Who is God? (Full Episode) | The Story of God with Morgan Freeman

the blues was born right here in the mississippi delta john lee hooker muddy waters jimmy king jessie mayhem pill i can't see him anymore but that spirit lives on right here [Music] i can lose myself in music hear it i feel it and it transports me to another time and place some would call it a religious experience i can't say that i disagree [Music] it makes me think of all the ways people around the world connect to god moses saw god in a bush buddha found enlightenment under a tree muhammad experienced allah on a mountain is there some universal concept of god that all religions share or is god fundamentally different to people of different faiths i'm setting out to discover who god is god wants to be your best friend to find out how believers around the world see the divine the holy people are around us right now i'll explore how the identity of god has changed over the millennia he thought that there were too many gods and not enough focus was on him i'll learn how many gods merged into one it's a single force that gives the order to our whole world and our search for the presence of god so you're looking for physical manifestations of god yes inside my brain [Music] i grew up with the christian concept of god a single divine being who created and governs the universe of jesus as god's earthly incarnation i know that's not the way everyone sees the divine i want to know how other religions see god so i'm going to india to hindus there's not one god there are millions busy little fur affair in the holy city of varanasi i'm meeting historian bender barangipe to find out how hindus see their guards at every corner of the lane and just to see anywhere and you see a shrine and no corner they can leave without having a guard there so like we have got this small little shrine here and it has got that elephant-headed god ganesha yeah so god removes the obstacles removes obstacles [Music] hindu deities come in many forms some are male some female some are part human part animal each one has its specific powers so she's the goddess of disease disease yeah so when you're deceased your body gets inflamed then you invoke her and she sends the cool breeze right and the body gets cold all right here's a question for you you've got a choice of america millions and millions of guards how do you choose usually it's the family the family each family has but one family deity and that is passed on to the next generation or sometimes in the times of distress one goes to a god and say or goddess that please take me out of this difficult times and forever i'll worship you as my personal god or goddess i'm interested in finding out how these statues become vessels for divine beings how hindus connect to their gods so bender is taking me to an intimate prayer ritual yeah can you hear these chants which are going on they're chanting the chants for invoking the goddess so now we are going to be blessed [Music] [Music] this prayer ceremony is dedicated to the goddess this is lolita here this is her physical representation [Music] so all the potential is still in her so she has got the highest form of energy in her and she gives that power to others to fight against [Music] [Music] and with every name they will offer [Music] so anything in this level that we have pronounced goes to the goddess so by saying these thousand words you have almost covered all the possible syllables that you could averted so you can work over just a banana syllable the goddess is in the form of speech the human sound and the world is supposed to have been created out of these rhythms for her devotees exists in the rhythmic energy of their chanting a divine energy that powers their lives anyway the goddess has blessed you that she has invited you here [Music] seeing this ceremony really helps me understand what god means to hindus behind all the gods ender tells me there is a single divine energy that believers seek to tap into they say that it's just a principle it's like pure energy form which is neither a male or a female or having any name so they have just given one name brahman so in the western church in christianity judaism even islam there is one god it's just it's pure energies there's no name you can put to him there's no face you can put to them there's nothing you can touch can we make a comparison there yeah it's it's like the tree having the trunk and then the branches and leaves also we have the shade tree of brahma yeah right yeah okay so beautiful it's it's really nicely uh thank you all right how about some lunch game for that right and we can invoke gods for giving us good luck [Music] i like the way believers here find gods that best suit their own beliefs it's like a spiritual fingerprint unique to each person it's unlike the monotheism of the west but maybe that's only on the surface [Music] on the surface hinduism looks like a religion of many gods but underneath the surface there is a single divine energy so why do some cultures see many gods and some only one where did the idea of worshiping a single god first take root perhaps it began here stonehenge britain's iconic 5 000 year old monument the culture that built stonehenge had to endure long cold winters their survival depended on plentiful crops so it would make sense to focus on the single source of energy that drove all of that the sun an archaeological team is uncovering new evidence that may reveal the beliefs of the people who once lived here we're going to look at the ditch and the interior here vince gaffney and paul garwood have been studying a giant c-shaped enclosure less than two miles away from stonehenge the enclosure called durrington walls was built around 4500 years ago and appears to be aligned so its opening faces the rising sun on the mid-winter's day this is a ground pendulum radar vice but what interests vince and paul is the remains of an older monument they found buried underneath it the radar located a series of very large features there's a long arc of stones or large buried features underneath the bank so they've