Should be “…the Hebrew ‘yeh-ho-shoo’-ah’ (Joshua) which could be expressed in English as ’salvation’ or ‘rescue’ or ‘deliver’.

My appologies for this mistake.

Andrew.

“There’s probably no God.”

is definitely keeping their options open here, just in case … they encounter God - like Abraham and many others did, and the many who testify today.

You know, that word ‘God’? It is a translation in the English bibles of the word consisting of the Hebrew letters Aleph, Lamed, Hey, Yod, Mem: ‘el-o-heem’, and is plural of Aleph, Lamed ‘el’. From Paleo Hebrew before Hebrew was written with Aramaic square script, the Aleph represents an Ox Head while the Lamed a Shepherds Staff. In concrete terms this means a strong leader/shepherd and all cultures can relate to this universal picture. The word ‘God’ is used on the advert as associated with hypocrasy/religion! But in the scriptures it was signifying a real helper, a real power, and real entity, a ‘God’, one who can deliver and save the family/flock from oppressors or attackers and also make ends meet and make provision.

You know, that word ‘Jesus’? It is a transliteration in the English bibles of the Greek ‘Iesus’, which is a transliteration of an Aramaic word, and close to the Hebrew ‘yeh-ho-shoo’-ah’ (Joshua) which could be expressed in English as ‘Yah saves’, ‘Yah’ being short form of ‘Yahweh’ etc. The name is about saving, redeeming and deliverance. He has to do that, save – that is his name otherwise he had the wrong name! He lived up to that name. In the advert we are told not to worry, we don’t need saving, deliverance etc. An advert (just words) verses a whole life given to that purpose. For Abraham, we can read that the man received a revelation of this ‘God’ and this ‘God’ made promises to him, and continued in that relationship with him for all his lifetime. One of the promises: that God himself would provide a sacrifice - God’s own son.

But what happens when the ‘God’ becomes his own mind or intellect and this intellect is put up as the strong rational thinking system, and a powerful academic peer-review judging house (or Beit Din). It boasts to find, through its power, a natural answer to everything that he/she needs an answer to. However, the word ‘probably’ in the advert is a sure give-away that the mind of an atheist is not that strong and powerful and all-encompassing to be really sure of what they are saying. Are you ready to trust a brains-trust with the meaning of your life? Isn’t naturalism narrow-minded? What trust should I put in a science that isn’t sure? I mean really sure. Is what you see really just all that you get? I want answers, not atheism. ‘I know’, ‘I’ve seen it’, ‘I just saw it’, ‘I testify to it’, ‘I’ll go to my death proclaiming it’, not ‘probably’.

John writes:
“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1Jn 4:13-16)

I see Richard Dawkins in the photo. I left that entire guru following stuff long ago when I touched on it with Transcendental Meditation. A Guru can only take you so far, and one who thinks-he-can-just-think-life-out is not even worth listening to, and he himself dangerously close to, in the end, sadly, going mad/crazy.

As it says at Job 26:14: “Look! These are the fringes of his ways, and what a whisper of a matter has been heard of him! But of his mighty thunder who can show an understanding?” What are the forces that move the universe? That move through hidden beginnings and finally influence our lives? I don’t know , and I don’t think anyone else does either.

A person that thinks they know, is misled or undeveloped. Those that mislead these innocent people, for their aggrandizement of power, are worst off of all(Governing Body). They don’t even have the humility of wanting to grow in understanding, that an undeveloped, misled person could have.

True humility has enormous potential to open up to ways to think, fresh perspectives, new approachs. You’re never irrevocably locked into the old way of thinking. Each day you can throw yesterdays ideas away and rebuild your intellectual furniture, because your ego is not committed to the past.

That’s why I have a respect for your atheism. It shows you’re a thinking, growing person. The Bible condemns idolatry. Modern idolatry is idolatry in the mind. An atheist smashs idols of the mind; he or she is an iconoclast of lies about gods and other ultimate things that do harm to people. The only cavil I have is that atheism can be a idol too if it stops there, and becomes merely mocking of religious folks. I say “cavil” because your humanist position shows you’re not like that. Remember the account where Jesus told of the demon that was cast out, and the man’s soul was swept clean, and then several more demons came in to the take the first demon’s place. There was a void. Something had to take it’s place, good or bad.

I think a reverence for the mystery of life and the universe is good. There’s more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Children know that instinctively! If we’ve lost the sense of wonder it’s a good way to spend the rest of a life, trying to get that back.

For example, there’s more than the material universe. Matter is, after all, only what we experience from the five senses, that we happen to have only by chance. What else there is we’ll never know as humans, and those that claim otherwise are liars, fools, or undeveloped. But one way or another we’ll all end up in eternity, and maybe there’ll be some surprises.

Moxie, I’ve enjoyed your articles and commments. Thank you! Patrick

Only religion will ever claim that giving rights to someone will actually violate someone else’s.