​Introduction

God exists everywhere, in all things, at all times. If we look in the right way, we’ll see God everywhere. If we don’t look in the right way, we won’t see God anywhere.

I remember where I was the first time I asked myself, “Do I believe in God?”

I was thirteen years old and I was sitting at my desk in my bedroom at my parents’ house. I was looking out the window when I was supposed to be doing my homework.

The immediate answer I got from deep in my gut was, “Yes, I do believe in God.”

Then the next logical question became, “Why? Why do I believe that and what is it I’m saying I believe in?”

This led me on a lifelong quest to explain to myself what it is I mean when I say I believe in God. What is God that I should believe in Him/It? What is the evidence that God exists at all?

I realized at a very early age that I couldn’t in good conscience believe in something for which there was no empirical evidence. I wasn’t prepared to take the existence of God on faith and no one else should have to take it on faith, either. If we can’t explain something and show evidence of its existence, then we have no justification to believe in it.

No other subject raises such heated emotions as the question of what God is and whether it truly does exist in the form people claim it does.

Everything in our lives gets judged by an empirical standard and this is the way it should be. No one should be expected to accept any belief just because someone else said so.

Like most people who believe in God, I’ve grappled with these questions all my life. I knew intuitively that I couldn’t believe in the Old Testament-style picture of an old man with a long white beard sitting on a throne in the sky throwing lightning bolts at evil-doers.

The Jewish rabbi, Reb Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, once said,

“The god you don’t believe in, I also do not believe in.”

As I’ve gotten older, I have had to continually re-examine and re-define what I believe. I’ve had to determine whether my belief in God was just me deluding myself for some self-comforting reason such as the need for a substitute father-figure or something similar.

Time and again, I’ve used the empirical standard and backed up my beliefs with the evidence of my own senses. That is exactly what this proof sets out to do.

Isaac Asimov once said, “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

This proof began as a way for me to think out loud and lay out the logical and evidential proof for myself and the rest of the world to see. All of us can see, hear, feel, and recognize this evidence because we’re all living it on a daily basis.

If you have any objections or counter-arguments to the statements laid out here, I welcome your comments and feedback. This debate can only benefit us all.

I hope this proof helps you. I hope it offers clarity to those who might be questioning their own sanity for believing something the rest of the world says doesn’t exist. God is all around us. God is within us. God is in every single person we will ever meet.

If we look in the right way, we will see God everywhere. If we don’t look in the right way, we won’t see God anywhere.

For those who don’t believe in God, I hope this proof offers you an avenue to find the meaning and holiness we all seek in life.

If someone disagrees with us, that challenge can motivate us to re-examine what we really believe. We can ask ourselves the hard questions and it can make our beliefs stronger when we realize that yes, what we believe in really does exist. It is only their own way of seeing that prevents them from recognizing what is right in front of their eyes.

Part 1: Something Exists

Many Eastern philosophies and belief systems begin from the assumption that nothing exists and that this world we see around us is an illusion.

Many Western philosophies begin from the assumption that this world we see around us doesn’t matter or that it’s deliberately evil. They would have us believe that what happens after we die is everything and that we should sacrifice gratification in this life in exchange for the hereafter.

So let’s start with that. It might be true that this world we see around us is not as we think it is. It might also be true that this world is meaningless or evil or any other negative construction we want to put on it.

One thing we can be absolutely certain of. Something exists. It might not be what we think it is, but something definitely exists.

What if nothing exists? This is impossible.

For a start, something is having this experience of awareness. Something is perceiving the illusion or the evil or the devil’s deception. Whatever that thing is, whatever the source of the perception, something MUST exist. We wouldn’t be having this experience of all these trees and birds and airplanes and streets if it didn’t.

Something is AWARE that it is having this experience. WE are aware that we are having some experience known as being alive. WE are seeing trees and birds and airplanes and streets.

All these trees and birds and airplanes and streets might not really be there. They might be an illusion or a deception, but SOMETHING is thinking and trying to decide whether they’re real. Something is AWARE that itself exists.

Lastly, whatever is perceiving the experience is not only aware but we are aware that we are aware. Being self-aware means we can say, “I exist.” Our awareness goes beyond this. We are conscious OF our own awareness. We can question it and even doubt its veracity.

None of that would be possible if something wasn’t having this awareness. Whatever that thing is might be quite different from what we perceive. We might be highly deluded about WHAT is having this experience and this perception.

We CANNOT be deluded about the fact that we ARE having this awareness. If we were, we wouldn’t be having it at all because there would be nothing there to perceive it. Therefore:

Something Must Exist.

Part 2: Infinity Exists

We’ve established that SOMETHING exists. We don’t know for certain what it is, but we know for certain that it’s there. It exists. It can’t NOT exist.

We also know that this thing or entity is engaged in sentient self-awareness. We know it is aware both THAT it exists, that it is AWARE of its own existence, and that it is aware OF its own awareness.

