11.  Why do some religions not include God?

Summary:

•	The religious scriptures of some religions, including Buddhism, teach that the Universe has always existed and therefore never needed one a Divine Creator.  But this does not mean those religions have no Gods at all.

•	A religion can express God’s essence through compassion and truth even if it never uses the word “God.”

•	According to the Christian Bible and countless near-death experience (NDE) testimonies, the essence of God is Love—not just as a feeling, but as something literally real and fundamental to the Universe.

•	God is portrayed as emotionally secure and not requiring people to acknowledge that He created the Universe.

•	Human love feels limited and temporary because our bodies are physical, but Divine Love—as described by NDE survivors—is unconditional and at least a million times more intense than any love we feel on Earth.  God does not require people to acknowledge that God created the Universe.

•	God is so beyond human understanding that atheists, believers, and agnostics each capture a piece of the truth, because God both exists and is beyond existence.

•	Any religion that centers on love and compassion—even without naming God—is still a religion that includes God, because love is God’s essence.  Only a religion with absolutely no love whatsoever could truly be called a religion without God.

Some religious scriptures, for example in Buddhism, teach that the Universe has always existed in some form and therefore never required a Divine Creator.  For that reason, those scriptures do not emphasize a Creator God.  But that does not mean those particular religions have no Gods.  Most of them do, including Buddhism. 

Still, when most people use the word God, they usually mean a Divine Creator.  If the Universe had a beginning, which most scientists today do believe, and if the Universe had a Divine Creator, then why does that Creator allow the existence of religions that do not include a Divine Creator? 

The answer could be that God is not offended if you do not acknowledge that God created the Universe.  God is not emotionally insecure or psychologically fragile.  God knows that God created the Universe.  Your own opinions about that topic may not be so important. 

Religions that do not include a Divine Creator may still teach spiritual growth.  Such religious do not refer to God by name, but they include the essence of God.  And they worship that essence.  Worshipping the essence of God is better than including the word God in religious scriptures and rituals but then use that word to justify cruelty and hypocrisy, which too many people have done. What is that essence of the Divine?  That essence is reported by countless NDE testimonies and evident in multiple religious scriptures.  In the Christian Bible, the First Epistle of John states this directly

“God is love.”  Throughout human history most people have assumed that love is an emotion—a sensation felt by humans and perhaps felt by God, but always an emotion and nothing more.  Most Christians have long assumed that the phrase “God is love” is symbolic, not literal. 

However, a vast multitude of NDE testimonies from Christians and non-Christians alike say that “God is love” is true literally. 

That means love is more than an emotion, more than a physiological drive in human biology, more than a feeling that brings people together as couples, binds families, deepens friendships, and strengthens communities and also nations.  Testimonies from NDEs report that love is literally the presence of God, literally the essence of God.  The First Epistle of John also proclaims:

In Islam, the Holy Quran uses 99 names for God, including these:

ٱلْبَرُّ	The Source of Goodness
ٱلْخَالِقُ	The Creator
ٱلْرَّزَّاقُ	The Provider
ٱلْرَّؤُفُ	The Most Kind
ٱلْغَفَّارُ	The All-Forgiving
ٱلْقُدُّوسُ	The Absolutely Pure
لْوَدُودُ	The Most Loving

The idea that “God is love” may sound naïve or not reasonable.  Critics argue that it seems to ignore suffering and wickedness.  That criticism is addressed elsewhere in this book.  For now, consider this: if God exists, then the idea that God is love might not be so naïve or unreasonable.  It might be central to everything.

If God is not made of love, then what would God be made of?  That question might be impossible to answer with certainty, but we can at least speculate.  Some people have described God as made of light.  One of the 99 names of God in the Holy Quran is The Light— ٱلْنُّورُ .  But is God really made of light?—or is God sometimes choosing to appear as light?  If God is made of light, that suggests God is made of electro-magnetic radiation, which is what physical light is.  Some people have equated God with energy—but does that mean God is energy without any emotions?  Electricity is a form of energy, but most people would not equate electricity with a Divine Being.  Electricity exists in a material Universe and is something physical.  The same is true for most forms of energy and for ordinary forms of light.  The essence of God cannot be physical or material because an essence that is physical would limit God.

There are theologians who assert—and many NDE experiencers agree—that our human brains cannot fully comprehend God.  Other theologians, and other NDE experiencers, assert that God is love.  These two assertions may seem contradictory because our human brains can comprehend love, but these two assertions can be reconciled.    

