Getting Control And Power Out Of God And Human Relationships

Public figures and others have referred to a worldwide grassroots frustration and anger toward governments and other social institutions. Some have noted that this anger is feeding a growing bottomup movement to take back control of things that communities and individuals have relinquished to states.

Essentially, this growing sense of ‘fedupness’ reflects a struggle from the bottom against control, whether control by government institutions, workplace organizations, religious institutions, or even control within communities and families.

Control is a lingering curse that humanity has not yet broken free of and true humanity will never be fully experienced until control is eliminated from all human relationships and institutions. But in order to deal properly and thoroughly with control in human relationships, it is essential to deal with root ideas and ideologies that validate and support control. Some of the most basic and powerful ideas supporting control and domination are old ideas of predetermining and controlling gods.

For this reason, we are offering the argument that humanity needs a completely new version of God to support truly human relating which is the relating of noncontrolled equals. Old views of God contain too many elements that are destructive to true humanity and truly human relating. Many of these elements originate from past animal existence and embody base animal-like control and domination. Some of these animal-like features are as follows:

God as superior or above, a ruling patriarch.
Vertical relating to God similar to the domination/submission relationships of animal hierarchies.
Domination and control as the central function of God, embodied in notions of the will of God or God predetermining all.
The control of human behavior originating with God and external to the human self.
The control of human behavior by God supplanting previous control by patriarchs.
Male gender in God.
These elements have their origin in past animal existence and they have unfortunately been carried over into human ideologies and existence. But they are clearly features of animal and not human reality or existence.

In the articles below, we note something of the historical process through which vertically oriented forms of relating (i.e. the dominant/subordinate relationships of animal societies) entered human societies and became embedded as fundamental features of most human institutions- whether families, religions, educational institutions, workplace organizations, or governing institutions. The early stages of the process of human domestication or civilization some 10-15 thousand years ago is crucial to understand in this regard as it was the time when the patterns of modern state and social institutions were shaped.

We also note what it means to be truly human and what the origin of modern humanity means for human existence and relating. The modern human self or human person has suffered immense damage under the control experienced in vertically oriented institutions. Humanity emerged as an entirely new reality free of all control and oriented to equality in cooperative relationships. True humanity and truly human relating demand the horizontally oriented relating of freely cooperating equals. Without such radically horizontal relating, the damage to human well-being is devastating. Studies in psychology and organizational behavior have noted the damage in terms of alienation (powerlessness, isolation, meaninglessness), mental and emotional suffering, illness, violence, and even early death. Much human misery can be understood better in light of the control humans suffer in the hierarchical relationships of contemporary social institutions.

How we think of God or gods is vital to human relating and existence as ideas of God have provided some of the most fundamental validation and support for human social orders and institutions. While at first glance there may not appear to be a direct connection between gods and contemporary institutions, all we need to remember is that the vertical orientation of contemporary social orders and institutions was shaped in early domestication when gods had a totalitarian influence on humans and were used directly to validate and support dominating relationships and structures. There is still a residue of belief that vertically oriented relationships are somehow a natural and even sacred form of relating.

All of humanity needs to contribute to the great venture of shaping a new and truly human version of God to support the ongoing emergence of true humanity and truly human forms of relating embodied in free and egalitarian social orders. God ideas must no longer be the exclusive domain of religious experts. Creating a new view of a nondominating God is all about control and power coming from the bottom and people relating as true equals.

For those who find the thought of creating a new God offensive, let me clarify that we are simply trying to clean up ideas of God cluttered by millennia of rubbish. Ideas of God have become so clouded by animal-like features and religious distortion that the only way to really understand God now is to start all over again with a fresh noninstitutional or nonreligious version. The approach of a new millennium provides a great opportunity to do this.

Also, may we point out that horizontalizing ideas of God actually elevates God, for it removes ideas of God from base animal reality with its vertical relationships of domination and places God in the more human realm of truly cooperating equals. That is where true freedom lies.

We would also add that a horizontal view of God more accurately represents Jesus’ own views of God.

Far too long the idea of God has been associated with hierarchy, superiority, control by law, religion, or institution, and male domination. It is time for radical change. We need to now associate God more with all truly egalitarian freedom, life, diversity, randomness, spontaneous creativity, laughter, and play. It is time to associate God with true humanity.

Some of the main ideas covered in the articles on “Creating A New God” are as follows:

Understanding the origin of control or the vertical orientation of human relationships (ie. the superior/inferior or dominant/subordinate element in relating).
The origin of ideas of controlling male gods and male dominance.
How god consciousness was verticalized and used to validate control of others.
Absorbing and formalizing animal relating in the institutions of early domestication.
The origin of modern humanity or the modern human person.
What it means to be truly human versus animal existence and relating.
The human self as the fundamental standard for all human institutions and social orders.
Crushing the human spirit in vertical relationships and vertical structures: the destructive consequences of control.
The demand of the human self for truly human relating- the horizontal relating of equals.
The responsibility and freedom to be human.
Shaping new and more human/horizontal ideas of God.
The shape of a more human social order and truly human institutions: decision making alternatives to vertical relating and control.

via:http://cookingschoolconfidential.com/28/