Oh, God!

Disclaimer: This rumination is my own perspective based on the culmination of a lifetime of thinking about and studying in science, medicine, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and theology.

I have always been bothered by the question, “Do you believe in God?”

There is a presumption about that question that is troublesome. The presumption is that the person being questioned knows what the questioner means by the word “God” and agrees with the questioner’s definition of the word, God. The receiver of the question thus cannot simply answer the question “yes” or “no” as the questioner did not actually define what it is they are talking about. It’s a trap.

In America, the person asking that question is typically a Christian that is looking to show the superiority of their religious belief system’s definition or perception of what or who God is, along with wanting to demonstrate their own overall superiority for being so familiar with that God – for knowing the One God, for being in the inner circle of God. In order to wield the superiority of their position within the inner circle of God, they have faith that their definition of God is correct, is widely accepted, and irrefutable. I think this positioning of oneself as superior may also be true for people who have different faiths, particularly if their faith is predominant in the culture in which they live. It is extremely off-putting to be lectured to by a person who has such feelings of religious superiority that they think they actually know God as if God is a person they can speak for and who is their best friend. While you, if you think God is something other than they do, are simply wrong. It’s a point of pride for the questioner to be so right, so sure of themselves.

So, when someone asks me “Do you believe in God?” I respond with “Yes, but probably not the way you do.”

The one thing I think we can all agree on is that “God” is whatever the thing or event is that caused the existence of all things.

To define what we mean when we use the word “God,” we have to be able to define what it was that set off the creation of the entire universe. Whatever it was that caused the universe to exist, it is likely impossible to ever know or accurately define it. It seems logical to me that the universe itself, and everything in it, is “God,” from radiation and light waves to all elements and compounds and to all the material things that exist, including living things. It seems logically intuitive that everything that exists, visible or invisible, is made of “God” and is, therefore, “God.”

So, where then do we look for “God?” In that rock over there? That stream? That plant? That volcano? That sunlight? That star? The northern lights? The air? In magnetism? Electricity? Stars? Black holes? Animals? In us? Is “God” in everything? Is everything made of and by “God?” I think so. I think God is everywhere, and God is everything.

As humans, we are literally made up of all the components of the Periodic Table of the Elements, just like stars and comets and planets. We coexist with invisible things that can go right through us without us being aware – all sorts of miniscule particles and waves, all coming from the universe. Our bodies are a hive of living organisms – viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and etc., living on us and in us. The levels of the particles within us, whether they be elements or microscopic forms of life, can determine whether or not we are alive and can exist as an organism. Too much or too little potassium, sodium, magnesium, chromium, iron, calcium, lead, zinc, oxygen, carbon, or chemical compounds like water and amino acids, and vitamins, and we cease to exist as a living identifiable entity; rather, we die and disintegrate, returning back to the basic elements of which we were made in the first place, the elements that make up everything in the universe. And those can be broken down further into protons and neutrons and electrons and even smaller particles. We are made of all those things, just like the rest of the universe.

I believe the mistake we have made is to try to make “God” manageable on a human scale by attributing “it” with male human characteristics. Yes, I said “it,” not he, not she, not them.” If God is the force and material that brought everything into existence, then God cannot be limited to the thing that many religions make it – a human-like invisible entity watching us and interfering with our daily lives. It is comical to note that the God for each culture and religion is exactly what the people of that religion want God to be. In each religion, the religious leaders are dictating to their converts what God is and what God wants them to do and be. In other words, God is being created and defined by Mankind, not the other way around.

If one replaces the term “God” in all religious texts with “the force” or “the universe” the text suddenly becomes clear and believable. Everything that happens on earth is a consequence of being part of the universe, a universe that functions in its own way and of its own accord, following rules of which only some we understand. The universe is in us, and we are in the universe. We are imbued with the universe; we are made of it. We are made of God. We therefore cannot be separated from God. God is in us and of us, and we are in God and of God. God is the universe; the universe is God.

I choose to believe that God is the universe and all the forces within it, and it gives me great peace to think I am made of God-particles that follow the rules of the universe rather than the rules of religious belief systems. When I say I feel at one with God, that’s because I am in God, and God is in me. We are the same thing. Just like that rock over there. Or that sun. Or that stellar dust cloud way out in the universe.

Do I have a soul? A ghost? That’s a super interesting question. I’ve had experiences that make me think there is something within us that still exists after our bodies disintegrate, something that is also a part of the universe, something that flies away “out there” when we take our last breath. If we have a soul and it’s part of the universe, why wouldn’t it just realign with the great beyond in some non-understandable way once we die? Why wouldn’t it continue to be part of God?

