Читать книгу Fleeting Snow - Pavel Villikovsky - Страница 31

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As for God, another question that comes to mind is whether it’s harder not to believe in one God or not to believe in many. In my view things were easier for polytheists like the ancient Greeks or Romans, since they had a choice – a Greek fisherman could afford not to give a damn about Hermes or Aphrodite, whose services he didn’t need, but that didn’t make him an infidel: he still believed in Zeus and Poseidon. Or did Gods only come bundled in a single package? And if you didn’t believe in one, you believed in none? I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.

It would seem that it is easier not to believe in just one God – you are done with it in one fell swoop. But we are talking about a single omnipotent God, who is in charge of the entire Universe and every sphere of life, and woe betide us if we have made the mistake of opting to be infidels. It can have far-reaching consequences. However, as I look around, not many people seem too concerned about this particular threat. When we are asked to fill in the box ‘religion’ in a census, we are happy to put down whatever faith we have been baptised in. More conservative or emotionally unstable individuals may attend church from time to time to pay God a visit, only to be disappointed to find Him not at home. Whether it is a majestic ancient cathedral or a friendly modern prayer house that we enter, it’s our job to bring God with us. Like the tailors’ workshops where clothes are made up out of the material the customer brings. We are making a huge mistake if we fool ourselves that God is sitting in the vestry with a glass of communion wine patiently waiting until we deign to enter.

It is not so much that we no longer believe, it’s just that we are too busy to believe. We are running out of time. We are so preoccupied with our bodies, with making sure they are comfortable, that we have no time left for the soul. It is quite natural, of course: the body is visible, it is constantly before our eyes, but has anyone ever managed to point a finger at the soul? We rely on the old adage: a sound mind (as the heathens called the soul) in a sound body; we scrupulously look after our body trusting that it will, somehow, sort out the mind. It never even occurs to us that it might be the other way around, and that a sound mind could beget a sound body. Science has yet to prove this.

‘Just look at yourself, you had the birthmark surgically removed from your shoulder, didn’t you?’ Štefan said to me. ‘But not from your soul.’

‘But you must remember’, I replied, ‘that all my marks are birthmarks by definition. Whether they’re on my body or my soul.’