Thursday, October 11, 2012

There is only one God, and you, my dear, are not Him


My hitherto simple life of self-sufficient atheist became extremely complicated overnight.  The thought of somebody knowing me better than I knew myself was utterly unnerving to say the least.  And yet, it appeared to be true. 

To believe in God for me would truly BE like committing suicide – intellectually, emotionally, socially – you name it. It would be like throwing away, denouncing everything I’d ever worked for, believed in, counted upon all my life. Everything everyone I knew banked their lives on. Perhaps the worst part of the whole story was that I would have to start all over on the foundation of something I’d ridiculed and dismissed as a crutch suitable only for those incompetent weaklings who couldn't make it on their own.  And now I was facing a serious prospect of being counted as one of them! This was not according to the plan! It was downright humiliating.

But, I also felt strange moral and intellectual obligation to at least give it a fair shot.  I couldn't ignore it anymore.  Having had a couple of decades of practice of being my own god, I admit that my view of God with capital G was quite microscopic. I assumed we could be a team of equals (I know, I know). I even thought I could enlist Him into my life on my own terms, although even at that time the scenario seemed rather fishy.  Over the years, I learned that even though most people wouldn't be as blunt to articulate it in such terms, I was actually not alone.

Needless to say, it was a rather bumpy start from the very beginning. In the weeks that followed, however, what was plain to everybody else started becoming more and more clear to me as well.

Indeed, there is only one God, and I, whether I liked it or not, am not Him. 

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