Who is God?

My good atheist friend Aakif sent me a three word text this evening – “Who is God”.  While in its context it was only a humorous retort,I don’t think he realized the extent to which the question struck me.

I have always considered myself as a believer. When people ask, I say in my best stoic voice that I believe in God.

I feel like God as ‘He’ is talked about in common parlance is a closed concept. We have already, largely made up our minds about “Him” (and the fact that “He” is a “Him” – bearded, slow speech and a very very deep voice.) Its naïve almost, we don’t fully understand who or what it is that we so fervidly glorify and deny.

Belief in God, has, in my opinion, very little to do with really understanding him or her or it?) as a phenomenon.  To believe has come to be somewhat of a moral position people have guilelessly imbibed. We don’t know who God is. We only know that our families have always “believed” in him. Like Socialism, that Higher Power concept has somewhat of an emotional appeal. And so it is that persons such as me go around pushing the Pro God agenda. Marketing it ardently, speaking with such authority, as if we know EXACTLY what it is we are talking about.

My atheist friends are by no means notable exceptions. (Not Aakif of course, he is a Maharaja) Their non belief seems to me like a mulish, unrelenting ideological stance – one that premises itself on a very flawed understanding of God, mostly derived from inauthentic interpretations of religious texts. I am greatly amused when all over the internet and everywhere else people so vehemently deny an existence that can only really be discovered if one chooses to be open to its possibility.(I believe some high off chap called Friedrich Nietzsche even said “God is dead”)

I personally conceive of God as an all extending consciousness. I’ve sometimes in meditation experienced it as energy. When I say this out loud in company, I am often at the receiving end of a dozen pair of rolling eyes, or “That would be more convincing if you hadn’t smoothened out your hair” looks. Except that truly IS how I feel. I don’t know fully who or what God is and I don’t think it is possible for me to comprehend in its entirety a phenomenon so vast (perhaps the vastest there is) from a purely scientific standpoint.

I chose to believe, because my God concept offers me with possibility, hope and faith (among other warm sounding words). When I look back on some of my experiences, I feel like it has truly served me. That I have had an ongoing romance with the idea of divine “signs” and signals and angels has only fortified my pro God thought system.  My many good friends have probably wanted to murder me every time I pointed out to a “sign”.( Kim even had a rule about “not referring to the Universe”   with me at some point. )

I currently feel about God like I did two years ago about Marx. While I don’t know if this will ever go a severe alteration,  I can as I write this, recount several serendipitous coincidences (which other people could dismiss as mere fancies) I have experienced, and they still leave me marveled.  Feeling marveled feels fantastic. And so I will let it be this way.

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~ by Uthara on December 11, 2010.