Belief

Belief

I said I believed in God. But this was because I didn’t know Him and He was a complete stranger. All I knew was me. No one else was in the world of me except me.

I visualized this situation very completely even as a child. There was an “egg of light” that would surround me on call – cup around my whole body in gleaming, protective embrace. Once enclosed by this egg, the whole world was outside and from within I could see nothing but light, like a pale white fog. So how could God or anyone else come in there? I was shielded from everything.

Becoming older, I was taught to believe in God as some kind of entity who was located in “heaven,” which was no one knew where but somehow up. And the reason given for the necessity of this belief was based on guilt and fear. Guilt for God’s self-sacrifice in “saving” my undeserving insignificance, and fear for what would happen if I did not suitably appreciate the unasked for “gift” of salvation.

All these dire theological premises made a big impression upon my sensitive persona, and I strove mightily to believe as instructed. The “suitable appreciation” also required memorizing ritualized ideals (called Catechism) and acting according to ritualized behaviors (called the Ten Commandments).

Soon I made the agonizing discovery that everyone faces who is put in this position, namely: no one, but NO ONE, can keep the Ten Commandments! They are a setup for absolute failure across the board.

I philosophized that this inevitable failure was designed to foster humility, as in the case of the Prodigal Son who rejects his father’s ways and leaves him only to return later humbled from suffering horribly.

Never mind the question of what kind of supposedly loving deity would create people to suffer. Belief requires that we do not question God's integrity. St. Paul even admits this untenable position:

"Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he [God] yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" (Rom. 9:19-21).

All of this slogging through theology no one can make sense of convinced me that belief cannot bring anyone closer to reality. Belief is itself an indication of mental confusion, because what we know to be true requires no belief system.

God is God whether we believe in Him or not. Although mentally affirming certain conceptual positions might affect our experience of life, at some point we need more than this. Ideas are stepping stones, but not the entire journey.

Reality is more than a thought, and more than CAN be thought.