Why YOU Should Believe in God

It's very simple: Numerous scientific studies have confirmed that people who are religious live longer, healthier, and happier lives. They are more successful financially; their marriages are better and more nurturing; they are more optimistic, less stressed out, and more satisfied with the direction of their lives. Moreover, religious people experience what they consider miracles. What's not to want for yourself?

A great deal of data, not to mention common sense, tells us that we need a spiritual dimension in our lives. It doesn't matter what religion you practice (although some religions are more toxic than others). As twelve-step programs teach us, all you need is to recognize “a Power greater than yourself.”

A religion is a system of thought in which its practitioners share a common focus of their devotion (Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Scientology, jettisoned cargo), a code of ethics, and a world-view through which they find a purpose and meaning to life. To be happier and healthier and to live longer, find a group of people with whom you feel compatible; who have an object of devotion, a code of ethics, and a world-view with which you tend to agree; and who teach love, compassion, and forgiveness, and attend that group's religious gatherings at least weekly.

Virtually any religion will do: God is infinite. What this means is that virtually any definitive statement about God's nature, character, or intentions is infinitely wrong. About all that anyone can say about God with absolutely certainty is “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

So when you go religion-shopping, be sure to pick one that preaches and teaches compassion, forgiveness, and service to others.

• Do not pick a religion that preaches hellfire and damnation; that's a load of horse manure.
• Do not pick a religion that sets itself up as morally superior to all other religions; that's what religions say right before they throw children into volcanoes or paint their bellies blue.
• Do not pick a religion that advocates injuring others or causing others to suffer, whether it's Islam and its fatwas or Pat Robertson's imitation Christianity (which tells us that all evil comes from independent women, homosexuals, and liberals, and which approves of murder so long as it's a “foreigner” or a physician performing a medical procedure of which Pat Robertson disapproves).
• Do not pick a religion whose proponents are given to saying things like, “God told me to tell you X” or “God thinks Y.” God is perfectly capable of speaking for Godself, and does so all the time — just not to turkeys who have confused themselves with God.
• Do not pick a religion that declares certain classes of human being to be inferior. For example, do not pick a religion that says that women are inferior, because (a) their interpretation of their holy scriptures says so or (b) women were considered inferior when their scripture was put into writing, thousands of years ago, so God must consider women inferior. Do not pick a religion that says that people of a certain skin color are inferior, or people of a certain ethnic background are inferior, or even that people who agree with them are superior. From God's point of view, you and I are about as significant and interchangeable as bacteria.
• Do not pick a religion that considers a book to be as perfect and inerrant as God is, whether the book is the Bible, the Qu'ran, or the Kama Sutra. Only God is perfect; the books that some religions (especially fundamentalists) worship were written by human beings, not by God. To consider some physical object to be as perfect and inerrant as God is is called idolatry.

Personally, I think that Buddhism and the Society of Friends come closest to the capital-T Truth. I also think that fundamentalists of any religion, whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or other, are so busy trying to protect their idea of Tradition that they have completely lost sight of the point. What does attacking another person or group for the “sin” of not agreeing with you have to do with compassion, forgiveness, and love? Why is it a “sin” not to want to do things the way they've “always” been done? Have we “always” worshiped Ishtar, Kronos, or Shaddai? Have we “always” made important religious decisions through a coin toss, as they did with the urim and thummim in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament (Acts 1:26)? Have we “always” believed that Moses could murder his enemies through the sheer power of his body odor (Ex. 17:8-13) — or that God approves of the murder of enemies?

Ninety-nine percent of the dogma of all major religions is horse manure. It doesn't matter. Love God; love humanity; practice compassion, forgiveness, serenity, and understanding — and live a longer, happier, healthier life. Or focus solely on the manure aspects of religion and die alone, young, and miserable.

See, for example, Gerontology, Religion, and Health; Fact Sheet on Religion and Health; a review/promotion of psychiatrist Harold Koenig's The Healing Power of Faith; Religious Observance: Marriage and Family; etc.