Farewell to the King
Do you believe in God? Before you answer, ask yourself why you want to know. Remember to question your intention. What is the question getting at? Is it really an inquiry into the nature of the cosmos or is determining belief in God a way of describing one’s affiliation. Whose side are you on?
Christianity and Islam place a high premium on belief. How you answer the above question is your one-way ticket to either heaven or hell. These are the king religions in which your chosen god with its culturally accepted name (Yahweh, Allah, Thor, etc.) is exactly like a sovereign who demands your undying allegiance, devotion and eternal gratitude for bestowing upon you, a mere wretch, the bounty of creation.
But how powerful can the king-god be when he requires his subjects to validate his very existence through a deaf, dumb and blind faith and to repudiate any and all other king-gods? It puzzles me why we are warned not to have any other gods before the one god. Who are these other gods? If he is the one true and only god, what has he got to be so jealous about? If you believe in the one god, then your belief would naturally inform you that there simply is no competition.
This king-god schema no longer works in the hearts of people. It is an outdated dogmatic structure that represents an older period of human development. We are evolving beyond this structure to where morality is no longer tied to what you believe or what you believe in. We no longer resonate to the great threat — serve under me or be cast out, banished to the wild hills or worse, punished through severe physical pain and discomfort (though without any physical form) forever and ever. It’s a great big “So there!”
Do you believe in God? This is not the question to ask. If you assign a god to the universe, then the surety of its existence cannot possibly hinge upon your belief in it. Non belief, conversely, does not alter the cosmos one iota.
Ask instead: How big is the universe? Is it so small that only one god can fit? I will tell you: The concept of infinity allows room for God and no God. The vast realms of endless space can accommodate all cosmologies. God exists; God does not exist. Now enter the concept of omniscience… and so there you have it, God exists.
Whether you believe it or not does not matter. We are evolving, learning to be ethical in this dog-eat-dog world, not under threat of punishment but by the workings of our own minds. Belief is a question of psychology, not of the fabric of reality. The question is: Do you believe in yourself?