God

GOD, the universal life-force and energy running through everything, is an intelligent presence pervading all space, a beginningless and endless eternity of eternities, a self-existent cause, a perfect unit and a complete wholeness. 

The unthinking person would believe that God is a spirit who keeps books and checks up on the wrongdoings of each individual member of the human race, and that God sends some to heaven and some to hell, all for God’s glory. All people, according to their own light, have believed in the kind of God who best fitted their personal ideas, or in the idea of God that has been imposed on them by ignorant or superstitious leaders. 

But always there has been the voice of those crying in the wilderness of superstition, ignorance, doubt and fear, the voice of those who have thought the thing through to conclusions that have been independent of race beliefs, of the subtleties of religious dogma, and of theological superstitions. These have been the way-showers of humanity, and millions have lighted candles from their flames. But the world progresses slowly. Evolution and the growth of knowledge and wisdom is a process of time and experience. In olden times, an intelligent few understood much deeper truths than were known by the multitude, but the common people were thrown a few crumbs from the tables of those who were “in the know.” These crumbs were shrouded in mystery, symbol, word pictures and parables. Perhaps this was the only way in which wisdom could have been taught at all. 

In principle, the great religions of the world do not differ as much as they appear to. Stripped of their accumulations of adornments, observances and incrustations of interpretations, it is found that each acknowledges that there is one central power, force—or God—which is self-existent. It is from this one power that all things emanate. All of life flows from it and is a part of it. Nothing can exist separate from it. The Christian interpretation of the ultimate nature of the creative source of the universe places more emphasis on the life of the individual as being an integral part of the one life. For this reason, an intelligent understanding of the fundamental concepts of Christianity has had a greater appeal to the progressive peoples of the world.

From The Basics of Spiritual Mind Healing, by Ernest Holmes

A Newt List book, updated and gender-inclusive.