I believe in GOD. I have found others referring to GOD as "The Creative Force of the Universe". I use the word God. Its much simpler. I do not believe that GOD is an old, bearded man sitting on a stone "Throne" somewhere above the clouds. Well not any longer, though, there was a time when I believed just that. The picture came from an illustrated Bible that my parents gave me when I was young. And at that age, that image of God was very comforting. So yes, I did believe in that God too. I don't believe that belief was false. It was the best that my childhood imagination could think of. Today my God is more sophisticated, but I believe it is just as real as the God of my childhood, who protected me from the unkown terrors of darkness (literally).............. Since the finite mind reflects the infinite imperfectly, like the reflection of the moon in a well, even the current sophisticated image is still just an image. Not necessarily more closer to REALITY, but better suited to my current intellectual and personal needs.

I believe that God is infinite, I believe the question of the objective reality of God can never be settled and I dont need proof. I know God exists through my experience. I don't need proof I exist, I don't need proof that God exists. That is what I call faith. Faith is not about tenaciously holding on to something that ought to be true. Faith is the quiet certainity, that doesn't require proof.

I believe that the creator and the creation are not seperate. That God is part of the world around me, and since IT is the source of everything and there is nothing other than God, I would say the universe is God. (The word "it" is used for want of a better word, and does not represent the personal relationship I have with GOD, yet it does avoid unnecessary anthropomorphism).

In saying the Universe is God, I use God in the uncountable form. When I dip a cup into a bucket of water and take some of it, I do not say that the cup holds "part of the water", I say the cup holds water and the bucket, too holds water. This is possible because the water in the cup is indistinguishable from the water in the bucket. Since God is inifinite there can never be a PART of God, every part of the universe is not a part of God, it is GOD.

To understand the importance of this article of faith, you may have to understand the faith of my childhood. Back then, God was remote, and far from me. It was my responsibility to stay on the narrow path so I can reach back to God. Danger lurked at every turn. The path was difficult and few made it to the destination. Life was a battlefield between good and evil. God had created me in HIS own image and set me in the midst of a treacherous world. Anyone who has heard the saying "Only The Paranoid Survive" has some feel for that world

If The Creator and the creation are one, then the world is not malicious at all. In fact I am not seperate from the world, but one with it. When i look at the world, the world looks at itself through my eyes. The only difference between a human being and the world around him/her is that humans have a better focussed consciousness, in the same way a convex lens focuses the ubiquitous sun rays. Yet the majority of sunlight, by far does NOT fall on the lens. I like to believe that there is a diffuse sentience in the universe, which is FAR greater than my consciousness. Perhaps if I listen carefully, I can hear its voice speak to me? The universe is a good place, if I feel alone and seperated, it is because my finite mind cannot begin to comprehend the infinite. A curtain seperates me and the world I belong to, a veil that hides my connection to it.

If the world is benign, how come there are bad things and people in it? The answer is, I don't know. I suspect that good and bad is not something inherent to things, but it is a result of my limited perception. What appears to be evil maybe just something I dont fully understand . Perhaps it is like death. I was terrified of death when I was younger, because it meant the cessation of this conscious being. Today I believe that death gives meaning to life, and that life and death are intricately connected to each other. Without death, life as we know it wouldn't exist. And death is perhaps a going back to the larger more diffuse sentience from where I have come? Perhaps conscious life is like a raindrop that is seperated from the ocean from where it came, and is now flowing back down to the ocean?