I’ve been thinking about God for a very long time. And since its one of my many favorite topics I’m going to jot down some of my thoughts for future reference.

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If you want a label, I consider myself to be an atheist. I believe that when I die I will disintegrate into the soil. Unless I am burned to a crisp…in which case I will wind up blowing in the wind.

Anyway.

Karen Armstrong has been very instrumental in solidifying my thoughts on religion and the concept of God. Because of her writings I’ve come to a satisfactory answer on the role of religion and the concept of God and, the origin of the idea of a God. In a nutshell, today I believe that God represents all that is good about humanity and that goodness lies within every single person…unless they’re schizo I suppose. I imagine that the full realization of that goodness is what amounts to enlightenment - what Gautama Buddha is most famous for having attained. I am not entirely certain about this since I am not actually enlightened. I expect to have a halo around my head when I am enlightened and hope to blog about that feeling in the future.

I was feeling fairly despondent about many things when I arrived at the conclusion that one of the main reasons that so many people go around raping and pillaging the planet and its inhabitants is because they do not believe they possess that goodness in themselves…they possess some sort of self-hatred and they externalize that self-hate by crapping on everything. And since these people do not believe that they possess any goodness within themselves, they project it into this mythical being: God. God is wonderful, all-knowing, all-loving, all that is wondeful and great. I’ve read accounts of fundamentalist religious people believing that its okay to crap on Planet Earth because heaven will have a bountiful supply of everything, including free energy and paved streets of gold. That sentiment really bothered me, and I meditated on my feelings for a long time and finally came up with the conclusion that:

a. these people are delusional

b. these people possess alot of self-hatred and since I tend to ride that boat occasionally - I found it to be very sad.

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I’ve been doing metta meditation for the last several months and I’ve been doing it on myself. Several months ago, I was meditating and I saw this young woman (I guess I saw her in my head - its a bit hard to describe). I tend not to make eye contact with people, so I avoided looking at her. But I snuck a glance again  and found her looking at me with this incredible love, and kindness. And she was very beautiful. I freaked out a little bit because I am apparently a bit homophobic, but then got confused because the woman I was looking at was myself. First thought I had was, "wow! I’m pretty cute!" Then I cursed myself for the stray thought and continued looking at her, and I had this feeling or knowledge that she would take care of me and that she loved me very, very much. Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love had a similar experience as I did. So its not something I am unique in experiencing.

I don’t have some grand conclusion about that experience  but shortly after that, I realized how this God idea originated. I am not a goddess (although you may feel free to pray to me and send me lots of money and email me your bank info), but I have finally come to a satisfactory conclusion about God which I stated above. Its a bit hard to describe, but I finally feel at peace.