Apparently, according to this poll, "Nearly half of Americans are not sure God exists." That's eight percent more unsure Americans than three years ago, and it would seem to mitigate the constant propaganda we get about how religious, how gullible, how consarnedly sure of themselves these here Yanks be--
but in some areas certainty does obtain. We, the people, may not always know for sure that the Big Guy Upstairs is really upstairs, but we're fairly positive that He is a he (or at least not--Himself forbid--a She):
"When questioned on whether God is male or female, 36 percent of respondents said they think God is male, 37 percent said neither male nor female and 10 percent said 'both male and female.'
Only one percent think of God as a female, according to the poll."
Whew! I was afraid the feminazi/pagan/freedom-hating lobby, which as we all know has ruthlessly monopolized mass media and public education since 1967, was making a dent. Glad to hear otherwise. (Sarcasm aside, I'm actually shocked that in the most important facet of my life, I'm such a statistical outlier. In nearly every other poll result I've ever read, I seem to be ass-numbingly average.)
Of course, the metaphysicians among ye are silently taking me to task...Calls himself an aspiring advaitin, then says God's a girl...geez.... I know! And you're right! But, though Ultimate Reality can have no form, the operative wording here is "think of God as," and so in this matter I shall call to the stand my Master Sri Ramakrishna:
"The path of knowledge leads to Truth, as does the path that combines knowledge and love. The path of love, too, leads to this goal. The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge. All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love."
Hello, fellow outlier! (waves wildly)
ReplyDelete"But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love" -- I took note of the "ego" part of this because the way I got through networking with publishers this past weekend was to tell myself I was doing it for my characters. That it wasn't about me, was never about me, but was about the Muse.
I'm linked with the Muse and with my characters, of course, so it ultimately gets back to ego. But the approach I took to relinquish that ego helped get me beyond my comfort zone.