By Dalian Adofo

In seeking the word to describe the immensity and vastness of creation we see all around us the concept of ‘God’ was born- to give a reference to that which is beyond our total comprehension and perception.

In this regard, it is the most sacred and highest of all conceptions. Yet bizarrely as we attribute this ‘highest of all highs’ to it, we also inadvertently diminish it through our own actions, biases and irrationality. So how do we diminish God?

We diminish God when we say ‘he’ dwells in a place called heaven. So what happened to the idea of Omnipresent? That ‘he’ is everywhere at every time, so how then can he be confined or even fit into a ‘place’?
It contradicts the very notion and also implies that there is something ‘bigger’ than God, capable of building this heaven so God can fit into it, no?
This is one of the ways in which we diminish God.

We diminish God when we say all his knowledge can be codified into a single book, even as we know, that these books were written by other men, often with omissions and their own additions? Why would such a powerful being allow ‘his’ own creations to speak on ‘his’ behalf, even when its clear some of the additions are falsehoods- against the very commandments….yet ‘he’ does nothing? With all his power?!
Yet giant constellations and planetary bodies, for millions of centuries, have known, clearly via an imbued intelligence, how to perform their orbits seamlessly with no book for guidance.
Yet the ‘smartest’ of the creations, blessed with reasoning abilities, require a manual of instruction? When ‘he’ could have also easily imprinted our very consciousness with that information?

This is one of the ways in which we diminish God.

We diminish God when we assume God needs mere mortals to enforce his teaching under the threat of death. Teachings that are barely a 1,000 years in origin, so is the implication therefore that God let other humans live for millions of years beforehand with the sole intention that they were going straight to hell?
Are these the actions of a ‘loving God’, one that loves unconditionally? Letting people live without the right instructions so their only destination is failure and ending up in this eternal hell. Such behaviour is more to be expected of a sociopath as opposed to a benevolent individual?
This is one of the ways in which we diminish God.

We diminish God when we kill and murder others who do not believe in our ways. If God required it to be so, then surely as the source of creation, he would just not allow them to come into existence in the first place?
When we claim that ‘he’ has given so many different ways of ‘his’ worship and ‘he’ is the same in all of the religions, we still fight and kill each other just to prove one of them to be the absolute truth amongst them all? Are we saying we know better than God?
This is one of the ways in which we diminish God.

We diminish God when we believe in another being able to fight and take us to a ‘bad’ place made of fire where he has total domination, but which bizarrely is a place of God’s creation? How is this ‘fallen’ being, himself another creation of God so the story goes, but yet is somehow is as powerful as God to run free reign?
How does any of this even make sense, the created being as powerful as its creator? Isn’t that a contradiction?
This is one of the ways in which we diminish God.

We diminish God when we profess the idea of being chosen amongst all the rest, that such a powerful being would gladly allow the ‘un-chosen’ to exist in the first place, or as servants to the chosen? When he could easily make this chosen totally self-sufficient?
But even the idea that he will willingly allow the ‘un-chosen’ to exist solely so they can end up in hell is the thought of psychopath, not a ‘perfect’ being as we would then claim on the other hand claim. Do we not notice these flaws in our assertions?
This is one of the ways in which we deny God.

We diminish God when we fail to question words put forth by other humans as ‘his’ word, this defeats the very purpose of him blessing us with talents such as an analytical and enquiring mind with communication abilities.
We could go on and on about the many ways we diminish God, yet eventually we must remember simply that our beliefs or gnosis should be a means of liberating ourselves mentally to foster a deeper understanding and relationship with this source, not constrict and limit our thinking and actions via dogma.