Truth of God Institute

Truth of God Institute (TGI)

Dr. Wesley Muhammad, FounderFor most believers in God religion is a non-, even anti-intellectual experience. Not in the mystical sense of recognizing that ultimately the Divine, and the experience of it, transcends all intellectual categories; rather anti-intellectual in the sense of failing or even refusing to allow intellect and reason to guide or even participate in their religious experience. This is especially true in matters of dogma. For instance, when it is empirically demonstrated that a particular time-honored religious doctrine (such as the Orthodox [Nicean] doctrine of the Trinity) has a very earthly, historical beginning and development and did not actually fall down from heaven or originate with the religion's founder, instead of trying to understand that doctrine in the context of this history, many believers reject the value of history itself in matters religious and seek refuge in the supposed 'mysteriousness' of the sacred. Such anti-intellectualism could not but produce 'fools for Jesus,' 'fools for Muhammad,' 'fools for the Buddha," etc., making mockery of these great thinkers rather than drawing the believer closer to them. This anti-intellectualism serves the good of no one but the religious establishment who, like wicked shepardmen, take full advantage of their flock. So rather than being edified by religion, too many believers are allowed to live lives that clearly do not reflect the thinking of the religions' founders and which could never lead them (the believers) to the destiny that almost all of the ancient scriptures and sacred texts predict for man: apotheosis or deification, 'becoming divine.' In the process, many sound-minded folk who are unwilling to surrender their God-given intellectual faculties and make some clergyman rich have abandoned religion, spirituality, and even God-consciousness all together.        It is our opinion at TGI that the catastrophic state of the world today is a direct consequence of both factors: religion's failure to edify human beings and human beings' consequent rejection of religion and, frequently, the (God-centered) spiritual principles that initially under girded religion. It is our conviction that human beings simply cannot do life right unless and until we get God right. So the question, Who is God, is, again, not just academic.       But it must be approached academically. I am an historian of religion. This means that I am trained in the historical-critical study of religion and religious texts. After 18 years of studying the world's major religious traditions I am convinced that it can be demonstrated that there is indeed significant continuity across these traditions, and this continuity can serve as the basis for productive interreligious dialogue. But the differences are just as, if not more, important. The Truth of God is like a puzzle. The various sacred texts/scriptures of the world's religions are each an important - equally important - piece of this puzzle and only by figuring out how these different pieces fit together can the fullness of the Truth of God be revealed. We have endeavored to do that here at TGI and we believe the results are convincing. The fact that these results in some cases conflict so violently with normative religious dogma alone lends credence to the results; it is these normative dogmas that are used by the religious clergy as tools for the manipulation of people. The Truth of God as presented here at TGI has the potential to end religious intolerance; the Taliban of Afghanistan for example could never have blown up the towering and ancient Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 had they possessed the Truth of God. It has the potential to free believers in God from the manipulating practices of a self-righteous clergy while at the same time freeing them from the need to choose between abandoning belief in God and abandoning their intellect. The Truth of God requires holding on to both. Once we as individuals finally get God right, we as individuals, as civilizations, and as a world community can begin once again doing life on earth right.Who is God?       There is arguably no more important a question than this. Even a thorough knowledge of self is predicated upon an accurate knowledge of God. Is God an immaterial spirit as normative Judaism and Christianity teach, or a formless ‘no-thing’ as traditional Islam postulates? Might God be a Man (or Woman), as claimed by such disparate groups as the Nation of Islam on the one hand and the Church of Latter Day Saints on the other? In as much as these two groups posit a material, human body for God, they are not able to avoid the question of the color of that body. ‘God is a Black man,’ declared Elijah Muhammad, while Joseph Smith described his theophanic encounter with a white skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed Father God and Christ. What sources can we with profit turn to in order to answer these question? The scriptures of the Western religions (Bible, Qur'an)? The sacred writings of so-called pagan antiquity, e.g. the Kemetic (Egyptian) writings such as the Book of Coming Forth by Day; the cuneiform tablets of ancient Sumer; or maybe ancient Indic literature such as the Rig Veda? What about Science; what contribution, if any, can it make to this discussion?        