remained undetected effectively for several thousand years the hidden rocks are massive each of them as tall as two men they also form part of a c-shaped monument but the direction this sea faces is different from the orientation of the mound that buries it there was an earlier monument a very different form on this site it was looking towards beacon hill this dramatic line of hills to the east which is a dominant topographic feature in this area and certainly must have had significance at the time vince and paul think the original monument may be older than stonehenge they don't know what its alignment to their heels meant perhaps the heels were revered as divine or were associated with ancestors but after the ancient britons built the iconic stone circle at stonehenge they demolished the old stones at durrington walls and made a new mound face the same direction as stonehenge toward the rising mid-winter sun they've been pushed over and the bank of the later henge monument has actually been placed on top of them it moved in its orientation its form changed and presumably to some extent its function the creation of stonehenge itself and the the building of the new architecture down to wall suggested a shift towards a greater emphasis on the sun this is the main focus of worship and religious interest the builders were trying to establish a very particular connection with someone the people of stonehenge may have been the first to worship the sun as a single all-powerful god but in focusing on the sun i wonder if they lost something when the gods were ancestors or rivers or mountains they were much more accessible easier to connect to to speak to how do you speak to a god that's so remote i hope to find the answer at my next destination egypt more than a thousand years after stonehenge was built an egyptian man also decided to worship the sun [Applause] [Music] his idea was considered so dangerous that his memory was nearly wiped from the face of the earth thank you very much today just a few mementos of his life remain at the cairo museum hey oh there you are i know hello amid the remains of dozens of pharaohs egyptologist salima ikram is going to help me find one whose name is akhnatan there he is yep he thought that there were too many gods and not enough focus was on him there needs to be a an important god whom only i can channel so he changed things radically he uh basically closed down most of the temples said that there is a special god the sun god the arten and that you can worship the atom through me and that didn't go over too well with a few people no no that was not a very popular move because of course all the priests of the other important gods were shut down around the year 1350 bc hachnaten declared the sun would be egypt's only god in doing so he would found the first faith in recorded history with a single deity but it would not last as soon as he died the old priesthood struck back this piece has been hacked away as you can tell you can see how the name of the king is hacked out the name of the artem is also attacked everything there is tip tip tip tip tip tip to chip and it's gone away because destroyed it just destroyed his memories yeah the best they could akhenaten hoped his son would continue this legacy but his son was only nine years old when he took the throne his name was putin common here is the coffin of king tutankhamen the most famous pharaoh absolutely but he took the throne at age nine nine to nineteen only ten short years ten short years i would imagine that a nine-year-old taking the throne would be under the thumb of the old guys who would say look we can't keep this up we got to go back to what works absolutely he did what he was told probably and effectively his reign sort of knocked out akhenaten's reign and we have a return to the religion i had to to the gods the old gods are back in full force truth and commons priests erased akhenaten's monotheistic religion and tried to erase him from history here we go this is sarcophagus this is a sarcophagus or what's left of it because it's all smashed to pieces well that's what you get trying to change the world well poor thing didn't manage to change it for very long do not fool around with gods [Music] well octane's experiment and monotheism failed but i can't help wondering if what happened or around 1300 bc didn't influence the beginning of another religion because it was here on the banks of the nile that jewish tradition says moses was found among the bull rushes and from that period belief in the single god began to spread around the world how did the belief of a small band of israelites spread so far and wide today almost 4 billion muslims christians and jews worship the same single god what was so special about this god i'm traveling around the world to find out how people of different faiths connect to the divine and uncovering how our ideas of who god is have evolved over the millennia my quest brings me to jerusalem because half the people on the planet can trace their god to this ancient city it was here around 3 000 years ago that belief in a single all-powerful deity took root i meet jewish philosopher joram hassani to find out how one god won out over many this is the old city the old city of jerusalem and stores like this have been lining these streets for thousands of years except you know that thousands of years ago they actually sold idols like representations of gods like little figurines in fact there's an old rabbinic story go back time of the talmud that abraham's father was a idol shop owner so these idols what were these guards for so the gods they represent in the old pagan religions they represent anything that a human being could want or need there's a god that brings the reign let's remain god you want victory on the battlefield so there's a god of war but you'd have to figure out how you're going to please all the different gods to get what you wanted right exactly so some of those gods all they want is like you know a party they want wine and song and some good food that's not such a bad thing but some of those gods