The Evolution of God
Let us suppose that God exists. That is, let us accept - provisionally if necessary - the notion that the unfolding of the universe, the development of human civilization and, in particular, the actualization of individual human beings, is being guided or at least monitored by a conscious Entity of vastly greater capacities than our own, Who has an agenda for humanity.
What agenda?
Let me cast aside the standard arguments used to deflect this question (most of which boil down to, "That's for Him to know and you to not know....") and ask it in earnest, because I believe it is the central question in theistic religion.
Regardless of God's superior intelligence and abilities, God is bound by the same logic as we mortals, who may therefore expect to guess certain aspects of God's existential experience. For instance, if God created the world and everything in it - or even if God just created us - then God is inescapably in the position of a parent who has brought new life into the world. This simile has not gone unnoticed by the organized religions of the world.
What is a parent's agenda for her or his children?
It is of course possible to envision numerous "sick & twisted" versions, but I will side with the optimistic majority who see around us a world of inexpressible beauty and wonder which seems unlikely to have been created by a sadistic deity whose only motive was torture. More likely our Creator would prefer to see us survive our bratty childhood and grow up strong, wise, fulfilled and ... well, Godlike. Maybe even "happy," although (as every parent learns) this is a rather shallow and ill-defined goal.
So how do you coax, cajole, threaten, force, facilitate and bribe a race of murderous savages along the path toward enlightenment and growth?
Above all, the strategy must evolve as the children grow, learn and mature!
At every crisis in the political history of religion, nostalgic conservatives have attempted to "reset" the image of God to the nurturing/authoritarian parent figure we needed when human civilization was in its infancy and adolescence. Perhaps this is understandable, since we each have to pass through all the stages of civilization in our individual passage from infancy to adulthood, and many times the quality of parental guidance is sadly inadequate. Who does not occasionally long for a God Who regularly delivers simply worded, unambiguous instructions for solving our personal dilemmas, takes care of our needs by giving us just what we want when we want it, relieves us of our burdens, identifies clearly the wrong and the right, and generally "answers our prayers"?
Get over it.
That was then; this is now. If you are an adult in North America, you have grown up with privileges and luxuries undreamt of by the mightiest kings of ancient Israel. You owe God a little more maturity than to keep whining for help with all your problems.
