Some of you may or may not have read the comments to today’s post. I certainly don’t want this blog to be a heated debate over whether or not God really exists, nor do I want to hash out every view of mine and debate that against what other folks believe. My true intentions here are to help those folks who are either sitting on the fence about God and want some guidance on how to hop over that fence to a relationship with Christ, or who are just lost in life and are needing some help finding true meaning in their existence. I was both of those, and I’m here for others in that same situation.

But I do want to address some of the comments and questions made by people who responded. Let’s take them one at a time, and remember folks – these are just my views on it. They’re my beliefs and perceptions, based on what I feel in my heart and soul.

1) “There is simply no proof that it wasn’t precisely how you describe it. Similarly, there is no proof that any of what you said is true, either.”

Well, let’s take Carl Sagan’s approach to it (anyone ever see the movie or read the book Contact?). Prove to me that your parents love you. Prove to me that you’re happy. Prove to me that good people exist in this world. There are lots of things that we can’t absolutely prove. We can give examples, but it’s up to the individual to believe whether it’s true. You can give me all the examples in the world of nice and wonderful things your parents did for you, but is that actual evidence or proof that they love you? That’s up to me to decide. Faith, my dear friends, is simply believing in something for which there is no proof. The actual definition from Webster’s Dictionary says that “faith” is firm belief in something for which there is no truth; complete trust. You either have faith and believe it to be true, or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.

2) “You say that God wants people to join him in Heaven. Why does he want that? What purpose do humans serve? …Wouldn’t it be better to have some idea of the aim?”

Beats me. Why do people have kids? I’ll tell you what… if you go around and ask 10 people what their parents said as the reason why they had them, folks will scratch their heads and say, “Huh??” My parents never told me why they had me. They just had me. How many times do humans do things (any number of things) just because they wanted to? There is no possible way our human minds can comprehend the reasons why God wanted to create us. I just figure that someday, we’ll find out.

3) “Next you portray God as a teacher, but you know life isn’t like that. Life gives you the test and if you survive you get the lesson. Not like being at school.”

Hmmm… to be perfectly honest, I don’t agree with that at all. Sure, life is like that! Yes, you get lessons that might come out of nowhere, but for the most part, I had many teachers. I think lots of people can say that they had friends, relatives, managers and teachers that absolutely guide us and help us to learn life’s lessons. Sometimes we might not realize it at that time, but in retrospect looking back there are definitely teachers in all of our lives.

4) “Next you portray God as a leader but isn’t God an absent leader who provides no guidance and no plan? You believe that he left a manual behind in the form of the Bible but that is no substitute for real leadership.”

God is never absent. He is always there. It’s just that many people ignore him and turn a deaf ear to him. My belief in Christ guides me in all aspects of life. I’m not just saying this as a Christian who has always believed this. I was Muslim up until my late teenage years, and then an atheist in my 20s. It’s amazing to see the difference now that I believe in God and accepted Christ. It’s like there’s a whole new guidance system in me now. There is definitely a plan – a very clear plan. It’s all in the Bible. It’s more than enough substitute for real leadership. I’ve had more than a few “leaders” in my life (bosses, managers, whatever) who were there in person yet offered a heck of a lot less guidance, love and direction than that Book. Remember, God gave us free-will. That’s the most amazing thing. No other creature or living thing on this planet has that. And it’s not just given to Christians – it’s given to everybody. If God were actually here, telling us what to do in person, then that free-will would essentially be gone. Again, it’s like the parent scenario. Would you want your mother and father right there all the time throughout your entire life? No? Why? Because you’re perfectly capable of doing it on your own. And they (hopefully) prepared you well enough to succeed.

5) “Next you portray God as a parent but what a terrible parent he is to give only the barest guidance and then abandon his children… you portray him as a very hard-hearted parent as well. A child suffering when you have the power to ease that suffering would never be ignored by a loving parent and the world has plenty of suffering in it.”

Let’s take this one in two parts. First of all, God does not just give the barest of guidance and then abandon us. If you read the Bible, he literally spends thousands of years – from the time of Adam and Eve – working with people in masses and individually to guide them and teach them. He inspired various people to write down His words into the Scriptures, which became the Bible. There are hundreds upon thousands of lessons, examples, teachings, stories and assurances in the Bible that show us what we need to do to here on Earth. Then He sent us His son… a perfect spirit from Heaven, sent down in the form of a man, to suffer and die on the cross to relieve us of our sins, so that we may still have salvation and everlasting life in the Kingdom of Heaven. And He is still here, guiding us through prayer. I pray every day, sometimes several times a day. I almost always feel a sense of peace afterwards, and almost always the answer to my questions come in some form or fashion. No, I don’t hear a big booming voice in my ear. But light bulbs go off, or opportunities present themselves.

