John Calvin said it best…

That there exists in the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man, being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen [Cicero] tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart.

One night, when I was a little boy, I awoke in the middle of the night from a dream, and I saw a figure or apparition that I took to be a woman in a long white robe standing at the foot of my bed looking in on me. I thought it was my mom, and I called out to her, “Mother, is that you?” When I received no answer, I became frightened, and in my fear, she left.

I have never attended a church regularly, and I don’t now at all. I find ministers to be generally too concerned with the secular wants and needs of the church, and the parishioners too pushy and too impersonal in their beliefs. I think we all have an in-born sense of God, that needs to be shared, not verses from the Bible. And I surely don’t care to attend a church that would summon up the hounds of heaven to get me to come back. One of the sweetest and most devout people I have ever known was a Buddhist girl that I met when I was in Japan. She tried to explain her religion to me one night, and I could see that in her mind she had a vision of a very beautiful and orderly universe. I tried to tell her about my religion and General Relativity, but I don’t think she bought into it.

~ by dobee on April 24, 2008.