Is there a God? As a child, I never heard anyone ask this question. We skipped over it, at home and in my Catholic school. The questions we jumped to were from the Baltimore Catechism: Who made us? (God made us.) Who is God? (God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence.) Why did God make us? (God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.) And so on.
These questions are excellent and their answers comforting, if you begin with the unshakable premise that God is there, and paying attention. But the premise wasn’t unshakable. Not for me. I think everyone is mystified by life — by what they see, and what they can’t see. We deal with these mysteries at first by adopting the beliefs we are given as children. For some, those beliefs serve us well, forever. For others, the questions and the answers don’t seem to fit, and we keep searching. There came a time when I started to wonder if God was anything like the all-knowing creator I’d learned about. Or if He was there at all.
In the decades that followed, I read dozens of books on religion, spirituality, science, evolution, creation, astronomy, atheism, agnosticism, life after death, reincarnation, heaven, hell, prayer, and the power of faith. I have studied large chunks of the Bible. I have had countless conversations, listening intently to the word of God as expressed by friends, family, and serene strangers who appeared at my door bearing pamphlets. And one day, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be anything left to say. For anyone. It had taken me most of my adult life, but I had heard all of the arguments, repeatedly. I had sifted, and analyzed, and pondered, and more than once tried to surrender myself to those glorious beliefs. Nothing would stick.
I eventually concluded that I would never have an answer. God was unknowable, which rendered all religions equally right and wrong. If there was a supreme being, we could not know Him. Further, the odds seemed great that anyone who ventured a theory was either distorting the truth or, more likely, missing the boat entirely. We were like ants crawling around on the sidewalk outside the New York Public Library, or the Louvre, or Wrigley Field, and trying to imagine what was going on inside. The truth was out of reach, and that’s all there was to it.
But I have a new perspective, one that may finally allow me to stop struggling with this question, “Is there a God?” The answer, I now believe, is yes. And no.
In order to explain how I arrived at this bewildering conclusion, it may be easier to shift the focus a bit and talk about other vaguely related issues. Ghosts, for example. For most of my life, I joined the vast majority of humanity in its struggle to know if there’s something after death. Does a part of us live on after our bodies die? Given the incredible number of eyewitness accounts of ghosts appearing and interacting with the living, it seems logical to ask if apparitions are real. Surely there must be an objective answer: Either there really are ghosts or there aren’t. Could there be any other possibility?
As a child, I believed in God, the saints, angels, and the devil. I accepted that we have souls and that the soul survives death and goes to heaven or hell. A ghost must have been related to the soul in some way that I didn’t understand. Maybe a ghost was the cartoon version of the soul, the way there were real-life and cartoon versions of Batman. Ghosts were real in the same way that Santa Claus and Disney characters were real. But what about those eyewitnesses? Many thousands of people have claimed to have seen, heard, and been otherwise affected by ghosts. I don’t know anyone who claims Donald Duck appeared to them and began hurling chairs across the room. Ghosts seemed to be in their own special category. At some point, though, I recognized that although there have been billions of people who have lived and died, I’ve never experienced any evidence of life after death. If spirits exist, shouldn’t we be bumping into them every time we turn around? I eventually decided that ghosts must not be real, and the people who claimed to see them were either hallucinating, mistaken, or lying. I could think of no other explanation.
But while I’ve never seen a ghost, I have dreamed about my parents, both of whom have been dead for more than a decade. I have heard their voices in my sleep, and sometimes when I’m awake. Calling my name — out loud, clear, and nearby. When that happens, am I hearing my parents? Are they actually communicating with me through my mind? Or are there memories, fluttering around in my brain, that occasionally surface? I have visual memories that do that. Why not auditory ones?
When I’ve listened to accounts of ghosts, I’ve often found myself wishing I could have been there to see it too, to verify whether it happened or not. But here’s what I now think. Just as someone standing right next to me wouldn’t hear my father’s voice when I did, I would not see the ghost, even if I were standing right next to someone who did. The ghost is real in that person’s mind. But from my point of view, there’s nothing there. Who’s right? We both are. It isn’t an experience we can share, like looking at a waterfall or eating pistachio ice cream. It’s a personal, internal experience that may or may not be connected to some external reality. A cat’s ears flick around at some high-pitched sound it hears. We hear nothing. Is the sound real? To the cat it’s real; to us, it isn’t.
