Sure, I believe in God but that doesn’t mean I can’t see the beauty in the words and sentiments of doubters and outright atheists. Some of the most moving things I’ve read have been by those folks.

I found a blog recently called The Word of Me and I read two posts there that really got me thinking about stuff. Didn’t knock me off my faith or nothing, but it did get me thinking. I don’t want to invade the author’s blog by commenting there and sounding all self-righteous, but I did want to respond in some way to others who may have similar concerns. So taking a page from the to-do between Deacon Blue and Nsangoma, I’m going to pull some quotes out of the posts over there and comment on them here. Except I’m gonna be sweeter than Deke was. 😉 You can view the original posts here and here.

Yes, the universe and all in it would seem to have come from somewhere or something. But religion cannot have it both ways; to say the universe had to have a creator and a God does not, is like having your cake and eating it too, it makes no logical sense. I cannot seem to wrap my mind around a spirit being that is supposed to have always existed, and is everywhere, and in all humans brains at the same time.

I’ll just refer you to the Deke’s post here folks. If the universe has always existed in some form without a creator or came out of nowhere that’s just as illogical. Right? Even if the creator wasn’t God the universe still had to be created by something or you have to believe that it always existed, and then you kinda lose your credibility about ridiculing the God-always-existed thing.

He spoke to the Hebrews, how about giving a modern world that has much better linguistic and comprehension skills something to work with here. What would it hurt to materialize above earth and speak to the Pope or Billy Graham, or Pat Robertson?

I’ve often wondered why God doesn’t speak to us directly, too. But then I thought back to the Bible and realized God never talked directly to the Hebrews. He talked to specific people like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah. He chose the Hebrews to be his Chosen People because he needed one group through which to show himself and to work toward the birth of the savior but he didn’t just show up in the sky to all of them. Even with the parting of the sea and the pillar of fire and all that they never saw God himself and they could have simply written it off as Moses being some kind of sorcerer if they wanted. That’s what the faith thing is about.

And it makes free will a little tricky if he gets in our faces about stuff. If you see God up in the sky all the time and he lets you know in no uncertain terms that he’s there and you need to do what he says or else, that would make him a dictator, wouldn’t it? Our big bad ruler looking down on us like hamsters in a cage. He make things based on faith so that we will seek him with our hearts and with love. Otherwise we’re just being whipped around.

Do some people pray in earnestness? Yes, of course they do, well lets have some perceivable, tangible proof that there is someone listening. Many honest God-fearing people (and even me) have prayed down through the centuries for the end of pain and suffering, the end to child abuse, the end of evil men hurting people, the end of hunger, the end of war, the end of everything bad…Never happened….Not even once. Why?

Oh sweetie. Do you really want God to just fix all our screw ups so we never have any accountability for our actions as a race or as individuals? No responsbility for our actions. Just give us all a cushy life even though we don’t act right much of the time. I left home because I didn’t want my parents controlling my every move and trying to fix my life for me. We aren’t babies.

A real, loving God, would not subject untold billions of people to the misery that this world has dished out before modern times…and still does to third world countries. There is no apologetics in existence that can make this right-No God works this way; unless he is a Dark God. Can you imagine yourself being born into Darfur, or any of a dozen or more countries in Africa, and sitting in the desert as a child, starving to death? Now imagine tens of thousands or millions of your brother and sisters starving right along with you. A God, who sits back, sees this and does nothing, is not a competent God.

But why should God fix our messes? Doesn’t the U.S. get slammed often enough for trying to fix other countries’ problems? We have free will and that comes with consequences because of that fact we don’t put our faith in God and walk the path he waned for us.

It’s easy to point to wars or child abuse or genocide and say God should fix this if he exists. But what are the things that are big enough he should fix and what isn’t? Something one person might think is terrible is something someone else thinks is good. Let’s take it down to the personal level. I was devastated that Kevin Klotz wouldn’t date me in high school. Should God have made him love me to make me feel better? I turned away the immensely freaky-seeming Andy Parker but what if my rejecting him really screwed up his life? Do you think I’d want God taking away my free will to make me be with him? Even if it was the right thing?

People want God to fix things, but what it really comes down to is they want him to fix what they don’t like and give them what they want. People criticize the idea of a loving God who allows suffering in the world for the same reason that they won’t admit that people are inherently sinful and that God might send people to hell. They want it both ways. Give me everything and let me do whatever I want but don’t let anything bad happen to me or expect me to be responsible.

My folks weren’t the sweetest people. They let me lie in the beds I made many a time. They did it because they figured I should fix my messes and because I might learn something from them if I didn’t fix them. They they were right most of the time.

God has a bigger view of things. He’s looking at eternity. Much as he loves us, he also knows what happens here in a single lifetime or even hundreds of generations is still a drop in the bucket. He doesn’t want us to suffer but we made our bed and sometimes we need to lie in it.

God wants me to do things in certain ways. But I am oh so thankful that he doesn’t make me do them. I’d rather be a difficult child than a slave any day of the week.

(Ok, folks. This time the image really is of me. Stars and flowers flying out of my hair and everything. I’m just that magical.)