Name: No one will read this 2009-10-23 2:38
'I certainly had been in churches—for marriages, celebrations, theatrical functions, and off-Broadway activities that took place in rented church basements. But for spiritual communion, I have never needed an institutional setting to search for the connections that my mother had to her higher power.
So what is my faith? My faith is that of a person who questions. And my questions today, at eighty years of age, haven’t changed much in all those years. Among them is this one: am I to believe, am I to accept, am I to embrace the articulation of a faith from other human beings who have no more understanding of it than I have?
The question of God, the existence or nonexistence, is a perennial question, because we don’t know. Is the universe the result of God, or was the universe always there? Was there originally an intelligence that has no beginning and no end, an intelligence that cannot be articulated in a fashion in which most of us perceive God?
A lot of people see Him as the image of a human being: white, on a cloud, with a beard, long hair, and a robe. I think it diminishes God for us to perceive Him in that way, because there is no way there could be a God on a cloud with long hair, a beard, and Caucasian. Could He not be a multicolored God? Could He not be an Asian or African or Hispanic God? Of course He could be.
I perceive God, in the event that He is there—and I have to constantly underscore the possibility that God does exist—as not in the form in which we have been encouraged to believe He exists.There are many people who are very satisfied with God on a cloud; they are satisfied with the imagery that Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam present. People by the billions are comfortable with those images.And they commit themselves to that perception.They live their lives embracing it—in most cases, never doubting it.
I find it difficult to believe some of the images of God.The closest I can come is a belief that there is an intelligence that does not manifest itself in a solid material or in a presence; it is much bigger than the universe itself, because if God is as omniscient as He is supposed to be, the universe itself is one of His creations.And if the universe is one of His creations, we are entitled to ask the question, How many more universes are there, or is this the one and only universe? We should be able to ask God, as I perceive Him or Her to be, and get total intelligence of everything. And God would be able to say, “Yes, this is one of my creations, and I do indeed have them everywhere, and I’m glad you are interested in questioning about that.”
So we come down to how I perceive this God, and my relationship to that perception. I think it is rather simple: I cannot have lived the life I have lived without reserving a limitless amount of respect for God. And my next point is that the images of God should also be limitless because my imagination tells me that God is bigger than one religion.
I don’t see a God who is concerned with the daily operation of the universe. In fact, the universe may be no more than a grain of sand compared with all the other universes.And if you put together the possibility of other universes, there could be as many as there are grains of sand in this universe.
Now, that may seem far-fetched, but it is not if you give God the due that He, I believe, would have, which is: there couldn’t be a territory over which God does not have full sway.Then, if God does have full sway in everything that exists, that God is all encompassing. And that all-encompassing God is not just for some of us; that God is for all of us. It is not a God for one culture, or one religion, or one planet.'
So what is my faith? My faith is that of a person who questions. And my questions today, at eighty years of age, haven’t changed much in all those years. Among them is this one: am I to believe, am I to accept, am I to embrace the articulation of a faith from other human beings who have no more understanding of it than I have?
The question of God, the existence or nonexistence, is a perennial question, because we don’t know. Is the universe the result of God, or was the universe always there? Was there originally an intelligence that has no beginning and no end, an intelligence that cannot be articulated in a fashion in which most of us perceive God?
A lot of people see Him as the image of a human being: white, on a cloud, with a beard, long hair, and a robe. I think it diminishes God for us to perceive Him in that way, because there is no way there could be a God on a cloud with long hair, a beard, and Caucasian. Could He not be a multicolored God? Could He not be an Asian or African or Hispanic God? Of course He could be.
I perceive God, in the event that He is there—and I have to constantly underscore the possibility that God does exist—as not in the form in which we have been encouraged to believe He exists.There are many people who are very satisfied with God on a cloud; they are satisfied with the imagery that Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam present. People by the billions are comfortable with those images.And they commit themselves to that perception.They live their lives embracing it—in most cases, never doubting it.
I find it difficult to believe some of the images of God.The closest I can come is a belief that there is an intelligence that does not manifest itself in a solid material or in a presence; it is much bigger than the universe itself, because if God is as omniscient as He is supposed to be, the universe itself is one of His creations.And if the universe is one of His creations, we are entitled to ask the question, How many more universes are there, or is this the one and only universe? We should be able to ask God, as I perceive Him or Her to be, and get total intelligence of everything. And God would be able to say, “Yes, this is one of my creations, and I do indeed have them everywhere, and I’m glad you are interested in questioning about that.”
So we come down to how I perceive this God, and my relationship to that perception. I think it is rather simple: I cannot have lived the life I have lived without reserving a limitless amount of respect for God. And my next point is that the images of God should also be limitless because my imagination tells me that God is bigger than one religion.
I don’t see a God who is concerned with the daily operation of the universe. In fact, the universe may be no more than a grain of sand compared with all the other universes.And if you put together the possibility of other universes, there could be as many as there are grains of sand in this universe.
Now, that may seem far-fetched, but it is not if you give God the due that He, I believe, would have, which is: there couldn’t be a territory over which God does not have full sway.Then, if God does have full sway in everything that exists, that God is all encompassing. And that all-encompassing God is not just for some of us; that God is for all of us. It is not a God for one culture, or one religion, or one planet.'