I think God is like that. I’ve spoken to too many intelligent, thoughtful, grounded people who not only believe in God, but claim to have experienced Him on a deep and personal level. They are sure. They know. Yet here I am, standing right next to them, and for me, He isn’t there. Whose experience is true? I think both. Is there an objective reality? We can’t know. We’ve ventured out of the realm of waterfalls and ice cream and wandered into that part of existence that is untestable, uncontrollable, and incomprehensible. We are the ants. It would be dishonest for me to claim I have experienced God, just as it would be a lie for the believer to deny God’s existence. We each have our own truth, and all attempts at persuasion are pointless. That’s why we have to stop ridiculing, persecuting, and killing other people whose interpretation of God differs from our own. It accomplishes nothing that is good.
Mostly Bright Ideas 
Esmaa Self
July 27, 2010
“… we have to stop ridiculing, persecuting, and killing other people whose interpretation of God differs from our own. It accomplishes nothing that is good.”
Right on.
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bronxboy55
July 27, 2010
When do you think it will happen?
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Julia Harris
July 27, 2010
So much to chew on here. Thoughtfully and sensitively written, as always. I try to ignore the serene strangers handing out pamphlets as well, and I have never been one myself. You raise such interesting questions and make such honest observations that there’s no easy response to the conundrum you raise. Faith attempts to cover a lot of that uncertainty but is in itself an unknowable, unquantifiable reality. Whose faith is bigger and better, yours or mine or Billy Graham’s or a zealous Muslim cleric in Pakistan? Would I ever have the kind of faith that would send me off on a suicide mission of any kind? Probably not, because no matter what anyone says there is just no way to be sure of what awaits my soul or ghost or ineffable essence on the other side.
And I have not seen Donald Duck throw furniture, but I did see him on a cruise ship last month; I have a photo of him with my oldest son to prove it.
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bronxboy55
July 27, 2010
Here’s what I find troubling. I’m comfortable with my own uncertainty, and I’m comfortable with someone else’s certainty. Why, then, does the person who is sure have so much trouble with the fact that I’m NOT sure?
Not to undermine your faith, but there have been reports of people pretending to be Donald Duck who then somehow get themselves hired to work on cruise ships and even at Disney World itself. I guess that proves nothing is sacred anymore.
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cooperstownersincanada
July 27, 2010
Brilliant and thought-provoking as always. There is a lot to think about in what you have written. I sure hope there is a God, but I’m not certain. I’ve never had the type of religious experience that many of the people that I know claim to have had.
I wish you could put this line on a t-shirt and sell them: “We have to stop ridiculing, persecuting, and killing other people whose interpretation of God differs from our own. It accomplishes nothing that is good.”
Great work, Charles!
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bronxboy55
July 27, 2010
Thanks, Kevin. To tell you the truth, I was a little hesitant about posting this, because I wasn’t completely sure it made any sense at all. I mean, it makes sense to me, but what is that saying?
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Amiable Amiable
July 28, 2010
I’m not so sure about Donald Duck, but I’m certain that Mickey Mouse is a god – to some. God, forgive me! I’m a member of a UCC church. Am I a holy roller? No. Do I believe in God? I’m not sure. I think God is faith (not the Queen of Wordplay talking), generally speaking. For example, my husband just asked if we can go to DQ and get Blizzards tomorrow. Yes, Virginia, there is a god! I had faith that my husband and I would have a fun time with this week’s empty nesting, and here we are. Amen.
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bronxboy55
July 28, 2010
It’s so interesting that you make the distinction between faith and belief in God. I always thought they were the same thing, but it seems they don’t have to be. I also assumed faith was a more general term, while belief in God was a narrower one. But maybe even the idea of God is very general, and deep down, believers find the concept of God that fits with their lives and helps them be better people. It seems that would be a constructive approach, much more so than “I’m right and you’re wrong.”
