One of the reasons why I believe in God

There are many reasons why I believe in a monotheistic God. In this post I will just share one of the reasons. As per my understanding, if different religions or a set of people claim to worship a monotheistic God, who is the creator of the world and who has no equal, then I believe they must be referring to the same God, irrespective of the fact that such groups of people will have some differences. If it were not the same God, then having 'no equal' statement would not hold, as individual claims would give 'multiple all powerful Gods', which is an oxymoron (because if there are two all powerful Gods, they will not remain 'all powerful' in front of the other, but would be an equal).

It is like different groups of scientists set out to study properties of the largest known galaxy, IC 1101, and they might call the galaxy by different names, may find different properties of the galaxy, focus on different aspects, but still the galaxy IC 1101 does not become two or more galaxies. If some groups of people start worshiping the largest galaxy, in different ways, giving it different names, still it would remain a single galaxy. Many people do worship some planets and stars in their own respective ways, but the planets and stars remain a single entity irrespective of how many different ways different groups worship a star or a planet.

Of the religious groups which I have studied as a theology hobbyist, the mains one include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, monotheistic aspects in Hinduism and my own religion, Sikhism. I do not claim to have any authoritative knowledge on any of them, but I have tried to understand whatever I could.

During my studies I found an interesting aspect, although it is already well known in theological circles, but I found it fascinating, and feel not much emphasis has been laid on this aspect, especially in popular culture. Judaism believes in prophets of the Old Testament. Christianity believes in all the Jewish prophets from the Old Testament, and also believes in prophets of the New Testament, including Jesus Christ. Islam believes in all the prophets of Old and New Testament, while also believing in Prophet Mohammad, who is mentioned in The Koran (Koran mentions Jesus Christ often, as also prophets Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others). These three religions, of middle eastern origin, worship the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. It is like three tributaries of the river of monotheism arising in the middle east.

The monotheistic theology originating from Indian sub-continent includes Sikhism and some aspects of Hinduism. Sikhs believe in Shri Guru Granth Sahib Ji as their religious guide and mentor. Shri Guru Granth Sahib Ji contains verses describing a monotheistic theology, and the verses were contributed by some Sikh Gurus themselves, and others were collected by the Sikh Gurus but were originally written by few Hindu and Muslim saints from the Indian sub-subcontinent. We could say there are three tributaries of the river of monotheism in Indian sub-continent, two new and third continuing from middle east.

Above is a very simplistic description of my understanding. It might be important to note that one of Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, Saint Thomas, actually arrived in South India around 50 AD (as per Wikipedia). I believe influence of Saint Thomas's arrival in India is a topic which has not been studied much, and it is possible that some aspects of his teachings merged with or influenced the monotheistic theology of the Indian subcontinent, of which very little details are known.

Another important aspect is that the verses in the scriptures of any of the above monotheistic religions are attributed to some saints and prophets, but many of the saints and prophets claimed that the origin of the words is from God alone, as the words and the wisdom they convey were revealed to them. I have no way of proving this statement but I just mentioned it for sake of completeness, and also to highlight the common aspect of the different scriptures.

Coming to the next part of this post I would like to mention the number of primary prophets and saints that are mentioned in each of the above monotheistic religions or their scriptures. All data is taken from Wikipedia, and in no way I claim that the data is complete. I will come to the reason later, of why I share the list here.

• Prophets in Judaism: 55 = 48 + 7 (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophets_in_Judaism)
• Prophets in Christianity: 70+ approximately (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophets_of_Christianity, many would be shared from the earlier list related to Judaism)
• Prophets in Islam: List overlaps with the above lists with addition of Prophet Mohammad (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophets_and_messengers_in_Islam)
• Prophets in Sikhism: 40 = 36 contributors to Shri Guru Granth Sahib  Ji (which includes Sikh Gurus, as well as some Hindu and Muslim saints of the Indian sub-continent) + 4 Sikh Gurus whose verses are not part of the Scripture (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writers_of_Guru_Granth_Sahib)

It is important to note that above numbers include actual historical figures, and historical records are available for most of them. Each of above people believed in a monotheistic God. Most of them were not college professors who are paid for writing new fancy theories, books and articles, nor were they arm-chair philosophers whose interest in theology was limited to a spirited conversation during free time, and neither were they conquerors interested in gaining territory and taxes. For most part they had normal lives, not unlike a passionate entrepreneur or scientist today, and they insisted to have a belief because they thought it is true. Also, some of the people in the above list actually had very difficult lives, and faced immense resistance during life for their beliefs, sometimes brutal resistance, but they still held on to their belief. What was the reason for their beliefs? Why did they continue to believe in what they believed, in spite of all the resistance that they faced?

There are three possibilities regarding a person's belief, the person believes in truth, the person believes in a delusion, or the person is lying. Each individual, including you and me, have to make a decision in our life regarding the beliefs of the people in the above list, whether it is true or not. I have made mine. I believe that the people in the above list believed in a truth when they said that there is one God, all powerful and creator of all there is. I have no reason to believe that they were either lying or were delusional.

There may be many aspects of their life which cannot be explained logically, or maybe some of the stories are fabricated or have turned into exaggerated myths, but is it not true with all history. It's always hard to tell in history what is true or what is not true. As for me, I am only interested in one aspect of the stories and myth, and that is that they all believed in one God, who is all powerful. I don't have enough time and resources in this life to validate all the other myths and stories that I hear and read about the different people in the above list, but it does not matter. Because I take the only unquestionable piece of information at face value, that is common in the belief of all the legendary people of the above list, and that is 'There is one God'.

So one of reasons why I believe in a monotheistic God is that everyone listed in the above list believed in a monotheistic God. It might seem a very weak reason in a society obsessed with individuality, but facts are true or false, and individuality is a misplaced concept when discussing accuracy of a potential fact (i.e. something or someone exists or does not exist irrespective how you or anyone else thinks about it). I have no reason to suspect that the belief of people in the above list was mistaken, and actually many aspects of their individual life and the effect that they had on society during their lifetime is awe inspiring (even if we do not consider the miracles associated with them, that cannot be logically explained). Many cults and kingdoms have come and gone, but affect of people in the above list has sustained through the test of time. That alone could be a good enough reason for most people to consider their teachings seriously.

-x-