According to a recent estimate, approximately 25 million Americans consider themselves agnostic, ‘seekers of truth,’ or simply non-committed. This liminal state of rejecting religion, while not yet rejecting the idea of God, is a powerful critique of the institutions of organized religion and most of their representatives who tend to promote dogmatism and uncritical assent to traditional doctrine. This is neither edifying for the believer nor becoming of the religious professional. ”Prove all things,“ the Apostle Paul admonished us, ”and hold fast to that which is good (I Thess 5:21).“          Truth of God Institute (TGI) is an educational, research and resource center committed to providing scholarly and scientific answers to this Mother of All Questions: Who is God? TGI promotes serious, interdisciplinary research and encourages/facilitates critical discussion on the topic of God and related matters. At TGI we are convinced that a critical, history-of-religions approach to the various scriptures and the exegetical traditions that have developed around them, as well as the sacred literatures of antiquity, allows us to proffer an answer to this question (”Who is God?“) that has support from a remarkably wide and diverse cross-section of these literatures, but an answer that does violence to many of the most time-honored and fundamental dogmas of the various religions that claim these literatures as their foundation texts. Such a study suggests that:·         ‘God’, the creator of the cosmos and all life within it, evolved (himself, not just man’s idea of ‘God’). Four major (and several relatively minor) stages in this divine evolution are emphasized in the various literatures. (1) In the beginning ‘God’ was an impersonal, formless force (The Brahman neuter of India is exemplary of this stage). (2) In order to bring order to the pre-existent chaos the formless ‘God’ assumed form, that of a divine, luminous anthropos (the ‘sun-gods’ of the so-called pagan traditions and the Logos of John’s Prologue [John 1: 1-18] are exemplary of this stage). To protect creation from the harmful effects of his overpowering luminosity ‘God’ cloaked his morphic brilliance in a black material body, the substance of which was the dark primordial matter that coexisted with him. The light of the divine form passing through the hairpores of the divine black body produced a beautiful blue iridescence or surrounding glow. This is why in Egypt, Sumer, India, and even in ancient Israel the leading deities (in Israel’s case Yahweh himself) are depicted with blue-black, ‘sapphiric’ bodies. (3) ‘God’ suffers some sort of tragedy in his person, the effects of which resonate throughout his entire creation. This tragedy is frequently given a somatic significance, or at least its somatic consequences are often emphasized. That is to say, the tragedy affected ‘God’s’ body. (4) The repair in the divine nature is affected through the agency of a divine eschatological figure whose relation to ‘God’ is highly ambivalent in the sources: he is both identified with ‘God’ and in some sense distinguished from him.·         The ‘God’ of monotheism (Judaism, Christian, and Islam) is not of a different genus as the ‘Gods’ of so-called pagandom. He too is a transcendent anthropos – a divine man: in the Hebrew Bible an ‘ish (man) and gibbor (mighty man), in the Greek New Testament an anthropos (man), and in the Classical Arabic/Islamic sources a shakhs (corporeal person) and shabb (young man). He is not a formless spirit, nor does he govern the cosmos alone. He sits amidst a council of gods holy like himself but subordinate to his command. The ‘God’ of monotheism is multiple, like the ‘Gods’ of Israel’s neighbors. ·         These literatures, including the scriptures, give evidence of a theological anthropology in which God and man are not separated by an unbridgeable ontological gulf. God is anthropomorphic and man is divine, or at least he (i.e. they, man and woman) was at his creation and has the potential to be again. God and man are indeed ‘kin’. Thus Yahweh exhorts: ”Be ye holy, for I am holy (Lev. 11:44),“ and John declared that ”when He shall appear, we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).“ The ancient Egyptians said simply: ”the gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods.“   TGI is committed to providing scholarly materials, written by us as well as by scholars in various disciplines, confirming and elaborating upon these various aspects of the answer offered by the ancient texts (read critically and independent of dogmatic presuppositions) to this important question: Who is God?In the near future we will be offering such general courses:1.) Who is God? Part I: The Ancient Mysteries

