There are many paths to faith. Many possibilities and recently I’ve been musing on one particular idea of faith that amuses and appeals to me.

That the entire universe has only one soul in it, that soul is God. That through the function of the flow of time that singular soul is holographically projected throughout existence as consciousness in sentient life forms. Humanity for example.

As time flows, the light of life illuminates a structure fixed at the center of the nature of the Universe and shines through it. This structure we call God, and as the light of life shines through it, various expressions of that singular soul are played out throughout the expanse of the Universe. These holographic projections are all of us. That we are God, but more specifically, we are all fundamentally the same. Whenever one does violence to someone else, it is quite literally self-abuse. Not only do you do violence to yourself, but you do violence to God.

I consider this concept to be a riff on the Golden Rule, which is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” and lies at the very center of my ethical and moral existence. The lesson of the Golden Rule is that you should treat everyone equally, and nicely, the way you wish to be treated. In this light, the Golden Rule is recast anew as a way to honor God, by honoring ourselves.

This also eliminates the distance between God and Mankind. There is no distance between us, we are all one. Since there is no distance, there is no fear of punishment, how could God punish itself? This also answers the question of death. When time moves through us and wears out our bodies, the holographic projection which is what we consider our consciousness, the part of us that understands we exist, that does not simply evaporate, it continues on to be re-expressed as time moves forward and the light shines through our facet of God and we are born again.

The question of evil remains. Why is there evil in our world? Why do people do bad things? It is a curse of existence that we are so very ignorant. We just do not know, we can’t appreciate the finer aspects of this kind of faith. You can see the early formations of the Golden Rule accumulating in social animals that have yet to achieve sentience, such as our evolutionary fore-bearers, the primates. They demonstrate an understanding of the Golden Rule, so on some level, this faith is instinctual. Since it is not fully understood, there is fear. Fear is, to borrow from Albert Brooks, like a dark fog that settles on the mind. Fear blots out happiness, it clouds our thinking and leads us astray. The foundation of evil is then the natural progression starting at fear and progressing downwards towards anger and hate. There is evil in our world because we are ignorant of the Golden Rule or chose to not abide by it, and therefore we suffer for it.

Personally I find this a very compelling idea. This concept of faith, this possible structure to existence and helps define the murky concept of the flow of time. It combines the things we all experience, the understanding that time flows forward, the sense that a God could exist, and if it does, it’s formed by adding up all the very best in all of us, as well as birth, life, and death. It also defines a morality that has been with humanity longer than any other, that of The Golden Rule. The most interesting thing would be, what would happen if someone lived their life with this understanding and this morality? What would you do? What would your choices be? Would they be different than they are now?