So let’s dig a little deeper and figure out what else we know about this…whatever it is.

This indefinable something might be a concrete object. It might be a force or even simply an idea. Whatever this thing is that exists—or even if it isn’t a thing at all—it has to be either infinite or finite. It can’t be anything in between because that’s what infinity means. If it isn’t infinite, then it’s finite.

If this self-aware whatever-it-is is finite, it must have limits and parameters that define where it begins and ends. There is a whole universe of stuff outside the thing that is NOT the thing.

If the self-aware thing is a person, then there is a whole universe of stuff outside the person which is not the person.

If the self-aware thing is infinite, then it doesn’t have those limits and parameters. By definition as an infinite object, there is no universe of stuff outside it that is NOT it because it IS the universe. It’s everything.

Those are the only two options when we’re talking about this something that exists. It has to be one or the other. There’s no other possibility and no in-between.

The question is: which one is it?

If it’s finite, then we can draw these limits and parameters around it. We can say, “This is the thing and all the other stuff is NOT the thing.” There’s a very clearly defined difference between the thing and everything that is NOT the thing.

There’s an apple on my desk as I write this. That apple is finite. We all understand this. There’s a very clear and concrete skin that defines where the apple ends and everything else begins. Everything outside that skin is NOT the apple.

If that’s true, then what lies outside the apple’s limits and parameters MUST be finite or infinite. There are no other options for that, either. If we’re talking about an apple, then what lies outside it might be the Earth’s atmosphere.

We all know the Earth’s atmosphere is finite. There’s a boundary where the atmosphere ends and the rest of space begins.

We can use the same argument for any object that no one in their right mind would argue really exists. It could be an apple, a cat, the Earth, the Milky Way galaxy—take your pick of starting point. The argument still holds up.

Following our example, we’ve left Earth’s atmosphere and we’re expanding out into space itself. What’s left—the galaxy? Also finite. What lies beyond the galaxy? The universe?

Either the universe is finite or it’s infinite. If it’s finite, then there must be something beyond it that is NOT the universe. Whatever that is, it must also be finite or infinite and so on ad infinitum. This proves that:

Infinity Exists

Either something is infinite or the potentialities for what lies beyond the finite can go on unto infinity. Either way, infinity must exist. Whatever label we attach to any of these things or concepts doesn’t alter this fact. As long as any one thing we look at or point to is finite, then infinity must exist beyond it.

Part 3: Only One Thing Exists

If infinity exists, then there can be only one thing that exists. This is, in fact, what the word infinite means. It means there is nothing, anywhere, that is NOT it. It encompasses everything, in the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear, to infinity and beyond.

That quote is funny because there is nothing beyond infinity. Infinity is everything without end. Everything that can exist, exists inside its infinite oneness.

Yes, we’re using the word “thing” to describe this infinite reality. It might be a thing. It might be a form of energy. It might be a concept.

There is no thing, state, idea, or potentiality that is not included in this Infinite Oneness. There can only be one object or state that makes up all of existence. As long as infinity exists, this infinite reality embodies EVERYTHING. There is nothing that it is NOT. Therefore,

Only One Thing Exists

Many religions, philosophies, and belief systems state that there is a Universal Oneness that pervades and animates the universe as we know it. Different belief systems give this Oneness different names. Some call it Chi, Prana, Ether, etc.

Even science suggests that there is some universal energy that moves through everything and makes everything happen the way it does. If we look at the world at the subatomic level, we discover that there is no matter. It’s all energy and this energy is universal. It works the same way in all states and science can’t explain how it works, where it comes from, or why it does the things it does.

Part 4: Infinity Is Self-aware

What if parts of this infinite reality are sentient and other parts are not? For example, we could make the argument that human beings are self-aware, but rocks are not.

Going back to our previous argument, there is nothing within the Infinite Oneness that is NOT the Infinite Oneness.

If even one person on Earth is self-aware, then the Infinite Oneness must be self-aware. By the same logic, if this Infinite Being is self-aware and there is nothing within it that is not it, then everything inside it must be self-aware, too, including the rock.

We see this in the human race and how universal self-awareness is across all races, cultures, histories, etc. There was a time when Europeans thought black Africans weren’t capable of self-awareness. There was a time when people thought animals such as bees, crows, dolphins, and fish were too brainless to use tools. Now we know differently.

The scientific community is discovering that the animal world and even the world of single-celled organisms are more self-determining than we ever thought possible. Some researchers have even discovered that subatomic particles and even interstellar special bodies show evidence for self-determination and behavior.

The more we discover, the more we see a pattern forming across reality that the universe has a level of self-awareness we can only dream of.

Something exists that is experiencing this self-awareness. Since one single entity encompasses all existence, that entity must be experiencing this self-awareness and the awareness of its own awareness.

Nothing can exist apart from this infinite entity, and since only one thing exists, this one thing must be perceiving its own awareness. If that’s true, then what are we? What are all these people and trees and airplanes and streets that we keep seeing?

