Our Daily Bill: Godfearing

[tealin]

Why in the name of all that is holy were we always taught to fear God? It is an idea that still hangs in my mind that if I don’t fear Him enough something terrible will happen someday – and that is the sort of Ogre one is expected to ‘worship and glorify’ ... an unapproachable Being to be addressed by the repetition of high-sounding and eloquent phrases full of a rather pompous grandeur.... I think I want a more familiar God whom I can turn to at any minute of the day without fear, rather than a Being who must be approached with extra special language on one’s knees, or by priests in splendid vestments.... It is everything not only to reverence Him but to love Him, and to feel that you know Him so well that you can even enjoy fun with Him.

– E.A. Wilson
from Edward Wilson of the Antarctic, pg 120-1