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Amiable Amiable
July 28, 2010
Faith vs. belief in God. Yes, that’s a tricky one. I think it just depends on each person’s religion, and what they choose to glean from it. Maybe.
To me, religion is a free for all on many levels. For example, I have a good friend who’s Catholic and takes the Bible very literally. But I don’t consider her to be a good “Christian” because, for one thing, she’s a yelling and screaming mom (I mean, I’ve been on occasion myself, but she practices the condescending approach to parenting). I know other Catholics who don’t take the Bible literally and also pick and choose what they want to follow from their religion (birth control comes to mind). But, ironically, they are more “Christian” (read forgiving and understanding) than the yeller and screamer.
Actually, this “selective believing” could be applied to many religions and individual churches – even my own. My UCC church elects to be “open and welcoming,” while a neighboring UCC church elects to be “open and affirming.” Reading through the lines of the mission statements one will understand that they’re both trying to say that they’re okay with homosexuality, but one thinks they’re making more of a statement. Huh? Why wouldn’t they both just say the exact same thing as UCC churches? Like I said, it’s a free for all on many levels.
You hit the nail on the head with “believers find the concept of God that fits with their lives and helps them be better people.” Honestly, when I listen to the Scripture readings, I don’t get half of them. Even more truthfully, I tend to start thinking about my To Do List. The sermons put things in perspective for me. The thing I always take away (whenever I actually make it to a Sunday service), and is fundamental to me as a “Christian,” is to treat others the way I’d like to be treated. Funny how so many Christians forget or don’t practice that. No?
Anyway, I’m doing a lot of praying until I hear my son lands safely in Seoul in a few hours, and until he returns to JFK in two weeks. Hopefully God will forgive me for thinking about my To Do List during the Scripture Reading and answer my prayers. Naturally, my prayers include peace for North and South Korea. Which makes me wonder why God wouldn’t answer everyone’s prayers to stop war anywhere. I rationalize that it isn’t really up to God. It’s just up to us to practice the word of God – whoever that might be, according to any given religion.
Is there a word limit in comments? I’ll stop writing now. Alleluia!
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bronxboy55
July 28, 2010
It’s so good for me to hear all of what you’re saying. I think a lot of the trouble that happens between people of different beliefs is caused by the tendency to take holy teachings too literally. Most religions seem to be excellent guidebooks that provide their followers with general principles to help them look at themselves and at least get moving in the right direction. It’s when those religions try to assume the power of monopolies, and when their adherents become militant, that big problems arise. People are wired with an attitude of “Us against Them,” and religion feeds right into that, unfortunately. On the other hand, I think a God who wanted his children to get along with each other and develop spiritually would be happy with your approach. In a similar way, I think God would also be pleased by how much you love both of your children.
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Marie M
July 28, 2010
Wow. Honest, vulnerable, sensitive, not to mention thought-provoking. Thank you.
I’ve often wondered if, for those among us who find it hard to believe, God doesn’t Self-reveal in all the amazing things in creation around us, beginning with one another. For example, I don’t think I can accept that humanity is merely a happy biological accident, even if we do have a discernible if also broken line of development. Or that the stars or a brilliant sunset are simply chemical-physical reactions. And even if they were, isn’t there a hint of divinity in our amazed and appreciative reaction to them?
Perhaps for those who don’t believe, one path to a certainty of sorts lies in remaining open, and not boxing God in using either traditional or nontraditional limitations. (This might be helpful for those who don’t believe or can’t believe, but not for those who won’t believe.)
Among believers, it’s no secret that God does work in mysterious ways, and it would be more than a bit presumptuous of me to declare that another’s direct experience of God wasn’t that at all. [However, I realize that I must reserve the right to use some measure of my own understanding of God in evaluating others’: eg, the god who directs someone to kill others is not God at all in my opinion, direct experience of that someone or not.] As for those believers without too much “direct” experience, well, that’s where faith and trust and a careful listening to our own hearts come in. It’s an openness perhaps a bit more heavily tinged with desire to experience God than is felt by one who does not believe.