I don’t recall that I ever portrayed God as a hard-hearted parent in my blog post. I couldn’t find where you inferred that. Yes, unfortunately children suffer in our world. A lot – A LOT – of that comes from man’s own demise. We (some) abuse our children. We (some) don’t cherish them. We (some) allowed poverty to occur over the years. Many diseases are from our environment, or genetically mutated from something. If this were an absolute perfect world with no suffering or disease, then why would we need Heaven? God is loving and always forgiving, but he is also a God who gets angry at those who defy or deny him. Can you give me an example of any parent who never got angry at their child? Who never punished them? There are many examples of famine and disease in the Bible, because people continued to deny and defy God over and over and over – after He gave them many chances. Everything that happened that was bad or caused suffering in the Bible was a result of people’s (collective people) outright defiance and scoffing. Again, take the parent analogy. If you had a teenage son who did drugs, had sex all over the house, spit on you, laughed at you, made fun of you, raped, stole, lied, cheated, etc. etc. and you tried absolutely everything you could in a nice way to help him, wouldn’t you eventually try a different tactic? In our own world, sometimes being nice just doesn’t work. Don’t forget, too, that suffering on Earth may not mean it’s for naught. Who knows why a child might die of leukemia? It’s hard, and awful. But that child is an innocent child of God who will have everlasting life in Heaven. Christ died horrifically and tragically, but he had a purpose. We simply cannot know what purpose each individual has here on Earth. Only God knows that.

6) “…a good parent will say, “If you need anything or just want to talk, then I’ll be here for you.”

No explanation needed there. I have conversations with God all the time in the form of prayer. He is always there for me. He can’t physically come out and speak to me, or show himself to me, because again (as I stated in my last post), that would completely unravel His plan to determine who has faith, and who doesn’t. If God physically showed up, then that would undoubtedly offer visible proof.

7) “However, while I say that your theory is interesting I must ask that you supply proof, supporting evidence or logical argument to support your assertions.”

Nope! Don’t have it. Can’t give it. That’s the beauty of it! The whole theme here is “Faith” – believing in something for which there is no proof. I’ll prove that to you when you can prove to me that there isn’t (or is, for that matter) life on other planets. ;0)

8) “How can you say that evolution took place when the Bible clearly says that God created man out of the dust of the Earth? …as a Christian, I have a very hard time with your opinion.”

I am absolutely NOT denying that God created man out of the dust of the Earth. Think about that statement… “the dust of the Earth.” What I’m suggesting is that perhaps God used the PROCESS of evolution to create man. Don’t forget, according to the Bible, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. (2 Peter 3:8-10) It’s quite possible that when God said that He created man on the 6th day, it could’ve been a thousand years. God created the Earth, too, but it’s possible he used the “Big Bang” theory to create Earth and our solar system. We just don’t know. I positively believe that God created man. He could’ve done it a thousand different ways. Who knows? It honestly doesn’t matter. The Bible simply states that He created man. And what we were created from. But it doesn’t specifically state how we were created. Personally, that’s not something that I really need to know.

9) “I personally believe that He performs miracles everyday… look at every newborn baby in the world.”

Sure, I agree with that. God is always working in mysterious ways with humans, and life itself is indeed a miracle. But I was actually referring to really wacky miracles to prove to masses of people that he does exist, like parting rivers or turning water into wine. That sort of thing. Those miracles from the Bible were specifically created to show groups of people that God does exist. They were “show” miracles.

10) “I need no god(s) to appreciate the wonder and beauty of nature or feel awe in it (paraphrased).”

Nope, you sure don’t. God gave you free will. If you want, you can be in awe of it. If you want, you can be repulsed by it. You can say that about all kinds of things: babies, music, the stars… whatever. Feeling awe of what’s in this world can be done by anyone.

Bottom line, folks, is that you either believe, or you don’t. It’s as simple as that. But I, along with hundreds of others in this world, have converted from disbelievers to believers. You can, too. Just stay tuned for more…