Is God Real?
Let me start off with a couple of things. First, I don’t believe in God. I think that God is something that people a long time ago made up to explain the unexplainable. Second, I am Jewish. It’s pretty ironic that even though I don’t believe in God I am extremely involved in my Jewish community and serve as the Religous and Cultural President of the Chicago area region in my Jewish Youth Group. I am an atheist but am still very Jewish if that makes sense. I think about the idea of God a lot and just wanted to write this post to share some of the topics I think about with y’all.
My first question is if there is a God then why in the world is there so much hate and evil in the world? Where was God during the Holocaust? Where was God during the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Parkland, or Orlando? If God has the power to create the world and has the power to answer our prayers then why doesn’t God just eliminate all of the bad aspects of the universe? Couldn’t we all just live in a utopia where everyone is kind, friendly, and wants to do the right thing? It’s hard for me to grapple with the idea of God when I know just how many things are not right in this world. That is why I think that if there is a God, it definitely can’t control everything and be all-powerful.
My second question is how can I believe in God when no one can prove it is real? We read a reading in class about this but I still can not wrap my head around it. I know that 2 +2 is 4 because I can visualize and see it and its a fact. God has never spoken to me or given me any signs so until it does I don’t have any reason to believe that it is real. In Judaism we read about miracles and prophets and magical occurrences so why don’t those happen now?
Lastly, what in the world does God look like? If I can’t see it or feel it or know its there than what even is God? Is our God the same God in other universes or even in other galaxies? Are there more than one God? It’s hard for me to rationalize something that seems so irrational. Yet again there are so many things in this world that are unknown to man so maybe God takes a form that is undiscovered by humans. I have no idea.
I would love to hear about your beliefs or thoughts because I know at Uni we have people who hold beliefs an all sides of the spectrum. Leave your comments below :)
It makes a lot of sense when you say you are atheist yet Jewish. Religion doesn't necessarily involve worship. There are many other aspects of religion such as the community and moral beliefs that you can be involved in. Regarding your argument of how God can exist with so much hate and atrocities in the world; the "problem of evil" is a much debated topic. Some people argue that God doesn't interfere and gives people the free will to do whatever they want, so all the hate that results is just a consequence of our free will.
ReplyDelete(THIS COMMENT IS SOOOO LONG I'M SORRY I SWEAR I'M NOT TRYING TO ACT LIKE A RELIGIOUS FANATIC.)
ReplyDeleteSo, I will not pretend to have a total understanding of any of these ideas, so don't think I'm lecturing anybody on anything (please!) but I did want to spell out my thoughts on your questions, because I've actually thought about all of them to myself before (for context, I'm Protestant).
First Question: Why does God let bad things happen? This is basically the whole predestination vs. free will thing, which is sort of a monster to understand, but this is how I've always accepted it - I think God does know that bad things will happen to people, just like He knows people will murder and they will steal and they have been ever since Adam & Eve. And yeah, I think if God chose to stop those things He could, just like if He chose to make us all mindless robots who obeyed His every command, He could. But He didn't, and at least from our human level of perception, He lets us choose what we are and who we become. I know that's shifting the blame from God to us, and that's honestly what I meant to do. That puts the burden on us to make things right, to try to improve this physical world before we pass on. I think a God who gives us the chance to fall and the chance to be redeemed is sounds way more benevolent than a God like "It" from Camasotz (in Wrinkle in Time) that simply bends everything to It's will.
Second Question: I think the whole idea of proof is very hard to understand. I get what you're saying about miracles and divine intervention only happening in long-ago stories, and how that seems like God isn't real, but on the other hand, I think a lot of people (myself included) take that very point as a source of belief. The whole idea of faith in the divine is wrapped up in the absence of proof: requiring God to prove His existence before "granting" your belief to Him isn't really faith at all - it's pretty much the opposite. There's a strong argument that the blind faith that religion is partly based on is completely invalidated by a demand for proof.
Third Question: Is God specific to our galaxy/universe/dimension? To this, all I can say is read "Gods or Spacemen?" It's a book somewhere in the UofI library that I read once that gives this really fascinating analysis of this question.
Overall, I think God is simply on a level above humans, to the point where we literally cannot comprehend anything about Him truly. I can't say if the way I see God is right or wrong, because I will never be able to truly comprehend Him, and that's okay. It doesn't discourage me or stop me from trying to discover more about Him. And finally, I think God does explain the unexplainable in His own way, just maybe not in the same way you think of it.
Growing up as an atheist with a pretty religious mom who bounced between Christianity/Buddhism/ambiguously labeled 'spirituality', I've had a lot of the same discussions with her. Basically, what she's told me re: why God lets bad things happen is that God allows free will and basically is around to love/support us, not monitor everything we do. Further, according to her God *does* do stuff similar to what you describe, we just can't comprehend it. (She's also pretty big on taking everything in the Bible as a metaphor, though she doesn't really follow the Bible anyway. Also, she meditates and talks to spirit channelers and stuff so I think she feels like she has actually interacted with that higher world.) Overall, her arguments haven't been very effective in making me religious, but I definitely think they're interesting to consider.
ReplyDeleteYour question about proof is one of the things that really gets me. I suppose the answer to that would be "you don't need physical evidence if you have faith," but I think you can really have faith in anything. Like, why would a religious text have any more power than, say, The Food Network? (Historical relevance and importance is why. Maybe we'll all be worshipping Ted Allen in five hundred years, who knows?) I think the real importance of religious texts is in the moral lessons they teach.
ReplyDeleteMy way of thinking about the existence of God is that anything could be possible and I should just have an open mind until there IS proof, if ever. For my own personal benefit, I believe in some vague intelligence behind the universe, but my world wouldn't be shaken if the existence (or lack thereof) of a god or something similar was somehow proven. It's fascinating to hear what everybody else thinks on this subject, so thanks for starting the conversation, Ethan!
Very interesting ideology you have. I appreciate your honesty, and your respectfulness in how you explain your ideas. The conversation you started is also excellent. Religion is one of those things that is typically fun to talk about, as long as nobody is forcing a belief on somebody else, and this conversation is an example of a very respectful sharing of very different ideologies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Michael that you've started a very interesting conversation here, Ethan. I have fluctuated in my beliefs over time, but the one thing I feel very powerfully is that I find any believer or community of believers who claim to know what God thinks or wants with complete certainty (and no room for metaphor or differing interpretations of scripture, for example) suspect. I respect religious faith, as long as that faith respects the right of others to believe in a different way (or even not to believe at all). It's a very personal choice for every individual, even those of us who are born into a strong faith community.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I constantly think of. I have grown up Christian my whole life so I never really started participating in a religion on my own. I would ask the same question; "if God is the all powerful why is all this suffering happening in the world"... I still haven't found a definite answer to my question and it is something I continue to think about. But religion and especially Christianity relies on faith. Faith basically just means believing in the things you can prove. I goes believing in a God gives me hope. Hope that there is something after and something worth living for (that isn't meant to be so dark lol). I enjoyed reading your blog post because it really got me thinking.
ReplyDelete