2.) Who is God? Part II: Biblical Tradition

3.) Who is God? Part III: Islamic Tradition

4.) The Truth of God and the Deity of Christ

5.) The Secret of God: Gnosticism and Kabbalah

6.) Science and the Truth of God As part of our commitment to offering strictly empirical, academically sound answers to important questions relevant to the Truth of God, TGI will be releasing ‘Status Questionnaire Reports’, or Status Reports for short. These Status Reports will each address an important controversial or misunderstood issue, bringing the best, most updated scholarship to bear on the issue/question. Forthcoming Status Reports include but are not limited to the following:1.)     God: Man or Spirit?

2.)     God: One or Many?

3.)     A Black God?

4.)     Are the Prophets Historical? Jesus and Muhammad as Test Cases

5.)     Are the Scriptures Reliable?

6.)     God and the Ancient Mysteries: Egypt, India and Sumer And more. What distinguishes TGI scholarship? In a word: sources. In a phrase: access to top-notch academic sources. The quality of scholarship is largely determined by the quality of the sources upon which a work relies. Researchers who have access to the most and the best source-material have the potential to produce the best scholarship. This is why language training is important to scholarship: because it gives one access to a wider range of relevant primary and scholarly secondary source-materials. This is also why spoken fluency in a language has minimal scholarly value, at least in terms of historical-critical scholarship. It is LITERACY in the relevant languages that is of paramount importance here. Just as there are articulate yet illiterate English speakers, there are fluent, even native, Arabic speakers (for example) who cannot read a Classical Arabic text. Such a person, while able to converse about modern trends and events, can offer very little to the critical discourse about Islamic Theology. TGI scholarship is based on access to the best sources. The bottom line is this: books acquired from Borders, Barnes & Noble, or our local bookstores can at best produce only mediocre scholarship. These stores don’t service the most important scholarly presses (such as BRILL, for example). These scholarly sources are only available in academic libraries, at academic conferences, or from the publishers. Also, a good deal of the best scholarship is not available as books at all: it is published in scholarly peer-reviewed journals that are largely inaccessible to non-academicians. Students and affiliates of TGI will have access to a lot of this source material through the TGI Online Library. I have already scanned hundreds of pages of this material, which will be made available as PDF files through the Library. The Library will continuously grow. TGI affiliates will be in a much better position to speak critically and authoritatively on relevant issues because they will have access to the more critical, authoritative source-materials.

 

 

  

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Truth of God Institute (TGI)