St. Augustine is reputed to have said, “Our hearts, O God, are restless, until they rest in You.” To me that means that even the search itself is a kind of prayer.
Whew! I think I know what you meant by being hesitant to post in case this doesn’t make sense.
PS: I hope this is Installment 2 in an occasional series of Yes/No posts . . . . . .
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bronxboy55
July 29, 2010
Thanks, Marie. Your comment was equally honest and thought-provoking. I think you said it all at the end of your second paragraph when you talked about the stars and sunsets. I have never met anyone who isn’t open to that sense of awe when experiencing the physical beauty of the world, the variety of living things, the immenseness of the universe. If I were the conscious creator of all those things and witnessed people everywhere exhibiting an “amazed and appreciative reaction to them,” I think that would do it for me. I can’t imagine needing to be worshipped directly. I certainly couldn’t imagine sending most of those people to an eternal and agonizing punishment because they failed to worship me. And I would never tolerate one group killing another in order to demonstrate their loyalty to me, or mine to them. If we could only look at it that way, we’d realize there’s so much we all agree on. And the remaining disagreements could serve to spark interesting conversation, instead of what we have now.
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charlespaolino
July 29, 2010
Thomas Aquinas, as you may know, showed that human beings can arrive at the existence of God without any help from their parents, from a religious institution, or from scriptures — in other words, that we can arrive at the existence of God from reason alone. Since parents and religious organizations are all finite, perhaps the idea of God occurred to humans in the first place through reason alone. We see some echo of St. Thomas’ idea in the thoughts of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, both of whom observed that the more one examines the laws of the physical world the more one realizes that there is a reality that is always out of reach, always one more question beyond the one just answered.
I was raised a Catholic and I’m an ordained Catholic minister now, but attending a Catholic university changed the way I thought about God. At the time, all undergrads at that university were required to minor in both theology and philosophy. Studying those two disciplines made me aware of the tendency of human beings to unconsciously try to make God understandable — an impossibility, as you pointed out — by giving God human attributes or at least by trying to imagine God as existing within the limitations of time and space. Just the other day my wife and I were discussing with another couple a young man we know — the father of four young boys — who recently underwent radical surgery made necessary by stomach cancer. Our male friend said, “See, this is what I don’t understand about God. Why would he allow such a thing?” Our friend is thinking of God as some kind of watchmaker or puppeteer who manipulates everything in the universe. That very idea puts limitations on the limitless God because it suggests that he “permits” cancer to attack a young father and might have decided otherwise. I told our friend that there is a scientific explanation for the young man’s cancer and that if the same conditions could be recreated, he would get cancer again, that God is about order in the universe, and the physical laws that can be observed and measured by science are part of that order. Our friend said he understood that, but he said it grudgingly. It was clear that he would rather have someone to blame — someone who isn’t going to answer. I’m sure many people stop believing in God because they and the culture around them has made God an absurdity.
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bronxboy55
July 30, 2010
It seems that if everyone could back far enough away from that tendency to make God understandable, we would look around and realize we’re all in a similar place. But we seem to have a driving need to understand and explain everything, even when we have no idea what we’re talking about. Einstein believed in something beyond what science could comprehend; he sometimes referred to this something as “God,” but he didn’t try to pin it down with the attributes or limitations you mention. He allowed himself to enjoy the majesty of nature and to be awed by it (which may help to explain his humility, even though he was a major celebrity of his day). I wonder, though, if humanity as a whole has the ability to stay in a place of shared mystery. Maybe that group is just too big to sustain itself, and must inevitably break apart (much as large religions fracture into sects). Each of the pieces, then, claims God for itself, custom designing a creator that fits its culture or explains its circumstances.
I must say, I find this discussion much more enjoyable than throwing scripture at each other.
