Dear Real Rare Flower,

I am a kind of spiritual. And I do sometimes enjoy holy scripts of all kinds, but rather as a vehicle to better understanding of people of many, many generations ago. And although I can find in their thoughts seeds of my thoughts about God, I cannot turn blind eye towards other thoughts and acts of theirs – thoughts and acts I could never accept. These thoughts and acts obviously have been influenced by historical persons, but they have been also obviously distorted to such degree that the most of original teachings is probably lost.

I also have to consider historical impact of holy scripts. And the fact is that there was so much evil committed and still can be committed reciting holy scripts, that I shiver. This is why I included “My God” story in my, soon to be published, book. This is why I cannot accept any musing based upon holy scripts without a grain of salt. And when we consider our Western (Christian) culture, we have grown up with the Bible, at least in the background. And the most of distortions in it have been also incorporated in our culture. And we are so much used to them (habit) that we could be blind to their potential for evil.

I’ll rephrase a saying: The road to hell is tiled by good intentions. There might be very few such tiles on the suggested site, but watch carefully on which you are stepping on.

Kind regards,

Damir

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My God

This morning two young people of an unknown Christian denomination pestered me. I tried to be polite, knowing what was about to happen. As expected, the first question was do I believe in God. Although I knew what would follow I had no choice but to say no. If I said yes, the conversation would inevitably lead towards: which one? I managed to politely say good-bye with a sour taste in my mouth.

Let’s face it. We are either atheists or polytheists. Atheists believe that there is no god.[1] The rest of us are either honest or dishonest polytheists. And dishonest polytheists proclaimed themselves to be believers in the one and only god.

And we became true believers. We left no room for another, one and only, god. And, in the name of our “one and only” god, we even killed and maimed. And, in the name of our “one and only” god, we are creating prolife movements while taking life to stuff ourselves into obesity – for our “one and only” god gave us our universe to use and abuse.

I cannot and I will not honour any of these “one and only” gods with a capital G.

Although Christianity gave up sword and witch-hunt to spread, it invented missionaries. Missionaries are deeply religious and honest in their activities. But they are, knowingly or not, like party activists. Do we have divine elections? I mean, do we have to choose which god of our gods is the one – the only one?

I have no choice but to say no to any of these gods. Neither of these gods is my God. Only occasionally can I reach a degree of agreement with a religious person about God. All the rest is empty talk full of old stories endlessly repeated for thousands of years.

I do not like to call my God – God, for I know what the waiting question will be: Which one? This is why I prefer to call my God – universe; one and only. The infinite universe full of unique phenomena... The universe full of mysteries… The universe evolving in each moment… And each moment emerging from the previous, builds up upon the previous giving us an impression of time. And this universe embraces me with an infinite richness of sensations every moment of my life.

I better stop here. Otherwise I’m in danger of sounding like those two young missionaries. My God can be only lived in. My God cannot be talked or preached about. My God must not be in danger of becoming an old story, for every moment of my life my God is a New God – forever. My greatest story will never be fully told…

I’ll be happy if your God is like mine. Wouldn’t we all be happier with many gods like mine? Believers will be much happier living in such a universe. Non-believers will be much happier believing in such a universe. And we all will be much happier with such a polytheistic universe – at least until we all agree that it is the same God.

And the God we broke into pieces will be one and whole again.