This unknown energy form that moves through all subatomic particles is also moving through our brains, hearts, and senses. From a scientific point of view, this energy is what is making us all self-aware and there is no barrier between the energy that makes my brain work and the energy that makes your brain work or the brain of an ameba work.

This proves that self-awareness is universal and infinite. This energy moves in and out of all things, all atoms, all cells, at all times without restriction. There is nothing that it is not—hence the Universal Oneness we’ve just proven in the previous section.

There is also no barrier that distinguishes between my self-awareness and the same vitalizing energy going through a rock. The rock might not communicate and express that self-awareness in the same way, but there is no scientific or logical reason to believe that whatever is making my brain self-aware isn’t doing the same thing to a rock or a star or a galaxy.

Part 5: The Multiplicity of This World Is Illusory

Only one thing in existence actually exists with nothing outside it. Therefore, the multiplicity and division that we experience as our daily reality must be a creation without any basis in supportable fact.

We see billions of people, animals, insects, plants, clouds, dust, mountains, and a trillion other things. This is the illusion—not THAT they exist but that they are OTHER. There is no other. There is only one thing. There CAN be only one thing.

What we experience as multiplicity, division, and separation must be a construct. In fact, these apparently separated, divided object/beings are all one indivisible whole.

So why do we experience multiplicity? Why can’t we just see the world as it really is?

Part 7: All Sensation and Experience Depends On Multiplicity.

Since this infinite entity is the only thing in existence, it would experience no sensations, emotions, or even awareness of its existence without the illusion of multiplicity.

Without multiplicity, it would simply exist in a continuous stream of uninterrupted being. It would never experience pleasure or pain, happiness or sadness, or any of the range of sensory input that we enjoy.

Multiplicity makes our senses and our range of experiences and emotions possible. We experience the highs and lows of interrelationships because we perceive other people with whom we can interact. Even love, which is one of the most exquisite emotions available to us, would not be possible without the construct of other people TO love.

As a result, the one infinite being that makes up all and everything must create this illusion of multiplicity in order to experience its own existence.

Part 8: Every Possibility and Potentiality Exists In The Infinite.

The Infinite contains every possibility. It contains everything that we view as evil as well as everything we view as good. In fact, because it IS infinite, it MUST contain the widest possible continuum of good and evil, happiness and despair, intimacy and alienation, unity and division, compassion and violence, and every shade of possibility in between. It wouldn’t be infinite if it didn’t contain all these things.

Part 9: The Purpose of This Multiplicity Is For The One Infinite Reality To Experience Awareness of Its Own Existence

As we’ve seen, only one thing exists. This thing is infinite. Everything that exists and could possibly exist MUST be part of this infinite entity/thing/reality. This thing is self-aware and it requires a construct of multiplicity in order to experience its own self-awareness. Therefore, the purpose for which we are seeing all these other people and birds and trees and mountains is so the One Infinite Reality can experience its own self-awareness.

Part 10: We Are The Infinite

We are having this experience of self-awareness and we KNOW that we exist. Therefore, the part of us that’s self-aware is one and the same as this infinite reality. It is impossible that we cannot be one and the same as it because there is nothing, anywhere, that is outside this infinite reality.

We are part of this Infinite Reality. We are more than a part of it. We ARE this Infinite Reality.

It dwells within each of us and unites us into one unified whole. We can access this Infinite Reality at any time. Any barriers we might see as preventing us from accessing it are part of the illusion of multiplicity. There CANNOT be any barriers because It is us and we are it.

Since we are the ones who are experiencing this self-awareness, WE must be the Infinite Thing for which the universe exists. Each of us is. We’re having this experience collectively so this Infinite Entity can experience its own existence.

Our emotions and relationships, our pleasure and pain, our loneliness, and our love make up the lifeblood of this entity’s being. What we perceive as separateness is this thing’s emotions making themselves manifest.

When we feel, when we enjoy ourselves, when we love, when we hurt, when we eat, when we die, we’re doing exactly what we were created to do.

We go through our lives considering ourselves finite, imperfect, mortal, fallible, and temporary. We learn at a young age that we’re going to die someday. We’re going to get old, get sick, and our lives will come to an end.

We also learn, at great cost, that we are not perfect or all-powerful or all-knowing, much as we might like to be.

This proof lays out, once and for all, that those ideas are really part of the illusion under which we’re all laboring. We’re also laboring under the delusion that there are billions of other people on the planet who are NOT us, who look different and think differently and have different wants and goals and tastes.

All of that is an illusion—a sad illusion that has led to more disaster, genocide, and heartache than any other.

The reality is that there AREN’T a billion other people on the planet. What we’re seeing is not a whole lot of NOT-us who look different and think differently and have different wants and goals and tastes.

In actual fact, those things out there are US. They look like us. They think exactly like us. They have exactly the same wants and goals and tastes. Everyone does.

This is because all those billions of people are nothing more than a reflection of the infinite Oneness. We are all part of that. We’re more than part of it. We ARE it.