demanded bloodshed so you want something for me here's i want something from you i want you to sacrifice your son or something all right how do i get now from the rain guard i got a god of the fire to one i can't see i can't touch i don't know for sure is there oh that's what this story about abraham is about abraham looks around at all these different gods there's got to be one set of rules one set of laws of nature one set of laws of morals that apply to all human beings so what does he do where's he gonna go all right let's take a walk and i'll show you okay all right [Music] so right here we're looking at the absolute center of the religious world this is it this is the place we have over there the dome of the rock [Music] over there al-aqsa mosque the mount of olives and valley of gethsemane and down below the western wall the the holiest prayer shrine of judaism why here for one reason exactly when abraham almost sacrificed his son isaac it took place right up there on that spot now let's remember abraham is surrounded by idolaters who are sacrificing their children murdering their own children abraham thought that he was following god's commandments by taking isaac up there and and but god says to him you're not going to touch your son not this time not for all time there's one god and he says you are not going to sacrifice another child ever again and commemorating that never again is the reason that the jews build the temple here and from their judaism and christianity make this the holiest place in the history of the world that brings up a question though this is an invisible guard there's no no way that you can make an approximation of it there's no idols it's a single force that gives order the physical order and the moral order to all of mankind into our whole world there's no representation because he's not a local power temples to the single jewish god stood on this spot for almost a thousand years until the romans destroyed the one that was standing in 70 a.d but that destruction did not end this faith one incredible thing about this is that the one invisible god that's beyond all things it turns out that you know when you destroy the temple to that one god you don't destroy the god you don't destroy the god it turns out he's just as much there as he was before that's well put it's understandable the god of abraham was a god you could commune with without any temples without idols for jews and also for christians and muslims this invisible god is always with them no matter when or where they turn to him it is truly amazing that three of the world's great faiths exist in such close proximity all worshipping one god the same god a god who has survived calamities from the destruction of the holy temple to religious violence but how do you connect with a god who has no physical form how do you know what's divine and what isn't i've decided to return to cairo to try and understand who god is to muslims islam believes in the same god as jews and christians but i want to know if there are differences in how they think about the divine historian of islam ahmed rahgab has brought me to the al hussein mosque and you can just come in here just like the catholic church so it's always open to prayer yeah if you want to come in here and you can hang out with uh yourself and allah yeah absolutely i'm just in time to hear what muslims believe is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world the call to prayer allah [Music] for the faithful the song of the new zen is a manifestation of god himself so that's the end of the prayer is by saying assalamu alaikum much like you in you end an encounter with anybody and it is because the prayer is essentially a meeting with god election like hey you know see you later nice talk see you the next time prayer to allah seems like a conversation with a person [Music] but how do you speak to a person who has no human form to help me understand ahmed has arranged a meeting with the mosque spiritual leader imam al-amir mafuze thank you so much for speaking with us welcome in the christian religion god is so manifested but there is no such thing in islam so who am i talking to do i envision anything you cannot imagine god god is beyond imagination whatever you would imagine with our human minds god would be different from it one of the most haunting and beautiful sounds in the world is the muslim called the prayer what was the origin of that uh it is said that one of muhammad's companions had a vision uh while he was asleep where he heard this call for prayer and then when he woke up he went to muhammad and told him about it and he's made it into this ritual of using it to call for prayers every day five times every day how is he chosen do you hold all the ships there are auditions where they would listen to people and the one who has the best voice would be given the position allah [Laughter] i get it mosques are designed to be filled with beautiful sounds and images that delight the senses from elaborate architecture to verses of the quran written in the finest calligraphy many muslims see this beauty as a manifestation of god himself islam sees god in all things that are beautiful because god has no physical form he can be experienced anywhere with any of the senses but these experiences are only ever aspects of the divine god is always more than we can imagine across so many faiths around the world and throughout time people have emulated the divine in the beauty of their temples and glimpsed god and the splendor of nature but some faiths believe god can take a physical form [Music] and that form is a person i'm in shiprock new mexico in the heart of the navajo nation i'm about to witness something that few outsiders ever see a sacred ceremony where a god and a human become one single being welcome thank you thank you thank you thank you how are you we have something for you too oh you do yes look out thank you you're welcome where are we going now we're going inside are we yeah all right i'll follow inside the traditional navajo ritual hut or hogan the peterson family has agreed to