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charlespaolino
July 30, 2010
One of the things Jesus complained about most was the complication of God. He was explicit about that, criticizing the hundreds of man-made laws that had been superimposed on the Jewish faith. “Love God and love your neighbor,” he said, in effect: “This is the WHOLE LAW.” But we see in the New Testament that within the first few years of the Christian church, religion had again become for many people all about rules and regulations and separating this kind of people from that kind of people. St. Paul reprimanded the early Christian communities for that several times.
There also is what, to me, a clear message in the Hebrew Bible that God cannot be defined — in fact, that attempting a definition is an offense against God. I think we see that in Abraham’s encounters with God in elusive forms — first three men, then one, then a disembodied voice — and in the interactions between Moses and God. Moses seems to be talking about what we have been discussing when he tells God that the Hebrew people will demand to know the name of the God who had spoken to him. God answered: “I am who am. This is what you shall tell the Israelite people. ‘I am’ sent me.” That is often interpreted as God revealing his ineffable name, but I read it as saying that God cannot be contained in a human convention such as a personal name.
St. Paul also commented on something we’ve been discussing when he wrote in his first letter to the church in Corinth that in this life we see God “indistinctly, as in a mirror.”
I’m still thinking about your observations on ghosts.
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shoreacres
August 3, 2010
Raised Methodist, I eventually landed amongst the Lutherans. The truth is I was a theological convert – Luther’s writings were what caught my attention, and pulled me in.
For one thing, his theological method seemed to reflect the realities of life. It was dynamic and dialectical – not in the Hegelian sense of synthesizing everything in sight, but in the sense of moving between two poles, always maintaining the tension. Saint and sinner. Law and gospel. Etc. I’ve always been a “both/and” kind of gal, with little affection for “either/or”, so it was a congenial point of view.
Beyond that, he seemed to have a knack for making the complex understandable. The existence of God is a perfect example. For Luther, the important question never was “Do you believe in God”. (Answer “yes” or “no” and you’re right back into the land of either/or: believers or non-believer?)
Instead, he preferred to focus on the question, “Who is your God?” In his Large Catechism there’s this gem: the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God… That … upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god. And again, to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts.
It’s an approach that makes things pretty interesting. “Proving” the existence of God has consumed a lot of time and energy – as has disproving God’s existence. But asking, “What do you trust above all else?” can lead to a variety of answers, and we know them all: Money. Self. Power. Knowledge. Another person. Cleverness. There are as many answers as there are people, I suppose.
I can’t find the reference now, but I’ll paraphrase. Someone asked Luther once, “How do I know if my God is true?” Luther’s response? Check out your life. If you’ve been following a false god, you ought to be able to figure it out pretty quickly. 😉
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bronxboy55
August 5, 2010
Your comment made me think of Mother Teresa, whose 100th birthday is later this month. Numerous letters written during the last decades of her life reveal a deep despair over her inability to connect with God. Is it possible that she was simply locked in to the wrong one? Your quotes from Luther suggest that maybe, if she had allowed herself to adjust her focus in some way, she might have been able to find some of the same peace she managed to share with so many others.
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charlespaolino
August 5, 2010
Several years ago, Arlo Guthrie’s organization bought the old church in Massachusetts that was the setting for “Alice’s Restaurant.” He says he was working in the building one night when a local minister came in and asked. “What’re you doing here, Arlo?” “Sweeping up,” Arlo answered. “No,” said the minister, “I mean what kind of church is this going to be?” Arlo, knowing what was on the minister’s mind, said: “The church of bring-your-own-God.”
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bronxboy55
August 5, 2010
Was he actually planning to reopen it as a church? I’ve always loved that song, by the way. They used to play it on the radio every Thanksgiving, but I was sometimes disappointed when I’d remember too late. Now, of course, I can hear it anytime I want (and so I never do).
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charlespaolino
August 6, 2010
The Trinity Church is now known as The Guthrie Center. There are a variety of programs there, described at its web site, http://www.guthriecenter.org/. We see Arlo in concert whenever we can. His entourage now includes several of his children and grandchildren, the most talented of whom are his daughter Sara Lee Irons and his son Abe. For many years, we have attended his concert at Carnegie Hall on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Sometimes it’s just the Guthries, who now fill the stage all by themselves, but his guests in the past have included Pete Seeger, the Weavers, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. There is a PBS documentary about Pete Seeger in which my wife is prominently visible in the audience at one of those concerts.
