4. Will the real God please stand up?

Before I get into my fourth post, this time focusing more on religion, I would like to mention a Japanese manga and anime by Kaori Yuki, Angel Sanctuary. It's about an incestuous relationship between an elder brother, Setsuna, and a younger sister, Sara, both whom happen to be reincarnations of the angels Alexia and Jibril (Gabriel) respectively. Naturally, such an ambitious story covers many aspects of what critics of this series might call controversial, such as the incest between the protagonists and the depiction of the angels (who are far from perfect. Many are also manipulative and vengeful. In unusually refreshing fashion, St. Michael is depicted as a rather short archangel with a fiery and childish temper against those who insult his size, and the healer Raphael is depicted as a pervert who is in love with Barbiel, another angel and his second-in-command. Furthermore, not all the demons in the story are completely evil). But most importantly, it also touches on the nature of God. Would God allow an incestuous relationship, even if it was between his angels (and note that Alexia and Jibril, while also twin siblings, do not love each other in the same incestuous way as Setsuna and Sara)? Does God approve of love between his angels, whether it be platonic or sexual? The strangest part of the God in Angel Sanctuary is that God is "sleeping" and not present within almost all of the manga and anime - how can God "sleep"? Is He not meant to be omnipotent? Obviously Angel Sanctuary need not be taken seriously when one undertakes theological study. But we can find similar questions arising when we study the Torah, the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qu'ran together. Can we reconcile the different aspects of God of each monotheistic religion (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)? And if we can't, can we at least have them tolerate each other? If not, can we still find any way to keep the peace?

Incest abounds in the Old Testament. Perhaps this is because the God of the Israelites in the Old Testament is foremostly a tribal deity - true monotheism does not emerge until the advent of Christianity, where Jesus, shortly after his resurrection, commands his disciples to spread the Good News, that "I am always with you, even until the end of the world." A monotheistic God, in passing, may be seen to have a stronger set of morals than a tribal deity, hence the reduced occasions of genocide and razings, along with female genital mutilation committed by the Jews in the name of Yahweh. Already we see the problems arising in regards to omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence - if God really is such, why the need to make so many claims to power?

And within the holy texts we find problems. The first of the Ten Commandments given to Moses, and no doubt the most important, is "Thou shalt not kill". Yet there have been countless people, both criminal and innocent, killed in the name of God. That is contradiction enough. Extremists can interpret certain passages within the Qu'ran to be commands of physical Jihad against non-believers. Even Jesus said some rather strange things that could be interpreted literally as useless rambling, or metaphorically as words of wisdom. Words such as "If your eye offendeth you, pluck it out." The problem is not that he said such things, but that so many people have interpreted him in so many different ways. Who is the real God then? Is there any satisfactory answer to this? Who exactly is this most perplexing being we call Yahweh, God, Allah? Are they manifestations of the same being? Are they different? Is there any hope that the religions of these names of God can live in harmony?

So we finally come full circle. This is why, in my first post, I outlined one of the main questions was how religion is relevant in the modern world: how can these contradictory texts be part of ethics in the 21st century? Contemporary British philosopher A.C. Grayling, a strong atheist and a staunch anti-Christian, wrote: "Churchmen are people with advowedly ancient supernatural beliefs who rely on moral casuistry which is 2000 years out of date; it is extraordinary that their views should be given any precedence over those that could be drawn from the richness of thoughtful, educated, open-minded opinion otherwise available in society." He was making a valid point that the priests of churches should not be given a privileged place over others in moral debate, in particular debates about contraception and abortion (He sees the Church as immature and insensible in its hardline views concerning such matters).

We have reached a dilemma. It is clear that no strong rationalist would accept a case for religion in the modern world. This is when we must take into account and even more complicated matter: Faith in its spectrum of subjective experience.

Next up will be a short break from this series, before my fifth post on this subject: "Faith".