One reason why the phrase “God is love” may sound naïve is because our human ability to feel love, while profound, is limited by our biology and circumstances.  We live in a material Universe; almost everything in this Universe is limited.  In our experiences as people, feelings of lust can feel intense—but lust does not last, and so when we equate love with lust, we assume that love does not last.  The same happens when we equate love with innocence.  Relationships between romantic partners or close friends can suffer misunderstandings, stress, major disagreements, tragedies, and the distractions and dangerous temptations that happen in ordinary life.  And then love suffers: married couples divorce, friendships end, personal communications decrease due to time and distance.  Love can feel temporary.

Furthermore, the physical sensations we may associate with love, including the love a young mother feels for her infant child, are biological activities within the human body.  Sensations that we may call love are physical because the human body is physical, operating within a materialist Universe.  If our emotions are nothing more than biological activities inside of our bodies and perhaps vulnerable to various drugs, then whatever biological phenomenon is called love does not sound like the essence of the Divine Creator of the Universe.  When love is described in these strictly materialist terms, love can sound weak.

Yet, when we talk about God and love, do we truly understand what we are talking about?  We might call God the Divine Creator of the Universe, but what does that description really mean?  Scientists have difficulty trying to fully comprehend the Universe.  Imagine the human difficulty in trying to fully comprehend God.  God is eternal because God is beyond time.  God is beyond anything physical because God created everything physical.  God is not energy because God created energy.  God exists and yet God is also beyond existence—which means that God does not exist.  Many religious people believe God exists, atheists believe God does not exist, and agnostics cannot be certain.   In trying to fully comprehend God, there appears to be some truth in all three perspectives.  This does not make logical sense, and yet it does make sense.  It is we, not God, who try to force God to fit inside our human conception of logic. 

The near-death experiencers who say they were in the presence of God also say that the unconditional love they received from God felt like the love of a young mother for her infant child—multiplied by at least a million times.  Consider that: an intensity of pure love at least a million times greater than any person could feel on Earth.  The human body cannot process sensations that intense.  Near-death experiencers who saw a bright light, which they equated with God, say the light was so bright that human eyes would hurt by looking at it directly.  But those experiencers did look at the light directly, without pain or harm, because their NDE was not being experienced by their human body with its physical eyes: their NDE was experienced by their non-material soul outside of their material body.  The same is true when they directly felt God’s incredibly intense love. 

Most theologians would probably say, and most NDE experiencers would probably agree, that Divine Love is infinite.  We can recognize Divine Love and yet cannot fully comprehend it.  It is the essence of God.

Any religion that emphasizes love and compassion, especially unconditional love and not doing harm, is a religion that emphasizes God.  A religion need not include a Divine Creator to include God.  When love is included, the essence of God is included. 

In Buddhism, one of its religious scriptures proclaims:

In some religions a Divine Creator is respected, honored, and emphasized—but is not called God.  The following is from the Dao De Jing (also called the Tao Te Ching), the religious scripture of Daoism (also spelled Taoism):

有物混成, 先天地生。	There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth.
寂兮寥兮, 立而不改, 周行而不殆, 可以为天地母。	Silent and formless, standing without changing, moving around without dying, it may be regarded as the Mother of Heaven and Earth.
吾不知其名, 强字之曰道, 强为之名曰大。	I do not know its name, and I call it the Dao (the Way); by thinking harder to give it a name, I call it “The Great.”
大曰逝,逝曰远, 远曰反。 故道大, 天大, 地大, 人亦大。 域中有四大, 而人居其一焉。	Great, it passes on [in constant flow].  Passing on, it becomes remote.  Having become remote, it returns. Therefore, the Dao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; and the (sage) king is also great.  In the Universe there are four that are great, and the (sage) king is one of them.
人法地, 地法天, 天法道, 道法自然。	Man takes his law from Earth; Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Dao; the law of the Dao is its being what it is.

Consider what this Daoist scripture is proclaiming:

• “…it may be regarded as the Mother of Heaven and Earth.”
• “…Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Dao; the law of Dao is its being what it is.”

To a believer in God, these ideas seem to describe God.  Perhaps this Daoist scripture is actually referring to God by providing us with another perspective about what God is and how God behaves.  Because God is too big to fit inside one religion.

Divine Love is unconditional love, love that is pure, infinite and infinitely intense, without limit.  Nearly all religions include God in some form because they include love. 

At the same time, any religion that does not emphasize unconditional love but, instead, claims that love must be “earned” by satisfying some conditions “or else God will not love you” is a religion that too often opposes God, despite praising the word God or whatever name of God is used by that religion.  Such teachings make people afraid of their own Divine parent.  There are preachers spreading fear and hatred mixed with the obvious contradiction of a loving God.  They are deceived by their own fears, and deceiving others.

Accepting that “God is love”—unconditional love—may not fit into our usual interpretation of religious scriptures, but perhaps we misinterpreted them.  Perhaps we missed the point.  Only a religion without any love at all—no love whatsoever—is a religion without God.