Dr. Wesley Muhammad, FounderFor most believers in God religion is a non-, even anti-intellectual experience. Not in the mystical sense of recognizing that ultimately the Divine, and the experience of it, transcends all intellectual categories; rather anti-intellectual in the sense of failing or even refusing to allow intellect and reason to guide or even participate in their religious experience. This is especially true in matters of dogma. For instance, when it is empirically demonstrated that a particular time-honored religious doctrine (such as the Orthodox [Nicean] doctrine of the Trinity) has a very earthly, historical beginning and development and did not actually fall down from heaven or originate with the religion's founder, instead of trying to understand that doctrine in the context of this history, many believers reject the value of history itself in matters religious and seek refuge in the supposed 'mysteriousness' of the sacred. Such anti-intellectualism could not but produce 'fools for Jesus,' 'fools for Muhammad,' 'fools for the Buddha," etc., making mockery of these great thinkers rather than drawing the believer closer to them. This anti-intellectualism serves the good of no one but the religious establishment who, like wicked shepardmen, take full advantage of their flock. So rather than being edified by religion, too many believers are allowed to live lives that clearly do not reflect the thinking of the religions' founders and which could never lead them (the believers) to the destiny that almost all of the ancient scriptures and sacred texts predict for man: apotheosis or deification, 'becoming divine.' In the process, many sound-minded folk who are unwilling to surrender their God-given intellectual faculties and make some clergyman rich have abandoned religion, spirituality, and even God-consciousness all together.        It is our opinion at TGI that the catastrophic state of the world today is a direct consequence of both factors: religion's failure to edify human beings and human beings' consequent rejection of religion and, frequently, the (God-centered) spiritual principles that initially under girded religion. It is our conviction that human beings simply cannot do life right unless and until we get God right. So the question, Who is God, is, again, not just academic.       But it must be approached academically. I am an historian of religion. This means that I am trained in the historical-critical study of religion and religious texts. After 18 years of studying the world's major religious traditions I am convinced that it can be demonstrated that there is indeed significant continuity across these traditions, and this continuity can serve as the basis for productive interreligious dialogue. But the differences are just as, if not more, important. The Truth of God is like a puzzle. The various sacred texts/scriptures of the world's religions are each an important - equally important - piece of this puzzle and only by figuring out how these different pieces fit together can the fullness of the Truth of God be revealed. We have endeavored to do that here at TGI and we believe the results are convincing. The fact that these results in some cases conflict so violently with normative religious dogma alone lends credence to the results; it is these normative dogmas that are used by the religious clergy as tools for the manipulation of people. The Truth of God as presented here at TGI has the potential to end religious intolerance; the Taliban of Afghanistan for example could never have blown up the towering and ancient Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 had they possessed the Truth of God. It has the potential to free believers in God from the manipulating practices of a self-righteous clergy while at the same time freeing them from the need to choose between abandoning belief in God and abandoning their intellect. The Truth of God requires holding on to both. Once we as individuals finally get God right, we as individuals, as civilizations, and as a world community can begin once again doing life on earth right.Who is God?       There is arguably no more important a question than this. Even a thorough knowledge of self is predicated upon an accurate knowledge of God. Is God an immaterial spirit as normative Judaism and Christianity teach, or a formless ‘no-thing’ as traditional Islam postulates? Might God be a Man (or Woman), as claimed by such disparate groups as the Nation of Islam on the one hand and the Church of Latter Day Saints on the other? In as much as these two groups posit a material, human body for God, they are not able to avoid the question of the color of that body. ‘God is a Black man,’ declared Elijah Muhammad, while Joseph Smith described his theophanic encounter with a white skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed Father God and Christ. What sources can we with profit turn to in order to answer these question? The scriptures of the Western religions (Bible, Qur'an)? The sacred writings of so-called pagan antiquity, e.g. the Kemetic (Egyptian) writings such as the Book of Coming Forth by Day; the cuneiform tablets of ancient Sumer; or maybe ancient Indic literature such as the Rig Veda? What about Science; what contribution, if any, can it make to this discussion?        According to a recent estimate, approximately 25 million Americans consider themselves agnostic, ‘seekers of truth,’ or simply non-committed. This liminal state of rejecting religion, while not yet rejecting the idea of God, is a powerful critique of the institutions of organized religion and most of their representatives who tend to promote dogmatism and uncritical assent to traditional doctrine. This is neither edifying for the believer nor becoming of the religious professional. ”Prove all things,“ the Apostle Paul admonished us, ”and hold fast to that which is good (I Thess 5:21).“          Truth of God Institute (TGI) is an educational, research and resource center committed to providing scholarly and scientific answers to this Mother of All Questions: Who is God? TGI promotes serious, interdisciplinary research and encourages/facilitates critical discussion on the topic of God and related matters. At TGI we are convinced that a critical, history-of-religions approach to the various scriptures and the exegetical traditions that have developed around them, as well as the sacred literatures of antiquity, allows us to proffer an answer to this question (”Who is God?“) that has support from a remarkably wide and diverse cross-section of these literatures, but an answer that does violence to many of the most time-honored and fundamental dogmas of the various religions that claim these literatures as their foundation texts. Such a study suggests that:·         ‘God’, the creator of the cosmos and all life within it, evolved (himself, not just man’s idea of ‘God’). Four major (and several relatively minor) stages in this divine evolution are emphasized in the various literatures. (1) In the beginning ‘God’ was an impersonal, formless force (The Brahman neuter of India is exemplary of this stage). (2) In order to bring order to the pre-existent chaos the formless ‘God’ assumed form, that of a divine, luminous anthropos (the ‘sun-gods’ of the so-called pagan traditions and the Logos of John’s Prologue [John 1: 1-18] are exemplary of this stage). To protect creation from the harmful effects of his overpowering luminosity ‘God’ cloaked his morphic brilliance in a black material body, the substance of which was the dark primordial matter that coexisted with him. The light of the divine form passing through the hairpores of the divine black body produced a beautiful blue iridescence or surrounding glow. This is why in Egypt, Sumer, India, and even in ancient Israel the leading deities (in Israel’s case Yahweh himself) are depicted with blue-black, ‘sapphiric’ bodies. (3) ‘God’ suffers some sort of tragedy in his person, the effects of which resonate throughout his entire creation. This tragedy is frequently given a somatic significance, or at least its somatic consequences are often emphasized. That is to say, the tragedy affected ‘God’s’ body. (4) The repair in the divine nature is affected through the agency of a divine eschatological figure whose relation to ‘God’ is highly ambivalent in the sources: he is both identified with ‘God’ and in some sense distinguished from him.·         The ‘God’ of monotheism (Judaism, Christian, and Islam) is not of a different genus as the ‘Gods’ of so-called pagandom. He too is a transcendent anthropos – a divine man: in the Hebrew Bible an ‘ish (man) and gibbor (mighty man), in the Greek New Testament an anthropos (man), and in the Classical Arabic/Islamic sources a shakhs (corporeal person) and shabb (young man). He is not a formless spirit, nor does he govern the cosmos alone. He sits amidst a council of gods holy like himself but subordinate to his command. The ‘God’ of monotheism is multiple, like the ‘Gods’ of Israel’s neighbors. ·         These literatures, including the scriptures, give evidence of a theological anthropology in which God and man are not separated by an unbridgeable ontological gulf. God is anthropomorphic and man is divine, or at least he (i.e. they, man and woman) was at his creation and has the potential to be again. God and man are indeed ‘kin’. Thus Yahweh exhorts: ”Be ye holy, for I am holy (Lev. 11:44),“ and John declared that ”when He shall appear, we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).“ The ancient Egyptians said simply: ”the gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods.“   TGI is committed to providing scholarly materials, written by us as well as by scholars in various disciplines, confirming and elaborating upon these various aspects of the answer offered by the ancient texts (read critically and independent of dogmatic presuppositions) to this important question: Who is God?In the near future we will be offering such general courses:1.) Who is God? Part I: The Ancient Mysteries

