My Search For God
By Tony Sharp
I have always wanted to, and I still want to, believe in a God. I have embraced all of the spiritual advice given to me by priests and my religious friends. I have tried prayer, meditation, and I have studied prophetic teachings, including those from Jesus Christ. Instead of finding answers, I only found more questions, questions that are supposed to be ignored through something called “faith”.
There are two different kinds of faith - reasoned faith and religious faith. Reasoned faith is based on naturalistic evidence - and sustained experiences. For example: If I unplug my computer it will turn off. I have reason and evidence to believe this. Religious faith is based on notions without naturalistic evidence - and brief “divine” experiences. For example: There is an unseen, supernatural, place outside of our world called Heaven. But why should there be? Is there reason or evidence to support this notion?
Would countries be happy with leaders who never showed themselves, and refused to speak aloud? I would not, and this is what bothers me most about the God concept. Why would a loving God make it so frustrating for people like me, who want to believe, to believe in Him? Our human imperfections, and our intuition, deceive us on a daily basis. Why would He insist that we rely solely on our intuition, and on faith alone, to believe in Him? Is it really asking too much for a physical touch or an audible voice? Many religious writings describe very obvious interactions between man and the supernatural. Why aren’t these interactions as obvious today? Why doesn’t He give us more evidence for His existence, and why would He, as some believe, punish us so severely for our confusion?
Some claim that they have heard from, been touched by, and/or have had a kind of experience through God. But, how do they know that their continual belief in a God isn’t psychologically disturbing their rational judgment, and/or creating what they feel to be God’s presence?
Some claim that the fulfilled prophecies found in many religious writings is proof that there is a divine power. No one has seen most prophecies happen, and the ones that describe current events are too vague to accept as hard truth.
During our less sophisticated beginnings, before computer were mainstream, many of our explanations involved supernatural concepts. When the rain came we thought a deity was delivering it from some unknown place. When the Earth quaked we thought a deity was doing it through anger. Many of us thought the Sun moved around a flat Earth because, from our vantage point, that is how everything appeared. “How could something come from nothing”, we asked. “There must be a creator, a God, something beyond our human comprehension living outside of our physical world.”
Supernatural concepts came to be when people were unable to explain the world around them using advanced technology, and its sophisticated terminology. We didn’t have weather balloons and meteorologists to accurately interpret the weather then. We didn’t have a Richter scale and geophysicists to accurately interpret earthquakes. And we didn’t have quantum mechanics to explain the extremely complicated details for how something could, in fact, come from what we consider “nothing”.
Many theists are quick to question the weight of science, but never take the unbiased approach to question their own faith in God. And how can anyone properly question the weight of science without a thorough education in the field they wish to criticize? I have studied both religious writings and books from science, and I have come to the only rational conclusion.
If our knowledge of the world was limited during our ancient beginnings, why should we accept our earliest concepts concerning our origins? Where did the word ‘God’ really come from? If we had advanced science then, would there have been a reason to invent the concept of “supernatural”? Did a God create man, or did man create God to feel justified?
If there is no God where does that leave us? If there is no God we must become more responsible for our actions, and the world around us. If there is no one to tell us what is right from wrong, we must use our own intelligence and common sense to remind ourselves of the differences, and not do wrong simply because we can. We only have one planet and one life, for now, so we must all work together and take care of it.
