What if God was one of us?

The song by Joan Osborne, ‘One of Us’ came up on my Winamp music player while I was playing random songs from my collection and it got me to thinking. If God did decide to ‘live’ amongst us how would he do it?

My first thought was that he would probably not want to live amongst a group of religious followers. He already knows how they view him. Of course, he could use the opportunity to ferret out the charlatans and hypocrites. I wonder how many ‘religious’ people would be left after that.

No, he would probably be able to ‘blend’ in better with the everyday people. Those who don’t go to regular church services or don’t even belong to any organized religion. This way He could tap into the ‘truer’ pulse of what people think of him.

Maybe He wouldn’t even care what people really think of him. He might just want to see first hand, so to speak, how people do get along down here on this planet.

The only true way to get into someone’s mind is to talk with them without them knowing who they were talking to. I’m sure if you knew you was talking to God in person you would not be able to be your true self.

The basic premise of the song, for those of you not familiar with it it, goes:
“What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.”

The song asks what would you ask Him if you had the chance?

I think I would ask him if he really cares which faith a person follows. Does it really matter how you believe in Him or even if you do or don’t. I would want to ask Him how He feels about people killing each other in His name.

I never could understand how anyone can believe in an entity that created the first two people, who then beget and begot the entire human race, could harbor any desire to kill what is, essentially, their own brother and sister. I would definitely want His opinion on this question.

If He did walk amongst us you would certainly have to rearrange your outlook on His existence. How would you handle having to deal with that? I mean, suddenly using His name in vain would probably taper off quite a bit. Don’t you think?

Would people actually start treating each other better? Would we actually honor the vows we make to each other in His name if it suddenly meant something more than mere words? Would the whole of Earth become a church now that He would be walking on it with us?

Of course, there would still be die-hard skeptics who would demand He perform some miracle just to prove He is who He claims.

Religious scholars would try to dominate His time and He would not be able to fulfill His purpose for walking among us as one of us.

No, I really don’t think He would want us to know if He was here.

As far fetched as this sounds, how would we truly know if He was here or not? Wouldn’t it be best to hedge our bets, just in case He is real?

What if we learned that He really can’t change anything, or ‘make’ things better. What if we find out that we alone have the ability to make our lives better or worse and what we can physically see and toucj truly is all there is? Would this free us to, together, strive harder to make it all work?

There really is a pecking order in nature. It is a very basic tenet that is present in every insect, mammal, bird, and reptile population that crawls on this planet. Wars, diseases, famines, global warming are all necessary devices to alleviate overcrowding. It really is the only way we can assure ourselves of not running out of resources and starving ourselves to death.

There isn’t anything we can do to change the attitudes of the assholes of the world, we can only deal with them as best we can and try to make our own lives as comfortable and worthwhile as possible. Hopefully, we can pull this off without getting too dinged up ourselves.

Just keep in mind, that if He is one of us then we should consider that anyone around us just might be Him.