Part 10: This Infinite Entity is Divine.

If human beings are the only species that is capable of experiencing this self-awareness, then we can study the human condition to understand this entity’s desires and motivations. This will give us our most accurate glimpse into the entity’s purpose and the nature of its existence.

This entity isn’t satisfied with simply going through its experiences of neutral self-awareness. We as a species are driven on an individual basis to seek meaning and holiness through our experiences. We aren’t happy unless we find them even in the most horrific experiences.

Even when we have beautiful, connected, loving experiences, even when we get everything we want handed to us, we aren’t happy if we can’t find some meaning and holiness in our experiences.

Since the entirety of the human race is having the same experience, then the compulsion to find and achieve meaning and holiness in our lives must be the Universal Entity’s driving purpose for existing—its most fundamental nature.

We see this in the big questions of human existence. What am I? Why am I here? What’s the meaning and purpose of my life?

Religion exists to provide us with a pre-determined framework to find this meaning and holiness in everyday life, but religion is not the only avenue available to us.

Meaning and holiness exist all around us. They are available for us to access whenever we choose without any effort on our part.

We see this universal search for meaning and holiness in the basic, fundamental, immutable laws that govern human existence. These laws transcend religion and provide meaning and holiness to everyone regardless of what religion or culture they belong to.

Take, for example, the Law of Reproduction. Reproduction adds a dimension of meaning and holiness to our lives that is very difficult to replicate in any other way. Every single human being alive on the planet is born with this drive built in. It’s the most accessible vehicle for absolutely everyone to add meaning and holiness to their lives. For many people, it’s the only way they can add meaning and holiness to their lives.

This is a function of our self-awareness. We realize that we’re mortal and we want to belong to something that will last beyond our death. We recognize that each child is precious in the sight of God because they’re precious in our sight—which is the same thing. Children are precious because they represent the totality of human life in all its shades, seasons, and implications.

Next, we turn to the Law of Altruism. Altruism is the act of helping or giving to someone without any hope of return or compensation. Altruism is pure giving in its truest form and it also adds a dimension of meaning and holiness to our lives that is very difficult to replicate in any other way.

This vehicle is accessible to everyone at all times regardless of our personal circumstances. This is why we see even the poorest giving and sharing what little they have with total strangers with no hope that the recipients will ever return the favor.

This is a function of our self-awareness, too. Altruism is something special precisely because the only reason to do it is the holiness of benefiting someone else in a way that doesn’t benefit us beyond the inherent holiness of the act itself.

We can also look to the Law of Creativity. Creativity is universal across the entire human race, across history, cultures, languages, and socioeconomic status. Creativity adds a dimension of meaning and holiness to our lives that is very difficult to replicate in any other way.

Not everyone has access to this vehicle, but everyone is born with the desire and drive to express themselves and to find meaning and holiness through that expression. Those that aren’t able to express themselves through creativity find meaning and holiness through the creations and expressions of others. Art means so much to us because it expresses the meaning and holiness we feel innately but that we aren’t able to express on our own.

Lastly, we have the Law of Teshuva. Teshuva is a Hebrew word that translates as, “To Turn.” It’s a concept from the Jewish religion that describes the process of sinning and then turning back to God for forgiveness and redemption.

The Jewish religion (and Christianity, by extension) states that the man who sins a thousand times and turns back is more precious in the sight of God than the man who never sinned at all.

If the search and discovery of meaning and holiness are the purpose of the Universal Entity’s existence, then what we commonly refer to as, “Good,” must be those things, activities, and actions that enhance and bring about meaning and holiness both for ourselves and others.

What we commonly refer to as, “Evil,” must be those things, activities, and actions that prevent or interfere with meaning and holiness, both within ourselves and in others.

This is when things fall apart in the most disastrous ways, not just for the person practicing evil, but for everyone with whom they come into contact. Evil people aren’t satisfied with making meaning and holiness impossible for themselves. They actually set out to make it impossible for others as well.

We constantly see examples of evil people who acknowledge the existence of God and Heavenly Law. These people recognize that they are acting against what is good and holy and that they are acting counter to the natural order. Many of these people deliberately set out to violate that order and to contradict God for a variety of reasons.

So why does evil exist? If the Universal Entity’s purpose for existence is to experience meaning and holiness, why does evil have to exist at all? Why can’t we all just live in a sea of bliss all the time?

We only have to look back at our proof to understand this. We wouldn’t be able to experience the bliss of meaning and holiness without the existence of evil. This leads us back to the Law of Teshuva.

Evil exists to turn us back to a sense of meaning and holiness. If we are the victims of evil, we can find meaning and holiness in our experiences. The perpetrator finds meaning and holiness by coming to a rock-bottom moment where they realize their mistake and turn back to God and the good path.

Ask any addict who has hit rock-bottom and turned back to God. This is one of the most profoundly holy moments in human experience and it is extremely difficult to replicate in any other way. These moments wouldn’t be possible without all the destruction and depravity that went before.