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Margaret Reyes Dempsey
February 26, 2011
As a special agent once said…I want to believe.
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bronxboy55
March 5, 2011
I recently had this discussion with my son. Do we decide to believe something? I think we can choose to open ourselves up to all of the possibilities — investigate, contemplate, listen, read — but ultimately, I don’t think I can control what I believe. I can control what I say I believe, but that’s different.
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Margaret Reyes Dempsey
March 5, 2011
I’m not sure how I feel about that. In the absence of scientific evidence and considering that you can’t prove a negative, I think you can choose to believe. Is that faith? Maybe only my inferior form of it. True faith is probably believing even when you have concrete evidence that God doesn’t exist.
What about love? Can you choose to love or is love something you feel in your heart or not? When I was younger, I had difficulty with the Christian concept of loving everyone. But I’ve come to see that love really is a choice…and it’s what you do (in support and service of others), not necessarily what you feel. I think many people have had the experience of loving someone they didn’t like very much. And then there is the love we show total strangers when we reach out to help them in their time of need.
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bronxboy55
March 5, 2011
I’m not sure either. What if you reach out to help someone you don’t love? Is that act, itself, a form of love? And does that mean it’s impossible to reach out to someone you don’t love?
Now my head hurts, Margaret. Thanks a lot.
P.S. So you think I choose to not like pumpkin pie, don’t you?
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Margaret Reyes Dempsey
March 5, 2011
😀 My head hurts, too. I guess it all depends on your definition of love. To me, there are so many different kinds of love, but at the most basic level there is love for your fellow man, even if you don’t know or particularly like the person. Don’t get me wrong–it’s not a warm, fuzzy feeling. There are plenty of people I know who have done bad things and I have no warm, fuzzy feelings for them. But if they needed me in a serious matter, I could overlook that and be there for them. I do think that is a form of love. At the same time, I am far from a pushover and I also believe very strongly in tough love when it is warranted. That sometimes means *not* helping someone in the way they have requested.
Charles, I feel like we’ve opened up that old book “The Book of Questions.” I used to love sitting around debating those questions.
About the pumpkin pie…where taste buds are involved, all logic disintegrates.
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TexasTrailerParkTrash
March 28, 2011
Thank you for this thought provoking piece, Charles. I especially liked the ant analogy. I’ve also always liked the one where we humans are like birds sitting on a telephone wire. All this information is zipping back and forth underneath our feet, but we’re oblivious to it and couldn’t access it even if we wanted to. I prefer to think of God as a power, not some old man sitting on a throne in the clouds.
And ghosts? I’ve had too many paranormal experiences to doubt their existence. I think there is very little distance between this dimension and “the other side.” (It’s kind of like the rooms in a house. When someone is in another room than we’re in, we know they’re there but we don’t necessarily see or hear them.)
As for your disliking pumpkin pie—that I’ll never understand.
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bronxboy55
April 1, 2011
I’d love to hear about your paranormal experiences, TTPT. Have you written about them on your blog?
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TexasTrailerParkTrash
April 3, 2011
We had the spirit of one of our departed dogs, a Chihuahua named Lolita, that ran around in our house at night for a year. As soon as the lights went out at bedtime, you could hear her get up from the couch, shake her ears and then go over to the door and scratch at it to go out. My husband heard her too, many times. She would get into the waste basket next to his desk and rustle around, or he would hear her come up the stairs. The activity stopped when one of our other dogs died. For awhile, we had both of them chasing each other around, but it gradually tapered off.
My daughter had a spirit in an old house they bought about ten years ago. I felt it the first time I went in the place. It mainly hung out near the ceiling at the top of the stairwell. We would smell cigarette smoke in the kids’ rooms (fresh smoke, not stale smoke leftover from a previous resident.) I knew when it was near because I would feel goosebumps all over.