share with me the ceremony that allows their youngest daughter mason to pass from girlhood to womanhood by the end of the four-day-long ritual one of the navajo deities will be living inside her yeah just like that and make a cone oh yeah like a cone like this the core of the ceremony is the making of a giant corn cake in honor of the sun how big is the cake gonna be it's gonna be huge [Music] are you the bartender yes okay mason's oldest sister kayla went through this same ritual four years ago and learned about her connection to the navajo gods or holy people do me a favor tell me about this ritual so it's referred to as the kimasta ceremony say that again i had my ceremony when i was around 12. and it's a puberty ceremony so it actually originates from changing women her we call her zed i said not glenn yes pretty close their story originated because they wanted um changing women to bear children so it all starts when first woman and first man see a dark cloud come over governor dornot and they hear a baby crying [Music] and him and first woman were instructed to care for the baby by the holy people so within 12 days she grew from an infant to a 12 year old girl in 12 days yes she was ready to become a woman to grow into a woman mason must connect with the divine spirit of changing woman which the navajo believes still inhabits the landscape each day she has to run toward the rising sun do the young ladies always run east in the morning yes so it goes back on the story with him changing woman as she becomes a woman when she does bear children it is with the sun the holy people are around us right now [Applause] [Music] this is an opportunity for the ceremony where these prayers come apart and push on her and it's all about her yes and yes yes so she gets all the the prayers your hopes and your dreams that you want for it just whatever positive you can push into the cake and make sure that her life is is strong and complete and that she knows that she has all these prayers that will go with her [Music] as the corn cake begins its slow overnight bake mason begins the final night of her canal tonight she'll be joined with the spirit of the navajo deity changing woman she and her family will stay in the hogan until dawn while the navajo medicine man sings sacred songs all of these songs prayers and blessings for uh the for the young girl yeah you can help her along the way that she's desperately changing to a young adult that's why they sing for them as they cannot okay to give them strength it's what the run is about okay give them endorsement build them muscles and everything so that way they change slowly into womanhood there are many more songs to be sung tonight but hearing them all is prohibited for outsiders like me thank you you're welcome see you we'll see you a bit okay [Music] at dawn mason makes the final and longest run of racconada [Applause] [Music] what [Music] how are you feeling saying that i'm gonna pass out you're gonna pass out yes she's she's she's hot she's gonna pass out yeah i'm glad it's cold out here you're glad it's cold otherwise you would pass out right on this morning the spirit of the navajo deity has moved inside mason and made her a holy person be proud your cake is good that means that means things are going to work out just fine right right the cake can only be eaten once it's been blessed by mason i can take a bite of it yeah don't burn your tongue [Music] now that it's over how do you feel i feel like i say i i say this i'm just like mom i survived it felt like boot camp great in the canal navajo girls have a personal experience of the changing woman one that can only be gained through rare moments of insight she is the spirit that infuses the entire navajo landscape if we believe that god not only surrounds us but also has the power to move inside us [Music] can we perhaps discover what god is by looking inside our minds for thousands of years to many people god has been invisible intangible a presence believers can sense but not see or touch but science may be about to change that i took a train to philadelphia to meet a neuroscientist who studies what happens in our brains when we have religious experiences i'm about to see whether i can find the presence of god in my brain [Music] dr andy newberg is pioneering a new field of study he calls neuro theology and i know that you are doing a lot of research on the brain how the brain reacts to say spiritual meditation can you elaborate on that for me well certainly you know as we look at the brain we can see very substantial differences when people are religious or spiritual in their practices when they're trying to pray meditate on god you know we can see what's going on in us as we think about god experience god pray to god whatever the person is doing so you're looking for physical manifestations of god yes we're looking for physical manifestations of god okay so i'm interested in finding out if there is any manifestation of god within me in my brain right uh we can take a look at that come on see if we can find it little pinch ow i'm sorry i'm kidding the process begins with an injection of radioactive dye what happens if you drop that well if we spill on the floor we have to close out the room and evacuate everybody so don't spill it okay don't store it with your radioactive tracer in my bloodstream and it can measure how much blood flows to the various parts of my brain the more i'm using a part of my brain the more radioactive diet will accumulate i already did a baseline scan while i was just resting with my eyes closed now i'm attempting to meditate on the divine to see whether anything changes it's time to start focusing on your breath all right just try to get into as good a state as you can focusing on the breath just trying to really bring really deep concentration to it i think that'll be great so starting now you can go ahead and start now okay [Music] okay you can finish the meditation how'd it go fine how long was that uh it was about 11 or 12 minutes before the radioactive tracer flushes out of my system so you'll be on your back i