On God
I believe in God. I can say this with truth and joy in my heart and with absolute certainty. Some might find this strange, since I don’t speak personally in religious terms nor do I wear the garments of a religious Jew. I can give a very simple reason for this. When I participate in religious rituals and prayers with sincerity, joy and faith, I feel elevated, calm and enlightened. I believe that I am experiencing God in these instances, the feeling of comfort, community and joy. This cannot be empirically proven, it is not rational. But I am not one for rationality. To a psychotic, rationality falls on its head. Rationality tells us that our hallucinations do not truly exist, yet for us, they do exist because we experience them. An atheist might tell me I do not experience God because they believe there is no God. Of course, there is no rational, scientific proof that God does not exist. They do not experience God, so in their arrogance they think God does not exist. They are of the same sort of rationalists who claim that psychotic symptoms are “all in your head”. If I experience something, then it is real! If that is not so, than no one truly has any feelings or thoughts of their own. Much criticism of religion is criticism of Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious tradition posing as criticism of God. The Bible is not literally true, and those who take it as such deserve to be criticized. But to use that premise to throw away the Bible as useless with no relevance or lessons to be gained are absurd. I derive enjoyment and peace from the Bible and other religious texts. To say that I can’t is like saying “We should burn Harry Potter books because they are not literally true, and no one should enjoy them at all!”
The counter claim is that there is no real physical or empirical proof that God does exist. We do not know for sure that it was God who created the universe. But I know what I experience, and it is real. I believe that the possibility for elevated states of consciousness are real, and I believe that the joy and contentment I feel through prayer is real. I define this as God; the definition of God as an old man in the sky has no meaning for me and I believe it is truly foolish. Of course that God does not exist! To understand God, one must transcend rationality and ego. All cultures have what might be called the “God experience.” Of course, most do not believe in the God of Christians, Muslims and Jews, which is my God. But the God experience exists. All cultures have a form of awe and respect for the divine. I have no contempt for pagans or polytheists. They are having the God experience in a different way. If the moon fills you with awe and you worship it, who am I to say you are worshipping the wrong thing? Who am I to say that your God experience must be masculine or feminine? I above all respect those who worship the Goddess; although I do not share it and I do not believe in a gendered God, the desire to live a God experience that goes against societal norms is something I admire. God is lived and experienced, through prayer, ritual, joy, song, dance, repentance and any medium that works for you. Because of this God exists and God exists for everyone.
