God is Dead

I have struggled with this issue for as long as I can remember.  Is there a God?  Does God Exist?  Are there many or just one?  Whose religion is the “right” religion?   

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t drive myself mad thinking about this, but it does pop into my mind occasionally.

I can’t remember how old I was, in the 10 to 12 range maybe, when I first began to question the existence of God.  I was raised in a Christian family; not overly devout, but we went to church on Sundays, and the existence of God was not a question back then, but a fact.  Like the air, the earth, water, and fire, God simply was.  Anyway… long story short, my little sister was struck by a pickup truck while she was riding her bike.  It wasn’t the driver’s fault.  She was doing something she should not have been doing and rode her bike out of a blind area right in front of the truck.  My sister was badly injured and died in the hospital later that day.  When I learned of it all I could think was, “How can this be?  I prayed to God to save her.” 

That was my first real experience with death.  And, no, I wasn’t so naïve that I didn’t know that despite prayers or anything else, people could still die.  But even so, after the grief faded I began to wonder, and later to question if there really was a god.  I wasn’t completely active about it, but I did ask questions.  One of the things I was told was, “God has a plan even though we can’t see what it is.”  And of course the ever popular, “It is not our place to question, but merely to accept what is and know that all will be revealed to us in the next life.”  Answers like this would shut me up, but never satisfy.

I did study the bible a bit, and came to the conclusion that it was written by man to control and govern the actions of man.  It was not written by God.  It reads more like a code of conduct in story form, handing down laws for behavior before there was a rule of law.  Now that’s Old Testament stuff.  Don’t get me started on the New Testament. 

When I discovered the New Testament was simply a collection of religious writings chosen from among hundreds of such writings by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church I was dumbstruck!  They, of course, had collections of religious writings dating back hundreds of years from the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ to their own time, and they chose from among those works the ones that would best serve them.  Then they bound them together and attached them to the Old Testament and called them the new word of God.  What audacity!  These are the same people responsible for the Inquisition, for supporting slavery, for the suppression of education of commoners, for their continued support of pedophilia within their own ranks, and many other atrocities.

So if I can’t trust what is “supposedly” the word of God, then where do I turn for answers?  Priests, preachers, ministers, and other religious figures have their own agendas to forward so any information from these sources, no matter what religion or beliefs they adhere to, are suspect.  Other opinions from the world of academia are generally just as useless since their opinions are largely based on information gleaned from religious writings throughout history, myth, and folklore buttressed by archeological and geological evidence.  The answer is that I have to trust my own observations.  This is not an ideal solution but it is the best I can do.

So, determining that I have to come up with my own answers, and realizing that my own opinions, beliefs, biases and what have you will change over time, I know that any answers I come up with will also probably change with time.  Still, the attempt to answer must be made if for no other reasons than my own peace of mind, and to publicly proclaim my freedom from the quest.  So here goes… The answer to the question, “Does God exist?”  The answer is:  It does not matter!

Wait a minute!  It doesn’t matter if God exists or not?

That’s right!  It doesn’t matter.

If there is no god then all you have to do is follow the rules wherever you happen to live to get by.  Pleasing, or at least not angering, the earthly “powers that be” is enough.  Unless of course you desire a high amount of conflict in your life, then, by all mean, buck the system.

Let’s say there is a God.  Ancient texts, stories, and folklore tell us that he used to talk to people and tell them his wishes, perform impossible miracles for the world to see, and in other ways make his presence known beyond doubt.  If ever he truly did those things, he is certainly doing them no longer.  This suggests that he has tired of us and left us to our own devices.  In which case we would do well to keep our own council concerning the moral and ethical dilemmas we face today.  Besides, even if you believe in God and that he is active in the world even now, would you want to follow a God that would command a father to slay his own son?  How about a God who would murder innocent babies who had not yet even the chance to commit a sin?

If such a God were active in the world I would certainly live in fear of him.  Now, still supposing that there is a God who has power and dominion over us all, I have to believe that such an entity is not subject to the same failings that we are.  Some of these are greed, avarice, envy, jealousy to name a few, and specifically, ego.   If a god considers himself the father of humanity, then would he not want the same things for his children as I would want for my own children?  As a father I want my children to become good people above all.  I want them to be well liked, productive members of society.  I also want them to love and respect me, but I do not want nor require their worship.  Now if I, with all my earthly failings, can feel that way about my children, how could I possibly ascribe lesser motivations to a god?

This is what I mean when I say that it doesn’t matter if God exists or not.  If you do your best to live a good life, to help others when you can, to ease suffering when you can, and basically follow the golden rule, then you have done all that a kind and benevolent God could reasonably require.  It shouldn’t matter to God whether or not you worship, or even believe in him.