Believing with Hair, by Ricky

Is there any harm in believing in a higher power whether or not labeled as: Allah, God, Wotan, Zeus, Jove, Deity, Great Spirit, Supreme Being, El, Elohim, Ehyeh, Elah, El Shaddah, Elyon, YHWH, I Am, Yahweh, Adonai, Halakha, Jehovah, HaShem, Ihuh, Ho Theos, Ho Kurios, Jesus Christ, Hæland, Heiland, Alpha and Omega, The Light, King of Kings, Lord of Hosts, Ancient of Days, Father/Abba, God the Father, Heavenly Father, Father in Heaven, Nkosi, Jah Rastafari, Olodumare, Khoda, Ar-Rahman, Bahá, Dieu, and Dios? (Refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God for additional names.) How could there be harm in believing in such? If there is no higher power, then when we die there will be nothing more. If there is a higher power, then when we die we will continue in one form or another independent of one’s beliefs. If believing in a higher power gives one comfort or motivation to become a better person, then believe. One’s belief won’t interfere with another’s non-belief.

Believing in a higher power allows all of the world’s human societies and cultures to live according to respective sets of behavior that are beneficial to survival and cooperative peaceful coexistence. It allows us all to get along with each other peacefully, if we so choose. Without a higher power to provide absolutely correct principles of behavior, we would be living in an environment of “every human for himself”, the so called law-of-the-jungle. (Oh wait. That is nearly how we live now. Why is that?)

Where harm succeeds in inserting itself into the world of human behavior, it is not caused by a higher power, but the result of humans inserting personal thoughts, analysis, prejudices, desires, and self-righteous noses into other humans’ pursuit of happiness. Just because persons of great wealth, like Mr. Trump and the Koch brothers, have or control all the gold, does not give them the right to make rules for everyone else to obey. They are not the higher power and have no right to redefine the Golden Rule to suit themselves.

While a belief in a higher power was used to manipulate groups of humans to commit massive amounts of violence against others in the past, which continues to this day, the belief in a beneficent higher power is also used to organize humans to create abundant beauty and to lead peaceful and productive lives. I believe in doing and being good. I hope to continue until I move on to another “plane of existence.”

I also believe in the commercial properties of hare. The fur of a hare can be made into a covering for the hairless. This ends the topic of hare as any ideas I come up with just keep hopping out of my mind and off the printed page.

© 25 January 2016

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com