have to quickly climb into this 3d scanner and see whether my brain has changed because i meditated on god all right well look at that two eyes the nose and the mouth but to me it looks like you're smiling a little bit what do you see or do you see so these are your two scans side by side here's your resting scan here's the meditation scan and you can see if you look at the frontal lobes here it's mostly yellow just a little bit of red whereas if you look during your meditation the whole front of the lobe just kind of has blossomed so if you are concentrating on something if you're saying a prayer if you're focusing on god if you're trying to connect with god then you tend to increase the activity in the frontal lobe how do i compare with say a nun prayer or let's say a buddhist monk who is meditating do i compare at all as with the nuns who are concentrating on a prayer the buddhists who were focusing on an image they all activated their frontal lobes and that's exactly what you did too if i was contemplating the image of god could you tell the difference we actually scanned an atheist who was a very good meditator and we asked him to concentrate on god to meditate on god and he wasn't able to activate his frontal lobes very much so in fact if anything as you can see that sort of decreased a little bit yeah so even though they said yeah i'm concentrating i'm trying to contemplate god they just were not able to do a very good job of doing it because they didn't really believe it so i think part of what that told me is that regardless of of what our practice is the key is is do you believe it do you buy into it is it important to you it's amazing that somebody came up with the idea that you could shoot somebody full of radioactive drugs and look at their brain the brain is just so unbelievably complex that it's not that there's one god spot or one god part of the brain but it seems to be the whole brain that gets involved and ultimately these change the way you think and feel about the world so apparently it is possible to see physical manifestations of god inside us whether you're christian buddhist or any kind of spiritual person experiencing the divine actually changes the brain changes the way we see the world that's really something the evidence that experiencing god changes us on the inside will come as no surprise to believers including the people at lakewood church in houston i've come to see how ten thousand christians can all have a meaningful personal experience with their god the pastors of this mega church joel and victoria einstein have agreed to meet with me before the service begins and let me in on their philosophy i want to leave them something that they can use this afternoon so i don't i don't go a lot of doctrine and you know i go practical today i'm talking about you know using what god's given you and so when you leave you'll say you know what it was worth me going to church today well let me ask you can we pray we've got about one minute we're gonna pop up there so i'm just gonna pray okay yeah lord would you pray with us lord thank you for this day yes and lord all the people that have come out many are gonna watch on television listen on the radio and we just asked you that you'd give us the words to speak that every person would feel your presence your power that they'd feel encouragement and hope and inspiration that you'd know that you have them in the palm of your hand just ask your father for a great service in jesus name amen amen amen thank you very honored to have you thank you i'm very honored to be here we'll catch you afterwards we got to watch it stop coming you'll be dancing before you know it doesn't take much to get me started [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yes it is good to be in the house of the lord and i am excited to be here today with you see we were designed to function our best when we are connected to god you've got power on the inside you can rely on don't live life in neutral not passionate not intentional not focused stir up what god's given you dare to take those steps of faith i'm asking a flat-out question who is god i believe god is our father the creator somebody that gives us purpose and destiny you know sometimes it's hard for people to say how can i believe in something i can't see but it's what you choose to believe through faith what you choose to believe through favor when jesus came he said look i want you to come to me and so i tell people you can talk to god all through the day like you talk to your friend in your thoughts you can say god you know thank you for this day i think that god can be as involved in your life as much as you want him to be so that's what we try to teach people to to get god out of your sunday morning box god has been a lot of things to a lot of people and now here you're making god personal yes approachable yes and helpful that's right the life of god lives and dwells in us and it's a spiritual life it's your spiritual power on the inside of you and that is what we need to tap into [Music] that was quite a show maybe 10 000 people worshiping celebrating each of them having his own personal experience with god this is clearly faith in the god in you your inspiration your power god is so many things to so many people the warm light of the sun the sound of sweet music [Music] an inner voice that drives us forward a friend if you ask me who god is i would say there's a bit of the divine in all of us this guarding you is god in me the god in me is who i really am at my core the god in me is the best version of me the god in me is who i strive to be who i was meant to be [Music] [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 2,062,668

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, morgan freeman, the story of god, the story of god with morgan freeman, story of god, story of god of war, story of god morgan freeman, culture video, the story of god morgan freeman full episodes, The story of god morgan freeman

Id: d2Fl9UcJkBA

Length: 50min 18sec (3018 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 08 2022