, some leave no room for any divinity at all. This is hardly surprising, as authors like Karen Armstrong believe that mythologies and gods first came about on account of what was not known within the world, as opposed to what was established.
Apologists sometimes attack religious people’s attitudes instead of G-d’s existence directly. One central argument of theirs is that the holy texts are rife with corrupt people and gods who are not only not worth emulating but pose as the holiest figures alive in the eyes of believers.
The focus of the Divine manifestation remains on Earth, which does not even count for a sizable portion of our solar system. Even if G-d puts a little bit of focus on the luminaries in the sky, the huge unexplored realms of the expanding universe are ignored.
The notion of an all-powerful Divinity is capable of developing a fear apart from any law code. If you, the worshipper, behave too much like G-d, or attempt to find out too much about the Heavens, you will undoubtedly perish, for no man can see Him and live.