Could God be a force that is everywhere and in everything, but also a force that is aware of itself? Does the universe have a soul? Could all of the empty space actually be filled with the essence of a sentient force? I don’t know, but if a soul can exist, I don’t see why the universe couldn’t be sentient. If it is sentient, and we are part of it, then we are all just part of the greater organism, the universe.

I think it’s interesting that our DNA always remains alive and functioning within the entire human population, and much of it is shared with other species. In essence, life is an eternal web of DNA. The death of an individual organism is not the end of life as the individual’s DNA is living all over the place in others. Life never ceases. It just goes on and on. This is certainly a mysterious aspect of the universe. And even when Earth ceases to exist, life will still be in the universe, life that is related to life here. It’s all one and the same.

Several years ago, I was gardening out front on an early Sunday morning when a neighbor walked by and said, “You should be in church!” Without missing a beat I replied, “I am.” And I was. If “in church” means communing with God, then I’m “in church” wherever I am. If God is in me, I am always with God.

With the way I define “God,” I don’t need a religious belief system or a place of worship. I don’t need to listen to any other person’s spiel about their religious belief system – the concept of God does not require a religion to support it. The concept of God as everything supports itself, and the opinions of humans are neither here nor there – they have no impact on God’s existence. God does not need the confines of a religious framework in which to exist when God is everything, and God does not need human beings to make the rules about what God wants. The definition of God I use is one that can’t want anything – it just is.

If humans simply followed the golden rule – “Treat others as you would like to be treated,” – there would be no basis for the existence of any religious belief system. It would be a world without sin.

In a nutshell, I think that God is everything. I think ancient people knew this. They selected certain objects to deify in response to their feeling of wonder over the power of the universe, like the sun, or the wind, or the sea. It was a way to express their appreciation for an existence they couldn’t understand. I think that looking outward allows us to imagine the power of God, but for humans, because we are alive, the real place to look is inward. God is inside of us. The more I learn about the intricacies and expanse of the universe and the body, the clearer this concept becomes for me.

At this point in life, I tune out anyone who lectures me about what God wants or thinks. I tune out anyone who says I am going to some eternal hell of one sort or another if I don’t follow the same religious beliefs. I tune out anyone who says they have a personal relationship with a human-like invisible God-entity, one they must pray to if they wish to communicate with it – if one believes they are made of God, they have only to look inward or outward to find it and meld their mind with it.

I also tune out people who say that prayer works, unless they simply mean that saying a prayer makes them feel better. I’m sure it does – it feels like you’re doing something good even if you’re actually doing nothing tangible to help. God helps those who help themselves. And if we are a part of God, there’s no other way to make things better for others than to do it ourselves. That’s how God gets things done. I want to be clear: prayer does not help when someone needs food, shelter, moral support, a hug, advice, or anything else tangible. It is just another imagined position of religious superiority for the person saying the prayer, a person who is too lazy or too unkind to actually do something and make the concept of God actually work and do something constructive.

What if someone is praying for themself, though? It still seems preposterous to me, still a sort of pretention, but maybe sometimes it’s a way of meditating or looking inward. But even so, nothing will get better unless the person doing the praying gets off their butt and solves the problem at hand or asks for help from people who can solve it for them.

There are those who make claims that God is “telling” them – through their religion – to treat certain other types of people badly. Or that he needs them to mistreat others on His behalf. (I’ve always found it funny that this particular version of God is unable to act on His own behalf and harm the people he doesn’t like himself; he’s too weak, I guess, and has to rely on the wickedness of his worshippers to do His dirty work.) This is particularly egregious, whether it be the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinians by the Jews, the Muslim extremists in Afghanistan abusing women, or the Evangelicals terrorizing the trans community in America. This version of God, the one which is just a reflection of the vileness of those who created Him, should be thrown into the trash bin permanently.

God cannot be the light if God is full of hate and wields it through His worshippers. The God our religions have created therefore cannot be God at all. God is entirely something else than our main religious constructs claim He is. I like my definition of God much better. It makes no excuses for the bad behavior of mankind, forcing mankind to look in the mirror and take responsibility for its own actions, just like the Universe dictates we must. When everything ends for humans someday, the God of our big religious institutions will be nowhere to be found to help or change the outcome. Why? Because that God was never there in the first place.