Isn’t it interesting that when we’re the most in distress, when we’ve lost all hope in everyone and everything else, who do we turn to for rescue? People call out to God in their lowest moments, when they have no one else to turn to, and when all hope seems lost.

A person might never have believed in God before. The person might have loudly disavowed the existence of God and disdained everything spiritual. And yet, when such a person is in the most dire distress, it never once crosses their mind that there might not be a God that they can call on to answer and save them.

The stories of these experiences are legion. Many religious people came to their faith at their lowest moments when no one else could save them. They called out and turned to God and He answered them.

This is another meaning of the verb, “to turn”, to turn to someone in distress or despair—the one person we know for absolute certain will be there, will always be there, and will answer with the power to help us.

​

Tesuvah can also bring meaning and holiness to our suffering if we’re the victims of some other person’s evil acts. This form of meaning and holiness can be one of the deepest, most profound in existence, too.

We see countless examples of spiritual leaders and movements throughout history that used this holiness to help them navigate soul-crushing experiences. Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, the early Christians, and many others have found a depth of meaning and holiness in their suffering that wouldn’t be possible if everything had gone perfectly.

The meaning and holiness these people experienced also translated to everyone around them. Everyone observing them could also tell that these people were holy and going through a profound spiritual process in extraordinary circumstances.

This is why so many religions and belief systems preach forgiveness against transgressors. “Forgiveness” might not be the right word for it. Some belief systems use words like “compassion” and “non-attachment” for the same concept.

None of us can avoid unpleasant contact with transgressors, evil people, or simply people who are lost and having difficulty functioning in the world.

We have no reason to resent them for their actions, even when their actions are hurtful or even criminal. Each of these people is on his or her own path to Teshuva. The really good news is that their actions never prevent us from experiencing meaning and holiness for ourselves. Nothing can ever take that away from us. If anything, these experiences can enhance our appreciation of just how meaningful and holy our lives are.

So why holiness? Thinkers, psychologists, and philosophers such as Friedrick Nietzsche and Viktor Frankl have emphasized that we need to find meaning in our lives in order to be happy and truly fulfilled.

So why can’t we just find secular meaning through our experiences? Why do we need to go one step further into holiness?

First, let’s examine meaning from a secular point of view. Why do we need meaning? Why do we even have a word for it? How do we even know that meaning exists?

For a start, we wouldn’t have a word for it if it didn’t exist. If secular evolutionists are right, then every thought and concept we have must be the outcome of an evolutionary process.

The concept of meaning would have to provide some reproductive evolutionary advantage. If it didn’t, it would have been selected out through the evolutionary process. Those who carried a concept and compulsion to find meaning would have been eliminated from the gene pool.

That hasn’t happened—quite the opposite. Not only do we have a concept for meaning, but it has become the driving force of our lives second only to survival. None of us is happy without meaning.

Take this concept one step further and we see that being self-aware and seeking meaning and holiness actually act against our reproductive drive. We have the free will to avoid reproduction. Many people choose not to reproduce expressly because of some greater meaning they find in their lives—either political, ideological, or religious.

There is no evolutionary reason why we would have developed the ability to understand and seek meaning if it wasn’t an active, compelling force in our lives. We would instead have evolved like rabbits and mosquitos who reproduce unchecked. Animals reproduce regardless of environmental and resource considerations such as available food sources, etc.

Rabbits will commit infanticide against their own young. They aren't constrained by morality the way we are. Our morality—the meaning and holiness we attach to reproduction—prohibits us from doing something like that even when environmental conditions would compel us to do so. We wouldn’t be able to overcome the meaning we attach to reproduction even to prevent a child from going through the horror of starving to death.

We all inherently understand at an intuitive level that life has meaning. This is why “the meaning of life” is such a pervasive concept across the whole human race. There is no scientific explanation for what meaning is or why it’s so important to us. Therefore, we have no alternative except to fall back on the empirical evidence, which is that meaning is a feature, not a bug, of human existence.

If the entirety of the human race was all suffering from the same collection of medical symptoms that seemed to indicate some viral infection, the scientific community would be forced to accept that we were in fact all infected with the same pathogen, even if the scientific community couldn’t isolate or identify what was causing the disease.

The empirical evidence is all around us—in every single human being alive on the planet. The scientific community has no reason to disavow this evidence except that they don’t want to accept the logical conclusion: That meaning actually exists.

Meaning is a powerful, unstoppable force in all our lives. It’s universal across the entire human race, so we can therefore go on to say that meaning is a pillar of the Universal Entity’s existence. If we can’t live without meaning, the Universal Entity can’t live without it, either. The Universal Entity can’t survive without seeking meaning in everything—every experience that makes up its existence.

Now apply the same logic to holiness.

Why do we even have a concept for holiness? How could we have a concept for holiness if it didn’t actually exist?

