Many years ago, i came across a delightful quote: "If triangles had a god, it would have three sides". It sort of encapsulates the whole point of this probe.
To put it bluntly, if god exists or not, is a matter of belief. You either believe it or not. It is certainly not a matter of right or wrong, it is simply a choice. Cross the globe in any direction and you are bound to find many different gods, no matter how universal they claim to be. Many reasons and explanations can be found to demonstrate why someone chooses to believe or have faith in god, but the fundamental premise is the need to believe in order to recognise god. On the other hand, many will argue that god is independent of belief and that, either way, god is always there, or everywhere, which feels more as an excuse than a credible observation.
The history of humanity is rich in the rise and fall of eternal gods. From extinct tribes, to ancient long gone civilizations, apparently, human cultures always seems to have found ways to drag gods along. These divine entity or entities that bring meaning to all darkness and light of existence. Of course, the concept of god alone is in itself slippery and volatile. In some cultures it may be a deity or local spirit, in others can be a single all enveloping conscious entity, while in others it can be, simply, a carved totem. Traversing the globe, god takes many shapes, forms and functions. Yet, no matter what god we are describing, it lays beyond the normal spectrum of material reality and it is, usually, only accessible through altered states of consciousness that can go from light praying to wild visionary states. In fact, it is in these most extreme states that most revelations occur. From the depths of the mind, god's will, is manifested in messages transmitted for the betterment of it's worshipper, admirer or it's people.
Further from denying the value of revelations or visions, the existence of a trans-dimensional consciousness entity or entities, or even other planes of being, what we may question, is the attribution of a divine sacredness to these events or experiences. What if, these transcendental states and contacts, while rich in information, are completely deprived of any sort of supreme being or supreme consciousness? in other words, what if this or these dimensions and entities are just a natural manifestation of the misterious world we live in?
To this day, this elusive place has been both inspiring and, again, slippery. Tales of revelations, life-changing moments or extraordinary healing abound. From fasting, pilgrimage and singing to self-deprivation, meditation or cerimonial transcendence many have been the ways to cross the gates of normal reality and acquire some sort of gift, blessing, objective answer or puzzling puzzle. No matter how you look at it, there is something out there, beyond reason and objective reality. By living, we eventually cross from one side to another. We may dismiss it from objective reality, as a sort of an escape hatch of the self to deal with the challenges of daily life, but, all of us will face a dream, an event, an experience where reason will absolutely fail to deliver a satisfying framework. Life is just weird.
In the end, i choose not to believe, because i feel that it leaves me with more options to explore on the nature of the world. I may be wrong but, so far, i have felt no reason to approach this subject any other way.
