Haaa, SJs and "God", always the same story. Got told last time by an SLI friend and her LSE husband that "I'll end up in hell".
They didn't make a distinction between the dream world, which feeds our imagination, and reality.
Wanting to believe something doesn't make it true; stories don't tell us something about the world, but about ourselves. There is no more empiric evidence for any paradise or God than there is for Narnia in my wardrobe, so from my perspective it's completely irrational to start behaving like there was. Yet people choose to devoutly follow not what they can deduce from their perceptions but what appeals to their primitive intuitive cloud cuckoo land. I sometimes get a feeling of being in contact with a higher reality, a 'divine' dimension of human existence and of the world. I think this is part of being human, instead of projecting that feeling onto some higher entity.
It's easy to fall prey to holy books, people or teachings when one is insecure about one's own judgement and afraid to be wrong; it feels sooo good when you can delude yourself into believing you have understood the order, the fate and rules of your own existence. And yet, in the face of the unknown, one cannot but feel that any knowledge is built on empty assumptions. To fight this 'fundamental doubt', people start participating in rituals like praying, diets, commemorations, festivities and so on. Gradually, people lives are so entagled in a religion that it's not about the truth or the faith anymore. It becomes about a way of life, about the antidote to the emptiness of existence. Ultimately, it becomes easier to reject any criticism than to have to question one's entire lifestyle and reassuring bedtime stories.
I think one has a lot to learn from spiritual texts, as long as one retains a critical mind and stays in a relationship of equals with them. Real faith doesn't exist without doubt, strength without moments of weakness, courage without fear. I admire people that believe that "God has plans for them" despite all the hardships of life, I really do. That's the faith of the strong, the faith in hope. Personally, I prefer to believe that nothing is perfect, unchanging or absolute, not even a "God".
Yet, I'm looking for higher love. I just don't think it's outside of me, some extraneous God. If I can feel it, what difference does it make anyway?