On God's Behalf.

"Like a broken record"

A Christian preacher endlessly repeats the phrase “Nobody is worthy of praise, but Jesus!”. Twenty meters to his left, an Arabic male stands before a table of Islam, containing a banner reading “No one is worthy of praise, but Allah!”. Sitting in the middle of Cardiff city centre, watching on as random people pass by to catch the one man drum kit behind them instead. My residing thought about the 'messengers' is one of; “Well, one thing I do know for certain… you can’t both be right!”

For me, the notion of God has no association with religion. God is an eternal force of unexplainable light; which lives within our hearts from the day we are born. It is a term used to describe the miracles of life, and answers to questions too vast for our primitive mindsets. It is also another word for love, which has nothing to do with any systematic doctrine designed around judgement, destruction, or telling others they are wrong to follow whichever spiritual path they desire.

The love of God is about forgiveness, acceptance, and helping each other grow. The force of "No one is worthy of praise, but" carries elements of fear and attrition; aspects of insecure egos, not love. For these reasons alone, I find it hard to believe religions are truly ethereal. Even if they had started out as genuine plans of God to unify, man has hijacked the perception so much, all the purity has long vanished. Now instead of following God's plan, we are ordered to follow man's plan; pretending to be from God. I'm not buying it.

Perhaps I am wrong, and lack the necessary faith to become a true convert. Which means I am going to hell; quite harsh really, considering my decency comes from compassion, and not the force of a bunch of words, written by the hands of a man, upon sheets of paper. Their paths of judgement and rules go against the nature of human freedom. They always tell us how destruction is all part of “God’s plan”. Well last time I looked, men caused the tragedies of the crusades and World War Two; it had nothing to do with God. I always thought God’s plan was simply to give us life, make us all different while the same, and hope we learn to accept one another, and just be cool to each other.

I am not entirely against religion, as anything which improves without harming others, is good with me. And for those who carry their respective faiths as a catalyst for positive growth; in a dignified, peaceful manner, I salute you. It’s just the problem I have with the notion of all these religions having the answers, is how they arrive in a human form; as someone supposedly speaking on Gods behalf. God says more to the human race with a single sunshine or thunderstorm, than a thousand preachers could say in one hundred thousand years. When I want to speak to God, I listen to the subtle actions made around me; not some wanker on the street, screaming shit in my ears about an apocalypse which never happens.

I do not believe any human being speaks on Gods behalf; at least knowingly, anyway. So when I see man made signs reading “No one is worthy of praise, but Allah.” Or Homo-Sapien vocal chords preaching “Nobody is worthy of praise, but Jesus”? I have to wonder why a God which controls the entire universe, would afford the power of a message like this to a mere mortal, in such a ridiculously obvious and annoying way. 

The way I see, in the eyes of God? The only religion is people. And all messages of 'worship' do, are separate us even further. If there was any messenger of God in Cardiff that day, it was the one man drum kit. God never sounds so good, when in the form of music...

Lee.