necturus: 2016-12-30 (Default)

[personal profile] necturus 2012-01-05 06:07 am (UTC)(link)
If you take six billion magnetized needles and float them on corks in little bowls of water, no matter where they are in the world they will all eventually come to point toward the North Magnetic Pole. Thus the underlying magnetic field that is a consequence of natural principles reveals itself.

One would expect that six billion human beings, left similarly open to the influence of an underlying Divine Principle in the universe, should gradually come to point in roughly the same direction. Yet history suggests the opposite: if first came Judaism, then there were Judaism and Christianity; and then there were Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and then there were Orthodoxy and Catholicism, Sunnis and Shi`is; and then there were Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Mormons, Isma`ilis, Druze, `Alawi's... and Mormons, and Unitarian Universalists, and Discordians, and Scientologists... and it occurred to me to wonder not long ago whether any two people, even praying side-by-side in the same house of worship, truly have the same God in mind. If there be any Divine Principle in the universe, it is surely undetectable by the human heart.