God in Modern Life

* Yes, many people have killed their old gods for new-model idols. But God, the eternal one, not only lives, but keeps the entire world alive. Ralph Georgy, in “The Three-Letter Word That We Dare Not Speak” (Commentary, Sept. 1), has it all wrong. Nietzsche is dead and God is alive. It is up to every human being to realize this.

RABBI SHIMON PASKOW

Temple Etz Chaim

Thousand Oaks

* Once again a religious fanatic attempts to explain why we are such bad people. Our god is materialism. We bow to science and technology. If only we would return to the father who gave us morality, decency and hope.

One wonders when he did that? When was man so good that God can take credit for his goodness? Georgy had better go back and read history. He might find that throughout the existence of man under God, he was just like he is today--no better and no worse--though more often worse than better.

In typical religious naivete Georgy sees only an either/or. Man is bad because he turned from God to materialism, science and technology, period!

Man is bad (?) because man has not yet matured. Giving up a superstition created by superstitious and ignorant people in a time when superstition and ignorance ruled, is the first step to his maturing. The next step is not to equate advancement in science and technology as the beginning of a new moral code. Intelligent people do not buy that. Morality stems from the understanding of how people get along with each other. It does not take a god or a genius to see that.

RONALD H. SKRILOFF

Redondo Beach

* God does not live or die because you or I say so. God cannot be killed or buried by technology, music, sex or drugs. God exists in each individual.

TAYLOR METTERS

Valencia

* There is much in Georgy’s commentary, in which he recounts the death of God, to disagree with. Here are two counterpoints:

First, we are not too sophisticated for God. However, in our “global village,” and especially in our multicultural society, God cannot be overly sectarian. This is a difficult idea, but possibly it is God who has become more sophisticated.

Second, while weekly services are valuable for ritual, reinforcement, education and social contact, they are not our only (or even primary) contact with the sacred. Consider these acts: contemplating a sleeping child, getting up and going to work every day, listening to mourning doves coo, having a meal with a friend, tending a garden, lending a hand to a neighbor, stepping into the surf at sunset. They can be sacraments, too, mundane only in their pervasiveness. Look. God is not dead. The spirit is inextinguishable.

MICHAEL MULTARI

San Luis Obispo

* Georgy should take heart and perhaps revise his doctoral thesis before submitting it. To many of us God is still very much the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. His only begotten son, Jesus, is still a constant presence and guide in our lives.

On a recent Monday, more than 50 group leaders in our church, each representing a group of about 14 persons, spent two hours studying what God’s word in the Bible had to say about spiritual disciplines for the Christian life in order to bring this message to their groups. This is one church in one town--multiply this by thousands for California and by many more for the United States and a true picture will emerge. God is neither dead nor buried.

BERTRAM ROWE

Corona del Mar