2.) Who is God? Part II: Biblical Tradition

3.) Who is God? Part III: Islamic Tradition

4.) The Truth of God and the Deity of Christ

5.) The Secret of God: Gnosticism and Kabbalah

6.) Science and the Truth of God As part of our commitment to offering strictly empirical, academically sound answers to important questions relevant to the Truth of God, TGI will be releasing ‘Status Questionnaire Reports’, or Status Reports for short. These Status Reports will each address an important controversial or misunderstood issue, bringing the best, most updated scholarship to bear on the issue/question. Forthcoming Status Reports include but are not limited to the following:1.)     God: Man or Spirit?

2.)     God: One or Many?

3.)     A Black God?

4.)     Are the Prophets Historical? Jesus and Muhammad as Test Cases

5.)     Are the Scriptures Reliable?

6.)     God and the Ancient Mysteries: Egypt, India and Sumer And more. What distinguishes TGI scholarship? In a word: sources. In a phrase: access to top-notch academic sources. The quality of scholarship is largely determined by the quality of the sources upon which a work relies. Researchers who have access to the most and the best source-material have the potential to produce the best scholarship. This is why language training is important to scholarship: because it gives one access to a wider range of relevant primary and scholarly secondary source-materials. This is also why spoken fluency in a language has minimal scholarly value, at least in terms of historical-critical scholarship. It is LITERACY in the relevant languages that is of paramount importance here. Just as there are articulate yet illiterate English speakers, there are fluent, even native, Arabic speakers (for example) who cannot read a Classical Arabic text. Such a person, while able to converse about modern trends and events, can offer very little to the critical discourse about Islamic Theology. TGI scholarship is based on access to the best sources. The bottom line is this: books acquired from Borders, Barnes & Noble, or our local bookstores can at best produce only mediocre scholarship. These stores don’t service the most important scholarly presses (such as BRILL, for example). These scholarly sources are only available in academic libraries, at academic conferences, or from the publishers. Also, a good deal of the best scholarship is not available as books at all: it is published in scholarly peer-reviewed journals that are largely inaccessible to non-academicians. Students and affiliates of TGI will have access to a lot of this source material through the TGI Online Library. I have already scanned hundreds of pages of this material, which will be made available as PDF files through the Library. The Library will continuously grow. TGI affiliates will be in a much better position to speak critically and authoritatively on relevant issues because they will have access to the more critical, authoritative source-materials.

 

 

  

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