A woman in the Philippines spent four years worshiping a green Buddha statue before discovering that it was actually a 3D-printed figure of the cartoon character Shrek. With its round shape and gentle expression, she believed it to be a depiction of Buddha and treated it with great reverence.
Like the woman with the broken leg, whom I wrote about last week, who thought a crow was leading her down a mountain when, in truth, it was waiting to eat her:
Maybe this is the essence of God:
People see what they need to see.
They see what they need to believe.
As a reluctant atheist, I might be able to get behind this idea.
God is everywhere because God is what you need when you need it.
Or consider this:
The story of Jesus’s life and death — the four Gospels of the Bible — were written decades after his death, between 40 and 70 years, depending on the Gospel.
That’s a long, long time to wait before writing anything down.
So if a woman in today’s highly connected, information-laden world can mistake an animated Disney ogre for a representation of the founder of Buddhism for four years, how accurate could the story of Jesus’s life be after decades in a world absent photographs, video recording, hard drives, cloud storage, and in many cases, paper and ink?
Like a woman praying to Shrek, maybe Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were writing what they needed and wanted Jesus to be, since two of those writers — Mark and Luke — never actually met Jesus, and most Biblical scholars agree that the other two writers — John and Matthew — didn’t actually write the Gospels themselves.
Instead, they were written by followers of Matthew and John who were seeking to preserve their names and memories for posterity.
Maybe all of religion is simply what we need it to be.
After all:
The Filipino woman has decided to continue praying to the 3D model of Shrek. In her estimation, it’s as good as any real statue of Buddha as long as she believes it to be.
If you need and want Shrek to be your representation of Buddha, it can be.
Whatever you need and want in the moment.
