How does our concept of GOD affect the world?
In some ways, a discussion about God is a discussion about human history, about faith and science, war and peace, heaven and hell—which is to say, a daunting one. But in a way, to stretch back through the millenia is to discount the glimpses of a faith in lived experience: The man who refrains from theft, because he believes that Moses descended from Mt. Sinai with two stone tablets; The woman who rises early on a Monday morning to volunteer at a soup kitchen, because she abides by a decree to help the needy.
On the one hand, continuing to consider God in the 21st century can be limiting: There are those who thieve and yet believe, those who impose their beliefs on others, those who use their beliefs as evidence of their own superiority. And indeed, religion is often marked as the most hypocritical of human institutions, blamed for blood shed and lines drawn, for conflict in the Middle East and Eurocentric arrogance. Which is perhaps one of the reasons frank conversation about faith is often so taboo.
But there are, too, the ways this concept of God enables us. Cultures the world over have been so permeated by ideas and values that had their foundations in religion, that even those who renounce a God live in societies indelibly marked by “His” influence—state laws that mirror Biblical ones, and daily practices that invoke the divine, like the standard “God Bless You” after a sneeze. Further evidence? The people who are neither thieves nor believers.
Which is, perhaps, God’s enduring legacy, beyond the Extremists and the Notre Dames, the Gospel singers and the Yogis, Mecca and Jerusalem: a system of morality that continues to shape the world we live in, regardless of our Faith.
Sub questions: Why is talking about religion so taboo? How have so many people of so many faiths and backgrounds all created this concept of god? What does it mean to be an atheist in the 21st century? On the flip side, how does the world we live in today affect religion? Can you consider science a religion?
How does the concept of God limit us? How does the concept of God enable us?
I think it is important to recognize the sheer strength of the idea of God. The concept of the divine is something that humans across the planet have discovered independently in infinitesimal variations. The idea of God is one that spurs humans to do great deeds on a daily basis. At the same time, some of the greatest tragedies and disasters in human history can be traced to this same concept of the divine. Religion is usually considered too taboo to discuss. Since to be truly religious requires faith, the concepts of religion and God generally take on an untouchable allure. Those who disagree or don’t believe in God or a particular faith are perceived by believers as simply unaware and unwilling to understand the key truth. However, such practice is unhelpful and unsatisfying: God should be approached by the ways he affects us as people. Regardless of the existence of the divine, which is wholly a question of faith, studying the way the conception of it affects humans for better, but often for worse is a question of utmost importance.
On a hotel terrace overlooking the Haram mosque, the most sacred place of Islam, a Saudi watches evening prayers.
Jain pilgrims praying at the base of the 18 ft. statue of Lord Bahubali.
Borobudur Temple, Java, Indonesia. 1950.
Police Academy of Islamic Republic, Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Allah O Akbar (God is Great) is written on their helmets.
A Palestinian Muslim returns with crosses borrowed by Christian pilgrims for walking along the Via Dolorosa. 1995.