Jehovah Witness Protection

I think almost every American has at least one time in their lives opened their door and been greeted by two moderately dressed people asking have you meet Jesus of do you know god? Most people feel the same reaction to Jehovah’s witnesses at the door  as they do to vacuum cleaner sales men. Feeling the sudden desire for the sprinklers to come on.

But a question remains in my mind when I think of this.

  You see here they are asking you a question, like they are with saint peters office up in heaven and their trying to fit you in at four thirty with the big man.
  Most people realizes that they are not in direct contact with the creator but here people are that say they can teach you who he is, what he wants from you and why you should care. So the question this raises for me is not do you know god, but can you know god?

   There are many factors in this. How much of a divine being can you truly know with the limits of one genetically watered down fruit of knowledge? And which interpretation of the creator are you trying to know?

   Since the beginning of time people have attempted to put a face on their gods assign them personalities, likes and dislikes, hair and eye color, romantic relationships great miracles and even terrible wrath.

  The interesting bit is the from a public relations aspect the god of the Israelites is the least understood when compared to his less camera shy peers.
You see before Christianity the pagan view developed their images of gods and goddesses in a kind of evolving process. An aspect of life would inspire the idea of a divine overseer. The rain wouldn’t come and man sought a deity to ask that it be changed.  They would attempt different things to please them and basis their opinion of them and their personality from what they could infer from the results. So and so is found of goat sacrifices so they must love or hate goats.
Here’s the clever bite on the part of the people that decided to market Jehovah, he is undefined, unknown many modern believe will debate this of course but if you look back on it you will see that it is the truth and quite on purpose.

You see in the beginning (of religion not the world) man held the common belief in the power of names.
  To name something was to know it, to define and limit it by title and definition. Many cultures believe that if you possessed the true name of something you held power over the object or entity that you had the name of.      

   You can even see this in evidence in the exorcism rituals used by the catholic church. In which they attempt to learn the name of the demon in order to gain power over it and cast it out. This like many of their practices is a hold over from pagan lore.
So lets examine the beginning of Jehovah worship.

Historically speaking it started with a small band of Jewish people that were conquered by Rome and brought to the city in various capacities but mostly as slaves and servants.
   The Judaic beliefs in those times held a very strong view on the power of true names (look up there golem story for more context on this). So this slave religion surrounded by the Roman gods was looked down on by the wealthy and popular people, and was constantly subjected to scrutiny.

   Its my belief that before the evolution from slave religion to the Christianity of the poor and common man and then to the catholic faith that even a emperor believed in, that the people of the ancient proto religion decide to hide the name of their god so that the oppressor religions could not have power over him or define him …or her like everyone else did with their gods.

In fact the name Jehovah simply means god and is a title not a name. Other attempts to obfuscate the Christ god can be seen if you look closely enough.

Making it sinful to have images and likenesses, Like in the ten commandments. The muslin concept that images of the prophet are blasphemy. The Amish belief that photo steal your soul, are all evolutions of this concept that to protect their god they must hide away his name and face.
And evidence in a culture of secrecy.
When it started this was a safety measure and a way to keep it personal and free of judgment and comparison, but in modern days this strange evolution has made it stand apart how can you judge what you can not know? You can’t but from protection measure it grew in to its own phenomenon to become the most common religion in the world.

After all once you know that Zeus was a womanizing man with a white bearded that had a soft spot for worthy mortal Heroes what else is there to know? How can that compete with the unknown? The mystery and allure of the hidden face of god.

So what can be drawn from this? Well to me Its just another thing that makes dogma and ritual less appealing. Something sparked the first Israelite to look up and pray something lifted his heart and gave him enough joy and peace. To the point that he felt the need to share it with others and to me that’s all the more P.R a god needs.

When anything is watered down from its source it is subject to context when that happens people define it judged it and misunderstand it. But we can not go back in rime and as the first follower or a god what they felt and be satisfied. Nor could they ever fully explain a first hand experience in a way that you would know it as if it happened to you. The only way to know is to feel it for your self. Luckily for man there are man endless reasons to turn your face to the sky and open your self to connect to something loving and compassionate in the universe.

So I encourage you to experience not interpret. The wind rain mountains and snow hold the beauty of heaven and the nature of the gods far better then anything crafted and packaged by the hand of man book or other wise.