Holiness offers no evolutionary selection advantage at all—quite the opposite. In many cases, it inspires people to turn away from reproduction to seek meaning and holiness elsewhere. Meaning and holiness are even more important to us than reproduction. That would not be the case if we were living in a purely secular, evolutionary reality.

The Universal Entity seeks holiness with as much if not more drive and compulsion than it seeks meaning. Every human being on the planet seeks holiness. This is the purpose of religion and religion is universal across the entire human race, across history, language, location, culture, and economic conditions.

Secularism is a function of declining civilization. Every civilization throughout history that underwent decline and decay went through a period of secularism where people turned away from religion to find meaning elsewhere.

We might argue that secularism caused the decline, but that doesn’t matter. The fact remains that the two go hand in hand. Secularism has never completely eliminated religion and our current scientific bout of secularism won’t do it, either.

Meaning and holiness are a universal need across the entire human race. This will never change. Secularism can’t change it.

In actual fact, secularism is another effort to find meaning and holiness. People turn to secularism when they haven’t found meaning and holiness. They usually seek meaning and holiness in the usual places—such as organized religion. People who say that life is meaningless and God doesn’t exist are the people who have sought meaning and holiness and failed to find it.

When these people don’t find it, they give up, but they still want meaning and holiness. They simply seek it through other means. I challenge anyone reading this to find me one person alive on the planet who has never, ever wanted meaning and holiness in some form or another. You won’t be able to because such a person doesn’t exist. They can’t. Human life doesn’t work that way.

We only have to look at the modern mental health epidemic to see how important meaning and holiness are to human life. Our lives crumble without meaning and holiness. Our society disintegrates into lawlessness, suicide, depravity, and a hellscape of horrors the farther we move away from meaning and holiness.

There is a very good reason why our ancestors relied so heavily on structures of religion and spirituality to give their lives meaning and holiness—and it wasn’t because our ancestors were backward deluded or stupid or ignorant.

They did it because these structures work. They work to give hope, happiness, meaning, and stability not just to individuals but to society itself. These structures work a heck of a lot better than modern psychology does to solve the same problems. 

We would think that, if a certain tool didn’t work to do the job it was designed to do—or if we have to wait years or even decades to find out if it worked—we would tend to think maybe we should stop using that tool and use this certain other tool that has been proven to work. This other tool has been proven to work instantaneously to anyone who uses it. Billions of people have used this tool successfully in the past and billions of people are currently using these tools successfully to live happy, productive, meaningful lives.

And yet, people in our modern society will sooner resort to suicide rather than turn to God or any other kind of spirituality to solve their problems of depression, anxiety, and meaninglessness. This is tragic and it’s a completely unnecessary cause of misery and loss of life that could have been saved.

This spirituality doesn’t have to be any organized religion. It could be one of the non-dualistic Eastern philosophies. It could be a form of naturalism similar to what was practiced by Native Americans or Aboriginal Australians.

There are countless options available to us to bring meaning and holiness into our lives. Secularism is a recipe for suicide and eternal misery. There is a better way and it’s immediately available to us at any time and absolutely free. It costs us nothing and provides immediate and immense benefits if we only open ourselves to the possibility.

It makes absolutely no sense at all to say that our brains have simply developed in complexity to the point where we randomly generated the concepts of meaning and holiness. Meaning and holiness wouldn’t have become such driving, compelling needs if this was the case. They would have to confer some selective advantage and we’ve already established that they don’t. So there must be some other logical reason why these concepts play such a crucial role in our lives.

It also makes no sense to say that the entirety of the human race is suffering from some collective psychosis that makes us believe in meaning and holiness when they don’t actually exist in fact. Psychosis means disease and disease means an impairment of functioning.

Meaning and holiness and the belief in God don’t impair functioning. They don’t impose any negative disadvantages at all—quite the opposite. They provide massive benefits in happiness, wellbeing, social functioning, and in our ability to relate to others. The only logical conclusion is that meaning and holiness aren’t diseases. This is the way we’re actually supposed to be. In fact, it is the way we are. We’re already doing it.

We all inherently understand at an intuitive level that life is holy. We see this holiness in nature. We see it in children. We feel it in devotional music, in art, in loving human interactions. This is why religion and holiness are such pervasive concepts across the whole human race. There is no scientific explanation for what holiness is or why it’s so important to us. Therefore, we have no alternative except to fall back on the empirical evidence, which is that holiness is a feature, not a bug, of human existence, the same way meaning is.

The empirical evidence is all around us—in every single human being alive on the planet. The scientific community has no reason to disavow this evidence except that they don’t want to accept the logical conclusion: That holiness actually exists.

The search for meaning and holiness is universal across the entire human race which means that it’s part of the Universal Entity’s purpose and nature. There is no culture on the planet that has ever failed to express this search. It’s the stuff of legend, mythology, and a cornerstone of our collective consciousness, but it goes one step further than that.

