Create Your Own Religion by Daniele Bolelli Read Free Book Online

the time it sounds like they are referring to something that's part of their ordinary experience—something visible, concrete, obvious to anyone—as if God were the guy they hung out with last Saturday, eating ice cream and catching a movie together. Every time I hear the word I can't help but wonder how they know with such seeming certainty what “God” is.
    When I dare to ask for more information about their invisible friend, typically I receive answers that leave me even more confused, because they seem to be describing Santa Claus. Being told in all seriousness about a perfect and wise being in the sky who knows everything that happens on earth, keeps tally of who has done good and who has committed evil, then rewards the former and punishes the latter never fails to crack me up. Just add the flying reindeer and the picture is complete.
    Now, I enjoy a good fairy tale as much as anyone else, but the most prevalent image of God that is pushed in some religions is too ridiculously anthropomorphic to be taken seriously. Turning the divine mystery into a character from a Disney movie strikes me as not only childish, but as downright disrespectful to the very idea of what God may be. It seems like something you would tell a kid—and not a particularly smart one—to keep him quiet and ease him to sleep. We have taken something that is far beyond our powers of imagination and understanding, that is supposed to exist beyond time and space, that is supposed to be at the very roots of reality, and we have turned it into a reassuring father figure for people with unresolved daddy issues.
    Worse yet, so many religious tales depict God as a terribly flawed character in a gory story written by sadists: he is an insecure tribal chieftain with a mean streak; a jealous God who whines about not receiving enough attention by his creatures; a murderous God who guides his chosen people toward genocide; a tyrannical God who punishes horribly anyone who disobeys. Who decided to cast Joseph Stalin as God? These are the qualities of a totalitarian, raging dictator—hopefully that is not what is at the foundation of our universe. In my mind, anyone who accepts this view of God does more damage to religion than the most belligerent atheist.
    Despite arguing endlessly about the specific characteristics attributed to God, some religions (for example Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) view God as a personified, conscious being who is responsible for the creation of the world, is active in human affairs, and is able to reveal his will to people.
    Others (for example, Hinduism, Shintoism, some branches of Taoism and Buddhism, most tribal religions, ancient Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman religions, and a myriad of other traditions) believe in many divine beings, each one with its own peculiar characteristics. Some of these polytheistic traditions include a supreme creator figure who stands above all, while others do not.
    And still other religions (particularly Buddhism, along with the more philosophical schools of Taoism) acknowledge the existence of powerful spirits all around us, but don't attribute much importance to them. According to these traditions, ultimate reality can't be found in any anthropomorphic ideas about God or gods, but rather in an impersonal force that is greater than any particular being.
    Do you understand now why I am disturbed when people use the word “God” as if there were a single, crystal-clear meaning for it?
How Do We Know God?
    Let's backtrack for a second. In order to avoid getting lost in this jungle of different definitions and ideas attributed to God, we need to start from the beginning. How do these contrasting images of God originate in the first place? How are we to decide which one, if any, is correct? How does anybody know anything about God?
Where Not to Look: Revelation
    The most typical way people form their ideas about God is through second-hand revelation. Somebody, preferably in the very distant past,