Do you believe in God? What will happen to you at death? Do you pray? Do you think religious believers are deluded?
Many people would hesitate to raise these questions at dinner. Antonio Monda, on the other hand, has been posing them for several years to cultural eminences like Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Daniel Libeskind, Derek Walcott, Spike Lee, Jonathan Franzen, David Lynch and Martin Scorsese. …
Mr. Bellow was one of the five interviewees who answered yes to what Mr. Monda calls the “fundamental question”: whether one believes God exists. Six answered no. Seven placed themselves somewhere in between.
These are all people smart enough to know that defining God is not a simple matter. The in-betweens were especially apt to speak of mystery. Some, like Mr. Franzen, used language leaning in the God direction:
“God’s not like some chief executive sitting at a control panel, calling all the shots,” he said. “At the same time, I think there’s a reality beneath what we can see with our eyes and experience with our senses. There’s ultimately something mysterious and un-materialistic about the world. Something large and awe-inspiring and eternal and unknowable.”
Spike Lee spoke of “a superior being” and a “superior presence”— “but I don’t know if I can call it God.”
Others, like Mr. Rushdie and Ms. Paley, were very definite that the “mystery” they affirmed was in no way transcendent or supernatural. When Mr. Englander, whose prize-winning short stories reflect rebellion against an Orthodox Jewish upbringing, was asked whether he believed in God, he answered, “I’d be inclined to say no if I didn’t fear God’s wrath.” …
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/us/10beliefs.html
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