Words Worth Noting - May 21, 2023

“Even given his concern for sparrows, the likelihood of God being concerned with hijabs seems small…. What must God think of all this [the Asmahan Mansour controversy]? Of one thing I am certain: whatever he turns out to be will bear no resemblance to the god imagined by any of the religions I know, ancient or modern, mono- or polytheistic. My belief in God is persistent and I pray. I know not to what I pray – Paul Johnson’s wonderful book The Quest for God tells me that my prayers are to a God that hears everything, but while I want to believe that, I have great difficulty doing so…. There are few things as ridiculous as a bunch of apes trying to be spiritual. If eventually we get to meet or understand the nature of God before or after our death, I think the likelihood of his concerns overlapping those of any religion to be very small.”

Barbara Amiel in Maclean’s March 19, 2007, very certain that everyone else’s certainty about God is laughably wrong and hers is totally right.