God: Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent

These are the most commonly known three attributes which monotheistic religions ascribe to God:

• Omnipotent – God is all-powerful, He can do whatever He wants, without any limits.
• Omniscient – God simply knows everything, Her knowledge of all events in space and time is complete.
• Omnipresent – God not only knows about all events, It inhabits, or is present at, every point in time and space in the whole universe.

Monotheistic religions (like Judaism, Islam and Christianity) postulate one God (with a particular name) and deny all others. It’s important to notice that this idea is of a God which suffuses all manifestation, but at the same time is a separate entity from it, to be worshipped by beings within the manifestation.

In contrast, Pantheism equates God (or the Divine) with the totality of existence, holding that there is no separate being or entity outside of existence which could be termed God.

When you look at the (historic) popularity of Monotheism compared to the thinly spread adherents of Pantheism, it’s not hard to understand how much violence and aggression we see in history – people performing all sorts of cruel and aggressive acts about the right name for this one God, and which types of food one should eat when.

However, while Monotheism is simply absurd, childish and patently illogical, Pantheism does not explain things properly. This is because nature, existence or the manifestation, whichever name you prefer, cannot be the Divine – because it does not really exist (as objects independent of awareness). Ultimately there is only Awareness and Consciousness, and the patterns in Conciousness tell the Stories of manifestation, like a film projected onto the cinema screen – it seems to be there, but is not. Manifestation is therefore a sort of illusion, known in Sanskrit as “Maya”. So I use “The Divine” to mean those instances which create and shape this illusion – Universal Awareness and Great Consciousness.

Logical and practical problems with Monotheism

• The problem of evil – if God is really benevolent and omnipotent, why do evil and suffering exist?
• The problem of free will – if God is omniscient, i.e. knowing everything which the future holds, how can we have free will?
• The problem of conflict – the lack of tolerance in monotheistic beliefs means that conflict and suffering are pre-programmed (in a similar way that the rich-poor gap is an unavoidable consequence of the design of fiat money).
• The problem of separation – when God is postulated as the Creator of existence, and separate from it, then the manifestation itself lacks divinity. The postulate of original sin arises, and sentient beings are reduced to miserable worms needing salvation throught the right belief. Priests and religious institutions exacerbate the problem of separation by insinuating themselves between people and God.

Quite apart from all that, feel into this scenario: If God were really omnipresent, then He would be present in every cell and atom of your body. How then could such a being still be separate from yourself, an outside entity? Does that feel right? Only if you’ve had the “right” indoctrination! 

God – He, She or It?

As we grow up (in most countries and religions), we almost only ever hear God being spoken about as “He”. In modern times the temptation may arise for more adventurous thinkers to question if God might not be a She or an It? Or if He even exists?

Note two assumptions here: (1) the monotheistic viewpoint that God is an entity separate from existence, and (2) the use of the capital letter demanding reverance. These were the tacit assumptions which mostly remained unquestioned.

This phenomenon has been likened to a fish swimming in the sea. As it has only ever experienced being in water, the fish has no reason to think about the possibility of anything else. Then, one day when it is swimming near the shore, a big wave comes and throws it onto the beach, leaving it gasping in air and giving it the (possibly terminal) chance to at last recognise the nature of water. Another good example is fiat money (debt-based compound interest currency) – every small child quickly learns that a sweetie costs 10 cents – but hardly anyone thinks about the nature of money itself and the (horrible) consequences of its nature, it’s just always been there, like the air we breathe.

And so it is with the God assumption. The good news here is, that we can relinquish all assumptions about divinity and existence and go for experiences, to find out what’s really true.