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There is not much feather to rumple by forwarding the belief that there is only one God. This is common knowledge. After having opened our minds to the existence of lesser gods in a hierarchy, we should now be ready to take issue with the single uniqueness of God or monotheism. If we say that there is only one God, we mean that He has no equal. Is there really only one God?

The major religions teach there is only one God, be it Allah, Yahweh, Brahma, or God the Father. In this context then we are discussing the Supreme God, who is above and beyond all the lesser gods. Whatever name He is known by, He is one and the same, and certainly does not favor any particular faith. He is not a kind God in one and a very strict ruler in the other. If we want to specialize and flatter ourselves, we can always attach traits to our God as the most loving of all, most beneficent, and most merciful. Being mature men, we don't do that, of course, no matter how comforting and secure the thought is of someone ever so accommodating.

It is natural for man to try to understand things in terms and concepts that are familiar to him. If we were to remove all human attributes we attach to God, in other words, de-personalizing Him, what would we be left with? If God is true and real, He will still continue to be. With all humans, insects, plants, and the lesser gods becoming uninterested in such pursuit of knowledge, He will still exist. Against what?

Some scholars will say that God will continue to be known by His lesser creations which are us humans and other life. But a few learned men is of the thought, complicated it is, that there must be another God, equal but opposite. At this point, it may be appreciated why Buddhism never teaches much about God except that He is beyond our comprehension.

Because we want order in the world around us, or at least, in our arts and sciences, we do not accept that there can be two equal and opposite Gods. It is against our make-up to have conflicts that stay unresolved, so we may (1) totally dismiss God's existence like the atheist does (2), resolve the conflict that there is only one God as most religions do, and (3) take no stand as the agnostic. Personally, I am of the resolution that God is beyond man's experience and knowledge.

Even pagans, who worship trees or animals, still have a supreme being. Their gods are not accepted as being equal among one another; there is a deity whom they accept as the fiercest whom they may regard as superior. So it is in the subconscious of man to seek only one Supreme Being, encompassing and above all others of His kind. Monotheism is the easiest to disseminate specially if He happens also to be a most powerful, invincible, most merciful kind. Looking more closely into the monotheistic religions, the error I find is the description these religions attach to their own God. And from here, the followers try to get the favor of the Supreme God. I believe in one God because I find it suits my make-up better then if there were an Anti-God and another God trying to lord over each other. And this belief is based on faith, not on a one-on-one communion with Him nor because of any moving spiritual fellowship and comradeship with angels or spirits nor material experience and empirical knowledge.

When monotheism is forwarded with too much zeal, truth becomes lost. Faith is a very fine act of trust. It reverts when there is strong discord. An elementary test of one's faith is to keep one's mind open. Why is this so? The reason behind this is similarities attract. Falsehood is gross, truth is, shall we say, divine. Faith is not something which can be forced down one's gullet; and by keeping the mind open, a logical step that may happen then is for faith to reach out to the truth.

The above sounds philosophical and highly theoretical but it is easier done than said. Supposing that one is exposed and surrounded with discord and false ideas, for faith to survive, it has to be constantly and repeatedly nursed and nurtured with comfortable and pleasant concepts. There is nothing so comforting in the idea that God is very much detached from us, nor that we can experience and feel His Godly presence, but somehow this is where faith subsists. Surely, this is where truth must be around, too, with no cloak of bright colors, shining buttons and flying tassels.

I have a friend who is unschooled, in fact, he is what you may call a simpleton, and works as a janitor. One day I asked him if he goes to church. He said, "No".

"How do you pray then?" I continued.

He said, "Direct"."

Such is his faith. Jesus Christ said that man should have the innocence of a child because his faith is yet untainted and open. This is similar to keeping an open mind - avoid being biased and judgmental.

Some people might say that there is only one God, that there is no other God, and definitely not a hierarchy. He will not create a hierarchy which will only be competing with Him and make Him more distant from us because they alleged that the only purpose of the hierarchy is to slow down man's effort to reach Him, maybe worse than a government bureaucracy. Nor will He create an anti-God that will spread confusion among monotheists. They say there is only one true God and He will reach down whether we are just a public servant or a civil officer.

I agree that there is only one God but how they arrived at their belief and how I reached mine is entirely different. There is no shining medal at the end of the road for me because I will not be sitting near God nor will I be receiving His grace. It is just like going on a wilderness trek; whichever trail one follows, everybody will have to go home at the end of the day. One thing is for sure, I know the truth when I will have reached the end of my journey.