Google's employee #23 and the creator of GMail.
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-gift.html
he talks about a life-changing moment in his life--
the death of his brother and
the birth of his daughter--
and how it defined life for him: unconditional love.
he implies towards the end of this post that he is agnostic in his religious views,
but he does explain his beliefs in an "analogy":
Human intelligence and understanding is deeply connected to stories, so I've tried to encapsulate my ideas and experiences in a little story, using the familiar characters of God and the Devil:
Long ago, the Devil boasted that he could easily gather more followers than God. God's way of gathering followers was simple: give everyone Unconditional Love and Forgiveness, nothing more and nothing less. Naturally the Devil was more devious. He knew that most people would not knowingly follow the Devil, so his plan was to lie and claim that he was the One True God, promise his followers a great reward in the afterlife, and threaten that those who didn't worship him would be sent to hell when they died. God was betting on Love, but the Devil believed that Greed and Fear are stronger than Love, and therefore even good people could be tricked into following him.
The idea behind this story is quite simple. If a God promises to reward you with 72 virgins in paradise in exchange for flying an airplane into a building, it's a false God. If a God threatens to send you to hell for loving the wrong person, it's a false God. If a God tells you to coerce people into worshiping him, it's a false God. If a God promises protection in exchange for doing his bidding, it's a false God (or perhaps the Mafia). God brings union through unconditional love. The false Gods bring division through fear and greed.
Genuine, unconditional love is a gift that must be freely given and freely accepted, with nothing expected in return. Love can not be delivered at gun point, or with the threat of eternal damnation. That's more like rape.
this is an opinion, of course,
but it was one of those "well said" pieces,
from a software developer, no less.