We don’t just want to search for meaning and holiness and the Universal Entity doesn’t want that, either. None of us would be satisfied just to keep searching and searching and searching but never find what we were looking for.

The Universal Entity isn’t satisfied with that, either, and we can see the evidence for this in the many thousands of searchers who have actually found meaning and holiness. These are the people who have attained the highest levels of happiness and fulfillment in human life.

We would not search for something so single-mindedly if it wasn’t the most important compelling need in our lives.

We would not be able to find it nor would we actually be able to experience this meaning and holiness if they were non-existent. We would not be able to enjoy such massive benefits from finding and living in that experience if this search, discovery, and experience wasn’t the driving purpose of our existence.

We see this repeated across the entirety of human experience. Every religion teaches that this search, discovery, and experience is the purpose of human existence.

Billions upon billions of people across history and across the world wouldn’t be on this journey if it wasn’t the reason for our existence.

If it’s the reason for our existence, then it’s also the reason for the Universal Entity’s existence. This entity exists to experience that holiness in all its many shades and forms. The purpose for the Universal Entity’s existence is to dwell in a state of holiness at all times and to recreate it through multiple means available to us at all times.

The Infinite is Divine, Holy, and Universally Good.

Part 11: The Law of Reward and Punishment 

Happiness is constantly looking forward to the consequences of our actions.

When we perform an action, we get a reward or a punishment in the form of a consequence.

If we perform a good action, we receive a reward when we get a good consequence. For example, if we do something altruistic, we get the rewards of positive interpersonal interactions, an expanded social network, a reputation for being a good person, reciprocal benefits when the other person decides to return the favor, positive good feelings within ourselves, and a host of other benefits.

If we perform a bad action, we get a punishment when the opposite happens. If we hurt someone, we get the consequence of hindered interpersonal relationships, a reputation as a bad, selfish, or careless person, guilty feelings, people distancing themselves from us, legal action and imprisonment, etc.

When we perform a good action, we get rewarded three times. The first reward comes when we do the action and we know in our hearts and minds that we did the right thing. We feel confident in our decisions and behavior and we trust and respect ourselves for what we did.

The second reward comes in anticipation of the consequence. We know the consequence is going to be good and this gives us another dose of good feelings and self-respect.

Then we receive the third reward when we get the actual consequence of our actions.

We also get punished three times when we do a bad action. The first happens when we do the action itself. We see ourselves doing the wrong thing, making the wrong decision, hurting someone, breaking the law, or whatever it happens to be. We know we’re doing wrong and we kick ourselves for doing it. We start to feel guilty, we lose respect for ourselves, and rightfully so.

We suffer the second punishment when we anticipate the consequence. We dread the outcome and it robs us of happiness and good feeling even before we get the consequence itself.

The third punishment comes in the form of the actual consequence, which can be terrible. We might lose money, wind up in jail, lose loved ones or social contacts, or any number of other disadvantages.

Some of these consequences will be permanent. If we spent a lifetime hurting people and violating the laws of human interaction, we will leave behind a legacy of destruction that can never be undone. People will remember us as a criminal, a monster, or just a rotten person. They might come to think that the world would have been better off if we had never been born. This is a terrible legacy to leave behind, and once we die, it gets written in the history books forever.

As long as we’re still alive, we always have the option to turn back and change for the better. Once we die, that window closes and everyone remembers the actions we took in life.

The same goes if we spent our lifetime doing good works, helping people, and doing right action as much as possible. Then that will be what people remember after we die and people will feel a terrible sense of loss that we aren’t around anymore.

These laws don’t come from some white-haired old man on a throne shooting lightning bolts from the clouds. This is the way the world works and none of us can escape these laws. They’re built into the system. That’s what makes them laws. We have no choice but to follow them.

Fortunately for us all, we always have the opportunity to redeem ourselves. None of us is blameless. We all make mistakes. We’re all sinners. Teshuva, remorse, and redemption are more than most sinners deserve.

The simple fact that we have the opportunity to redeem ourselves proves that God exists. If God didn’t exist, we would all be subject to the full consequences of our actions and that would be a terrible world to live in. Life is not fair and we should all be extremely grateful for that. If life was fair and we all got what we deserved, we would all be in serious trouble.

Fortunately, that isn’t the case. We don’t live in a world of tit-for-tat karma. We live in a world where we’re presented with countless opportunities to redeem ourselves every single day. We live in a world where the opportunities to redeem ourselves vastly outweigh the consequences of our actions. That would not be the case in a purely neutral world of cause and effect.

We live in a universe that rewards, encourages, and is specifically designed to lead us to redemption, holiness, connection, and ever-increasing blessedness, love, and deep spiritual meaning.

Even those who claim that life is meaningless, that God doesn’t exist, and that nothing really matters are the very people who yearn for this meaning and holiness more than anyone else. These people are crying out for something—anything—to mean something because they can’t live without it.

People self-destruct without some meaning and purpose to their lives. We see the evidence of this all around us.

