IN QUEST OF GOD

So what game is God playing if He, She or It allows more than one religion to exist and then claims that only one religion is the true religion and then hides from us the secret of which is that true religion and then allows us to argue about who is following that true religion?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

More than half the world believes in God. Maybe I should rephrase that. More than half the world believes that some sort of God exists.

Some may ask, “What the difference?” Actually there is a difference. Believing in God and believing that some sort of God exists are two different things.

When you believe in God that means you not only believe that a Creator exists but you also put full faith and trust in that Creator. And since He, She or It is the Creator that makes you the creation. And since you are the creation then the Creator owns you. You are the Creator’s possession.

You do not own anything. In fact, you do not even own yourself. Instead you are owned. So that makes you nothing.

Someone who believes that a God exists but does not believe in God would not accept nothingness. You would feel that you are somebody. You would feel that you own your being. Your position, status, power, family, wealth, etc., are all yours. You worked hard for it. You fought for it. Hence it all belongs to you.

It is very hard for a person who just believes that a God exists but does not believe in God to accept that nothing belongs to you. Your car belongs to God so if someone wishes to steal it then that is God’s wish. After all, that car belongs to God and not to you. In the first place it was God’s money and not your money that you used to buy the car. So if God wants to take it back and give it to someone else that is God’s wish.

When you believe in God and you have full faith and trust in God you would leave it to God to decide whether you should be driving a car or whether someone takes it away from you. That person may be a car thief but would he be a car thief if God did not wish it and could he have stolen your car if God did not allow it? So it was God and not the ‘thief’ who took your car.

Your life belongs to God. God gave you life and God has every right to take back that life. You have full faith and trust in God to decide when to give you life and when to take back that life. And if someone shoots you dead then that would be what God wants and that person who kills you would have no power to not kill you if God wants it to happen.

Yes, that is the most difficult concept about believing in God for most people to accept. Many believe that a God exists but cannot bring themselves to believing in God to the point of allowing and accepting someone to kill you as God’s wish and something that you or your killer cannot avoid.

Even talking like this would sound weird or crazy to most people. Raja Petra must have gone bonkers, would be what most would think. And this is because they merely believe that God exists but do not yet believe in God. So this is how they would think.

Saying that you believe in God is easy. Practicing what you say you believe is not. And this is what separates those who believe that God exists from those who believe in God.

The problem is most people believe in the God that religion says exist. Hence your belief in God is contaminated by religion. Yes, that’s right, religion is contaminating. Religion contaminates your belief in God due to the fact that religion weakens your belief in God and reduces you to just believing in the existence of God.

Religion is about dogma and rituals. You are so bogged down by dogma and rituals that you forget to elevate yourself from the lower level of believing in the existence of God to the higher level of believing in God.

Religion also divides us and makes us fight — hence making us forget that everything in this universe is owned by God and therefore there is really nothing to fight about since we own nothing.

Muslims will feel that Islam is God’s religion and all other religions are not. Christians would feel exactly the same way. So, if just your religion is God’s religion while all others are not then why do they exist?

Can anything exist without God’s permission? And if nothing can exist without God’s permission then none of the other religions would exist. There would be only one religion, God’s religion. There would not be more than one religion in existence.

God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator. Do you mean God would not be able to allow only one religion to exist? But God allowed more than one religion to exist.

So what game is God playing if He, She or It allows more than one religion to exist and then claims that only one religion is the true religion and then hides from us the secret of which is that true religion and then allows us to argue about who is following that true religion?

Hence the contest over which is the true religion and who is following this true religion distracts us from the quest for God and the belief in God. Instead it makes us believers of religions and believers in the existence of God, not believers in God.

Does this sound confusing? It would to most of you who believe in a religion and believe in the existence of God. But to those who believe in God it makes perfect sense. And if it does not make perfect sense to you then you are not yet a believer in God.

And the minute you start copying-and-pasting verses from your holy book to prove your point and argue your case then you have failed in your quest for God. You are still clinging to dogma and have not found God yet.