The planet Earth is probably 4.5 billion years old. Mankind has walked on its surface for some seven to eight million years. The first references to gods appear about 40,000 years ago, when primitive forms of writing began. The Christian God was still some 35,000 years in the future. When did the first gods begin to come forth? Who created them? Where did they come from? Are gods still necessary? How do they fit into the new worlds recently revealed by science and new understandings developed through philosophy? Do our gods distract us from the truth about life and spirit? And how do we proceed to determine that truth? What has happened to religions in the last hundred years during the transition from farm life. Where did the old gods go? Did they just vanish? Or are they still here? Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question in our studies of scripture. Instead of their being a study of the Book of Nature, they have become a study of the nature of man.When love is stripped outof the precious message, all that is left is religion. And God is not allowed to even be present, not in that land of religion. For religion was not made even partly by God.It was created entirely by man himself, and made in man's own image.
About the Author: John Womack was born and raised a Baptist in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and he lived throughout the southern United States during the 1930s to 1950s. He converted to Episcopalian at age 22, becoming a Lay Reader and Chalice Bearer, and he conducted Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer services in various Episcopal churches in the absence of a priest. In 1984, he was initiated into the Sufi Order International, an organization which studies all major religions, by Pir Villiat Inayt Khan. Beginning about the year 2000, Womack began searching into what he felt was a calling beyond religions. When he realized many people were abandoning their old religions, he began searching for a new avenue, a different trail into the realm of Spirituality and Consciousness. Womack also served in the United States Air Force from 1956 to 1976 as a navigator, a Missile Crew Commander in the Titan II program, launching a Titan II in 1966 from Vandenberg AFB, California. He returned to Navigation and in Project Skyspot directed B-52 bombers to their targets in Vietnam, spending three tours in Southeast Asia. Womack has an MBA and has taught management principles in colleges for over 24 years, including 4 years as Chairman of the Business Department at Thomas County Community College. He also worked for the State of Florida, serving as Budget Officer, Senior Auditor, and later as Supervisor of Accounting Services in the Comptroller's Office. After retirement, he moved to North Carolina and hiked throughout the southern Blue Ridge mountains, working as a photographic artist and lecturer, speaking in cities and towns throughout the mountains of north Georgia and Western North Carolina. He and his wife JoAnn now live in Florida and are the parents of five children and eight granddaughters and they enjoy traveling in this country and overseas.