The God Question

 "God did not create man in his image, man created God in his own." - Ludwig Feuerbach

If the title of this post doesn't have you running for the hills, it means that you actually give a fuck about what I have to say on the subject. For this I thank you. Everybody has their own higher power these days. Some call him God. Some call him Jesus. Some call him Allah. Some call him John Lennon *cough* my point is that every body believes in something different. That's what makes the subject so touchy and delicate. Christians believe that we obtain salvation individually through the repenting of sin and receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Buddhists believe in the Four Truths and the Eightfold path. Muslims believe in the word of the Prophet Muhammad. Jews believe in Yahweh. These religions encompass the spiritual beliefs of the great majority of the world that we live in. I'm no one to tell any of these people that their beliefs are wrong. At the base of any major religion are principles that we should all believe in. Religion tells people to be helpful and kind to your neighbor, to respect your parents, to be thoughtful and honest in your actions; I'm not gonna rank on religion. Religion does a lot of things for a lot of people, it's just not for me. I'm not the kind to get on my knees and talk to an unseen force that may or may not exist, I'm crazy enough as it is.
A while ago a wise man told me that I have to find my higher power. He said that for you to accomplish something bigger than you, you first have to believe in something bigger than yourself. For someone that's not religious, it's something that's hard to figure out. What do I believe in? Who is my God?
I was raised Catholic but I don't accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Don't get me wrong, Jesus was a pretty cool customer. He preached the right things; he followed his own righteous path. I just think it's more than a little naive to place all that importance on a single man. The world that Jesus lived in is not the world that I live in. That takes Christianity out of the equation. Since we're knocking out religions we can knock out Judaism and Islam. It's funny how three different sects of people can believe in the same God but still disagree with each other so fundamentally. That's like if three people all agreed on what movie they wanted to watch, but argued for 2,000 years about how to get to the movie theatre. It's pointless dogmatic babble. I don't think my God would take too kindly to me putting labels and strict definitions on what he is and what he isn't. I don't buy into that shit.
Okay, so now that I've clarified what God ISN'T, now I have to figure out what God IS (btw, I don't have a problem calling him God. The dude's gotta have some kind of name and God is as good as any). The first question I ask myself is: What is bigger than me? What is a force beyond myself that I can believe in? Something that I see operating in my daily life? The answer is everything. Okay, let me backtrack in case I lost you there. I believe that God is in everything. God is in the water we drink and the air that we breathe. God is in the music I listen to. God is in the sound the rain makes. God is in the relationships we have with other people. God is in the way that our world interacts with each itself. We all have a little God in us. My higher power is the world that I live in.
So I've got a God. He doesn't exactly have a face or a name but it works for me. Next question is: How do I get in touch with my God? How do I know what he wants me to do? An exact answer has always eluded me, but I believe that I do right by my God when I do right by myself and those that surround me. You get farther away from God and from your self when you do things that are dishonest and hurtful. It's a lot like karma and the law of attraction (The Secret, read that shit), when you do good things and give off positive energy that you receive that same energy in return & viceversa.
I know I'm not breaking any new ground here. I'm not a revolutionary. I'm not reinventing the wheel. These are all things that we know. I'm just a snot-nosed little git repeating a bunch of shit that somebody much smarter and wiser than myself once said and making it my own. But it's what makes sense in my individual perspective and it's who I am as a person. I am the things I do and the things that I experience. There's still a lot of things I don't know about God and the way of the world. I'm never going to stop learning but I think some things are better left unknown. As long as I do well by myself and those around me, the whole God thing will figure itself out. Until then, I'm not gonna stress it. My God isn't going anywhere and neither am I.

If you made it to the end of this, you are a trooper. I promise my next post will be significantly less philosphical. Here's a bunch of dick jokes to help lighten the mood:  http://www.mendhak.com/165-more-than-101-big-dick-jokes.aspx 

Hasta mañana and shit.