One night when I was staying with the grandkids while their parents were out town, I felt “him” sit on the edge of the bed when I was trying to sleep. I was so tired from taking care of the kids, I just told him in my mind “Look, I don’t want to deal with this now, okay?” and he left me alone.
Once he loused up some digital photos I took of my grandson’s birthday, but otherwise, he wasn’t particularly negative (except for my daughter feeling him watching her in the shower!) Then, one day when I went over to my daughter’s, the atmosphere had changed. He was gone. I asked her if she had noticed that he wasn’t there anymore too. She said she’d been praying a lot that he would leave, so I guess that did the trick.
Here’s a blog post I wrote about some other ESP related stuff:
http://youcallthatart.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/i-played-poker-with-tarot-cards/
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bronxboy55
April 10, 2011
That’s great stuff. I occasionally smell cigarette smoke, too, and no one has ever smoked in this house. I always wonder if it’s a random memory, or something else.
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Rambles and Dreams
October 18, 2011
I know this post is pretty old, and I’ve never read your blog before, but I stumbled on this post and wanted to let you know I appreciated the gentle and thoughtful way you approached this subject. It’s one I’ve spent lots of thoughts on, and love getting to hear other people’s thoughts on it. I’ve come to believe in God not really because of spiritual experiences, but because, to me, the lifestyle He calls people to is more beautiful and good than any without Him. Anyways, thanks for sharing your thoughts, I enjoyed reading them!
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bronxboy55
July 30, 2012
And now your comment is almost as old. Sorry about that. Thanks for your feedback — this is a conversation that could go on forever, as long as we all keep listening to each other.
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marj
July 30, 2012
My thoughts exactly. This is splendidly written, Charles. I’ve been wondering how this subject will play with the bunch of followers you’ve got now. It’s a special post for me because I take up residence in an essentially Catholic country and was bred in a puritanical all-girl convent in high school. We were compelled to study the Bible, memorize the prayers of the saints, and attend a 45-minute mass in the school church every day. But in a religion class one day, after our teacher gave us seatwork to write an essay about the goodness of God, I found myself inscribing “If God is so good, why does He allow mankind to go through unspeakable pain, suffering and injustice?” She wrote an answer on my paper which failed to satisfy me nonetheless.
I’ve struggled with my faith all my life. I even let friends tag me along to orientations held by groups from sundry versions of Christianity. But similar to your case, nothing would stick.
I haven’t arrived at anything concrete yet, except for a few convictions such as the existence of ghosts merely being a creation of our hyperactive minds. I could say the same for life after death, and that faith in God is actually a matter of choice.
I don’t go to church anymore but I still find myself praying at night occasionally, asking for pardon and giving thanks to Him for the blessings I still enjoy in life. I wonder what that makes me.
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bronxboy55
July 30, 2012
It’s interesting that you read this old post now, Marj. I’ve been planning (and also avoiding) a new post about religious belief. I can just imagine the comments, and the energy it will require to answer them.
You must have some great stories from the all-girl convent. Have you written about them on your blog? If not, have you considered it? I’d love to read about your experiences. Isn’t it amazing how deeply ingrained some of those Catholic teachings still are?
Faith as a matter of choice is one of the topics I’m going to write about. I no longer think we choose what we believe, and that really changes the whole game, at least in my mind. But again, I don’t look forward to the emotional debate that will likely follow.
Maybe your faith in God is intact, but the rest of what you were taught feels made-up. I still consider the possibility that there’s some kind of supreme being, but I can’t imagine that anyone is capable of describing that being in any way that’s accurate. And yet, most people insist on doing just that. Your willingness to admit you don’t know something is refreshing. I prefer to think about things I don’t understand, but it tends to attract people who think they have the answers — and they usually can’t wait to enlighten me. I’d much rather share the confusion. It seems that what we don’t know can connect us, too. So thank you for being so honest and open-minded. (And if there’s a God listening to your prayers, I bet He feels the same way.)
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Kimberly Joyce
December 29, 2018
Unconditionally doesn’t always necessarily mean love!
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