I believe God transcends religion. If God is love and love is light, then God has the leeway to be the personified being of light a person is most comfortable with, within themselves. This means God can be a he, a she, a they/them, a we. God can be me. God can be you. God can be the ocean - which is as wide and vast and deep as it is blue. God can be the air we breathe and the sunlight upon our skin. God can be a tree, with its deep roots and flourishing leaves. God transcends religion because creation does too. The sun, the moon and the stars do not adhere to a religious dogma, they just are. The planets move on their own accord for the purpose of the continuation of this system, without supervision. The Earth rotates on its axis without guidance. Animals go about their lives living instinctively as well. Every bit of life in the world and the things outside it, are intricately interconnected for the purpose of continuing this system. No one tells the bees to pollinate the flowers and plants, they just do. However, regardless of this - or one could say, BECAUSE of this, human ideology states that this system was created by God because it's the idea that most makes sense to us as it pertains to our own purpose in it all.
Ocean tides bulge depending on the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon. We see the sun rise every morning, and set every evening, because the Earth rotates on its axis without pause. What would happen if it paused for a second, say if the laws of gravity and motion weren't a thing of-course? Everything not attached to the ground would be swept up into the atmosphere is what, and that includes us. What would happen if the moon fell out of orbit? Our seasons would drastically change and the Earth would shift its orbit around the sun. What would happen if there was no tide generating force anymore? Over 500 animal lives would be affected along with human life - temperatures would be out of wack, fishing would be next to impossible, life would be chaos. What would happen if one planet in our solar system moved a little closer to the sun? Say if Jupiter fell out of orbit, it would set off a series of collisions in the other planets - that would include our own planet eventually crashing into the sun along with them. Do they know religion? No. Yet and still, they keep moving which leads to the continuation of this system. The solar system just follows the laws of gravity and motion automatically, not because they were told to. In fact, these laws were conceptualized BECAUSE of that automated process, not the other way around. All living and non-living things just are, and by being, they play a part in the continuation of this system.
No one tells the flowers to bloom in color, they just do, and by proxy their beautiful colors attract the bees that pollinate them. Did you know that bees pollinate 1/3 of our global food supply? Without bees, our system would collapse. Do you think bees adhere to religion? No. They’re preordained to follow a path which helps our ecosystem continue. They follow their queen and do what is necessary for their hive, for their survival. This is why I believe God transcends religion; because every other living and non-living thing that is essential to our survival doesn’t adhere to our religious dogmas; all human laws/rules/dogmas were created for humans to make sense of what already was. And out of every other being/thing - the planets, the ocean, the plants, the birds, the bees - this system would not collapse without humans.
I believe we, humans, have long recognized and realized that we are not essential for this system to continue and that is why we created religion. Because in its essence, religion states that the human's purpose in this world is to serve God. No matter that the rest of the system is serving its purpose by being actively and physically important to the continuation of itself, humans have the highest purpose to serve God willingly. That is what religion states.
Somehow, in order for us to feel we have a purpose, we must exalt ourselves beyond every other living thing and state that our stream of consciousness is superior; it is the thing for which everything else works in an interconnected fashion. Our mindset says that although the planet is literally bigger than us and hosts an entire world of beings that live and breathe without us, we are still more important than it and our lives have more value than it. We state every day that our values and theories and ideologies carry more weight and are of more consequence than the literal place which hosts us. We find our own stream of consciousness more important and more alive than the planet. We do not truly acknowledge that it is a living being.
We cannot fathom the planet as it’s own entity worthy of life and respect, because we view it as ours. It’s OUR planet and therefore a thing not a being. The oceans are OUR oceans. The trees are OUR trees, and therefore things not beings. We claim everything. We own everything. And by that simple act, we exalt ourselves above all these beings that are beyond and above us. We did not make them, and although not for lack of trying, we cannot re-create them. Why? Because contrary to our belief otherwise, they are not ours. We do not own the planet, if anything, the planet owns us. If it stopped spinning tomorrow, that would be the end of us. And just by merely recognizing the fact that all other beings/things in this system work together in an interconnected fashion for the continuation of life, one can deduce that God (whom/what we deem the creator of all things) is beyond human creation - i.e. religion. So I believe, God transcends religion because creation, itself, transcends it too. Thank You, Carmen Hernandez