less suffering means less God

Does less suffering mean we rely or need less of God?

When I think about this question, I think about how man has relied on God throughout history. I also tend to think how religion has evolved from culture to culture and it's evolutionary impact on today's modern society. Religion is not the same as when it started. This is obvious, but one must investigate to see what is really going on between man's relationship with God.

I am by no means a history buff, and I probably won't even have all of my facts straight. During the time of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, people relied or feared multiple gods. They feared that if they did something wrong as people that the gods would strike them with lightning, destroy their crops, dry up their rivers and make their women barren. There was a sort of 'touchy' relationship with the gods that if you obeyed and appeased them, you would enjoy a lavish life of feast and blessings. People relied on this line of thought to survive in life. If they didn't appease the gods through daily worship or offerings, the gods would spite them and destroy their lives and culture. This line of thinking continued through newer, but streamlined religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. This is when the idea of many gods became simplified to one God almighty. But still, the same line of thinking remained - if you weren't in the right with God, you would be punished, as can be seen implicitly in the Torah, Old Testament and the Qur'an. People of these faiths would also make daily sacrifices and do what they needed in their own religions to please God, in turn, may have meant less suffering. Some religions began to cope with suffering, stating this was a way of life, and God must still be worshiped even in suffering. I know this is a reoccurring message in Christianity, but I'm not positive about Islam and Judaism.

So now there came about more of a personal relationship with God, rather than a fear-invoked line of reasoning that you didn't know and understand what the gods would do, just what you had to do to stay alive. Once the personal relationship with God began to develop for societies, the more they began to abuse the relationship. Enter God's wraths, the Ten Commandments, etc. This is a part in history where there was still a heavy ideology placed on suffering and God's involvement in human life. It was a 2 way relationship, whereas before, it was a 1 way relationship - you pleased the gods and they didn't wipe you off the earth.

Moving forward just a little bit, Jesus Christ came to the earth, suffered for all of humanities sins and rose on the 3rd day to sit beside God Almighty. This is the Christian belief system, the one I know best, and the one I will base my thoughts on suffering. So there came a big sense of relief and 'sighs' when Jesus did this, because no longer was God the angry, quick tempered deity that was previously described in earlier scripture and generations passed. People began to see that it was O.K. to sin, they would still suffer a little, but the pressure was seemingly relieved by God. This is also what separated the church, Catholicism and Protestantism. Catholics stated you would also be saved by God's grace, Protestants stated there was always room to screw up your relationship with God. Now, I want to interject a very, very important point here. Society was beginning to develop more during this time. Republics/democracies were in their infancies and people became technologically and environmentally smarter. People in turn, began to rely less on being scared by their gods/God and more about what they didn't know how to do/prevent. This is a bold statement, and I am by no means discrediting God here, I am simply asking the question - Has technological advancement created less suffering and in turn, since there is less suffering, do we rely on less of God?

Fast forward to the Enlightenment. Here we have new thinkers, enlightening our culture with new inventions, ideas, and in a sense almost abandoning their worship of God to pursue what will make human life better. Until this point, people thought whatever they did, was controlled by God in a metaphysical sense. Many of these thinkers wanted a life that was explained outside of God and you can almost say this was the early stages of atheism/agnosticism/skepticism. Sure these thinkers still attended church regularly, but there was another side of them that stayed in labs at night and away from the public and governments eye. Religion and government were always closely tied, and still are to an extent today. The government/church threw out the ideas of Galileo and Copernicus saying the world was round and not the center because it opposed what they thought of the world based on their religious beliefs: humans and our planet is the center of the universe - we are the most important thing to God. We all know that they later ate their words and from that point on(or sooner) began to realize the benefits of understanding the world we live in. They also realized they could use this technology to form a more stable society, and also meant for a way to control society.

Fast forward to present day. We live in a society(outside of the Bible belt and many fundamental religious countries) that doesn't care whether you worship God/gods or not. Technology as we know it has caught up to meet all of human needs to make us live longer, safer and do the things without the fear of God. Some think this is great, but some, like myself, are very, very cautious and almost terrified of this. Humans have created a society that is so self-efficient that we rely less on God because we suffer less. If I have a common disease, I probably won't die - like the old days - so I would in turn pray less and just go to the doctor for a quick fix. This is the same line of reasoning for many diseases, injury, food, etc. The main problem with this line of thinking is there is still mortality, and we all die. No matter how efficient we become as a culture, we all die. What happens when we are able to regenerate ourselves, live immortally, etc? Honestly, I don't know. I know that generation and the philosophies within that generation will have a very tough time arguing on the side of God, because we will essentially have no need for God if we can allow our physical minds and bodies live forever. But if we eventually learn how to live forever, there will still be doomsday, because the universe or our galaxy will supposedly come to an end. Again, all this is speculation.

So what is next? Is Christianity(and other religions) undergoing an 'upgrade?' Are we living in a time that just like computers and other technological upgrades, in need of Christianity 2.0 or 3.0? If we want Christianity to stick around, it has to conform to modern times. I don't think any religion or faith will ever be completely lost, but I do think in order to preserve it's integrity, it must be continually examined. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. People and societies have changed, along with their inventions. What still remains, and what we don't have an answer to, is why we are here and what is our purpose. As long as this question remains, I think we will always have a reason to search for something in life, and hopefully continue to find God in that search.