The good news is that there is nothing holier than the seeker of real truth. There is no creature more precious in the sight of God than the person who genuinely seeks the truth.

God looks at this person and says, “Look how much this person loves me. Look how much this person desires me. Look how much this person is willing to suffer for my truth. Look how much this person is willing to go through just to be in my presence.”

When we set out to believe in God, we darn well better be certain we’re believing in the right one. If we say we believe in God, it’s crucial that we believe in the real God, not some fake picture someone else invented for us to believe in.

Searching for God, questioning the existence of God, and striving to understand its true nature are not just allowed. They’re absolutely required of us. Anything less would not be true belief.

Being human means we don’t have a choice about asking these questions. They’re hard-wired into our being because we live in a sea of God. We’re surrounded by this meaning and holiness at every hour of the day. We can’t escape it. It’s the substance of which we are made.

As human beings, we can only be truly happy by finding the answers to these questions. Fortunately for us, these answers exist all around us. They’re available to us everywhere, at all times, in countless forms. There is nothing stopping us from finding these answers whenever we wish because they’re the fabric of who and what we are.

**********

These are the immutable laws that govern our existence.

The Law of Reproduction

The Law of Altruism

The Law of Creativity

The Law of Teshuva

The Law of Reward and Punishment

All religions are built on these laws, but they are so immutable and fundamental that we don’t have to belong to any particular religion to benefit from them. They work no matter what religion or ideology we ascribe to. They work even if we don’t think they work. They are undeniable and unstoppable.

Part 12: Gatekeeping is Evil

If we are all part of the same Universal Oneness and this One’s essential nature is meaning and holiness, then we all have access to this meaning and holiness at all times, in all ways, with no restrictions.

Certain ideologies and people with malicious intent try to convince us that this isn’t the case. They want us to believe that we can only access meaning and holiness through some third-party intermediary that the gatekeeper provides.

I won’t name these ideologies or gatekeepers because we all know who they are. We all recognize that these people are disingenuous and that we’re on the wrong path when we follow them.

We continue to follow them because we haven’t been taught that we can access meaning and holiness whenever we choose. We’ve been taught the opposite, so when someone tells us that we can only access it through their particular brand of intermediary, we believe them.

Gatekeeping is a two-pronged process. In the first part, the gatekeeper convinces us that we’re somehow unholy and therefore too unworthy or mundane to deserve to access meaning and holiness.

In the second part, the gatekeeper offers themselves or their particular intermediary as the only available avenue through which we poor lost souls can access meaning and holiness.

They want to convince us that meaning and holiness are beyond our reach when, in actual fact, they are available to us at all times without restriction. None of us needs a gatekeeper or an intermediary to experience meaning and holiness anytime we wish.

Gatekeepers create this barrier for deception, manipulation, profit, and control.

We established earlier that “evil” consists of anything that diminishes meaning and holiness—for ourselves or others.

These gatekeepers deliberately create obstacles, barriers, and difficulties that prevent people from experiencing meaning and holiness in their own lives. Gatekeepers convince us that holiness is beyond our ability to experience.

In the worst cases, the gatekeeper convinces us that we can never experience meaning and holiness. The best we can hope for is simply to enjoy the privilege of being associated with someone so holy and exceptional.

Both of these aspects of gatekeeping are based on lies. We are all worthy and capable of accessing and experiencing meaning and holiness at all times.

We are more than worthy and capable. Meaning and holiness are the stuff of which we’re made.

We ARE meaningful and holy. There is no barrier to us enjoying our own nature whenever we please. Anyone who is preaching otherwise is up to no good.

We don’t need anyone to show us how or give us permission and we don’t need anyone to do it for us. Meaning and holiness are our lifeblood. They are the stuff of which the entire universe is made.

If we know how to look, we’ll see God everywhere. If we don’t know how to look, we won’t see God anywhere.

Conclusion

We are part of the Infinite and the Infinite is Divine. Therefore, we are Divine. Our tears, our heartache, our memories, our pain, our bodies and their functions, our desires, our dreams, our relationships good and bad—these are all part of the Divine Infinite. They ARE the Divine Infinite. These are the vibrations of the Infinite’s ongoing experience.

Our only purpose is to experience meaning and holiness in all their forms. The world’s religions and philosophies have one function—to bring us to this meaning and holiness. If they don’t accomplish this, they are worthless to us.

We are already perfect exactly the way we are. We are all purely holy and each of us is beyond precious in the sight of God. We are already doing everything for which we were created. Everything we see as bad or flawed is actually part of the Divine Perfect. We ARE the Divine Perfect.

I hope this proof helps you. The world is a beautiful, wonderful place. It’s the best possible place and we are each as holy as we will ever need to be.

I am an artist. It’s my job to express the things we all feel and know, but that others might not be able to express for themselves. So hopefully I’ve accomplished that.

May God Bless You All.

_____________

Proof for the Existence of God is © 2023 by Theo Mann.

You are free to distribute and repost this work on condition that you credit the original author.