Recently I met a young man who called himself an agnostic. He said, "I am completely disinterested in God. I have no proof that a God exists, and the idea of some super-Being watching over me and the world is somehow rather ludicrous in light of the world situation. "Besides that," he continued, "the blatant hypocrisy of 'religious men' is enough to turn my stomach."
This statement rather sums up the opinions of many frustrated people, young and old alike. "And another thing," he added, "how can anything ever be understood when even the oldest religious leaders, with years of study behind them, are at loggerheads with one another and apparently unable to solve the world's problems? All these things suggest to me that God is the invention of frustrated people wishing for something above and beyond themselves to solve all their problems."
Many hold these ideas in this day and time. The ranks of the disillusioned are growing in number, and they come especially from the disenchanted within the religious organizations of the world. People are wondering increasingly about the correctness of their particular brands of religion. Old ideas once accepted as fact seem foolish and superstitious in light of the world's new technological dimension. The break with old theological concepts seems, to these people, to be a break with God. The arguments against old practices become their arguments against the existence of what they term 'God'. . . It must be pointed out that these are not valid arguments against the existence of God but are, rather, arguments against old concepts of God, old ideas about God and old practices that pervade all organized religions today.
I am yet to meet an agnostic or atheist who cannot accept the existence and presence of God once we agree on just what Reality is.
Usually, atheists deny and agnostics doubt the actuality of God as they understand and define God. They are quite right, because God as they define Him could not possibly exist. But God as God is, is neither doubted nor denied by a single person on this earth and never has been. God, as God is, is accepted without question, even without resistance, by everyone because God is the very basis of being, the fact of real existence.Why, God is Life itself. Show me an atheist who will deny he is alive! .
The doubters and deniers are invariably throwing rocks at their own misconceptions of God, at the usual definitions of God, or at the generally accepted idea of what God can do.
I am quick to agree that the popular idea of God is incorrect and that such a God does not exist--and never has. But God, as God is, does exist as a very present Reality and as undeniable basis of Existence. Truth, Reality, Fact exists. This is all that really does exist right here, right now.
The agnostic is not questioning fact; he is questioning a misstatement about Fact. The misstatement has nothing to do with Fact at all, just as the in correct statement 2 plus 2 is 5 has nothing to do with the fact of arithmetic.
A man is blind who breaks with Fact itself and doubts its existence just because an individual or an organization makes a misstatement in the name of Fact.
. Absolute Reality is the basis for the existence of 'things'--and science is the study of 'things'. Science now remarkably indicates the holistic singleness and absolute perfection of existence.
Everyone, every single person on this earth can arrive at a precise understanding of God! How can this be so? Because God is uncomplicated and easily understood!
When one lets go all the things they say about God and stops accepting them blindly as his own beliefs, God becomes remarkably apparent. And why not? What sort of God would it be that withholds Himself from all those who have not suffered enough, studied hard enough, searched diligently enough or prayed earnestly enough in just the right way? What sort of God would it be who absents Himself from those who have not been baptized in this or that fashion, or have not joined this organization or that one? What sort of Love would it be that withholds itself from half the population of the world because it is not Christian or Mohammedan, because it is not acquainted with this or that arcane, unprofaned wisdom; what sort of Love withholds itself from those not subscribing to this or that set of dogmas and beliefs, not honoring this or that ritual and ceremony?
Well, be assured, God does not withhold Himself from aught. God is right here, right now, closer than fingers and toes, closer than breathing. There is no distance nor separation between oneself and God, mentally or otherwise. You will find that God is all that is here, and "They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, saith the Lord." God's simplicity is astounding. It is this very simplicity that the pompous intellect of mankind can neither see nor understand while struggling through its jungle of erudite beliefs. Let the beliefs go. Let what 'they say' go. Drop all the old personal opinions no matter how near and dear they seem. Start anew, turning with into the heart. Then when you arrive at your own meaning of God, you happily find you are also discovering your own Real Identity and its childlike simplicity. Just as it is impossible to put the principle of arithmetic into a single number ( or into all of them together), it is not actually possible to confine this alone Awareness to a single finite body.
The view of the universe via a possessed, imprisoned Awareness is called the 'human experience' and it is fraught with endless perplexities. To end the perplexities, one stops believing himself a separate ego who is aware. One identifies as AWARENESS ITSELF. This one will discover himself unconfined, uncontaminated, unfettered and free. This one will discover that the only Awareness going on is God's Awareness of being all God is.
Everyone, every single person on this earth can arrive at a precise understanding of God! How can this be so? Because God is uncomplicated and easily understood! When one lets go all the things they say about God and stops accepting them blindly as his own beliefs, God becomes remarkable apparent. Mankind is willing to agree that God's sphere of influence includes the universe entire. He will even concede intellectually that God is everywhere, but he is not so ready to admit that God, Fact, Reality, Principle is all of all--that God is the being of existence itself--that Divine Principle itself is being all there is to this universe--that people and things, as objects of perception are nothing in and of themselves, but God is being all there is to people and things--that the value and importance is not in the object perceived but is in God, the reality, the fact which is being all there is to the object and to the perception of it.
William Samuel ---
Excerpt From TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS REALITY
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