God

For some reason I decided I felt like randomly writing my thoughts on God. This could take some time...
I remember going to Sunday school and being taught that God is Love. Stuff like, "God takes care of us, He loves us, we are His creation (children), etc." Still, from a philosophical standpoint I have always found myself at odds with "Christians." Strangely enough I was raised with, and still have, a Christian slant to my beliefs. I can't, as of yet, refer to them as faith because I haven't gotten that far. What has always gotten me, though, is the lack of logic, the lack of understanding that I tend to find in those more devoted to their faith. Many people are told what to believe, and at some point, whether it be through a tragedy or some other emotional event, people decide that their faith is the truth. It helped them through somehow, gave them a sense of strength to move on. I don't necessarily believe that having a faith is required to reach the same point though, but it often seems in this manner that people find devotion.
Some say that faith is an individual thing since we are all given our own individual perceptions, but I can safely say I think that's crap. If that were true the worst "sinner" in the world could possibly be just as righteous as the most saintly, as long as it fits his or her sense of righteousness. Majority beliefs tend to win out in those debates. People, as a majority, mutually agree on some things.
I think there's only one truth. Just like in math there is one right answer and everything else, despite how close it may be, is wrong. My debates with people often involve a lot of questions the other person can't answer without using quotes from the Bible or some source that simply told them what the answer was. My problem with this is that they can't answer why I should consider any of those sources reliable. In other words, why should I believe the Bible? Why do they think their pastor's interpretation is correct? I am very open to answers if they make sense, but so far people just use "faith" as their cop-out. In my own quest for truth, I've come up with some beliefs of my own, many of which can, in fact, fit into most Christian denominations, but generally are difficult to accept due to the extended implications.
For one thing I have never really considered God a person, place or thing. In fact, God as I define it, is everything. More on that later. Basically what I'm saying is that most of the time God is personified when we speak about God. We refer to God as Him because it comes with a more respectful context than It, but the issue is we tend to then view God in our image as opposed to us in God's. Problem with this is that now we sound like we're giving ourselves credit for God's creation instead of visa versa. I'm not saying people have it wrong, but I often notice that the synonyms and analogies don't really go far enough to explain what God really is. Starting at the base of it all, one might ask if there is even a God to begin with. Well, let's first look at what we use to argue against God's existence. Science is usually where our cache of arguments lie, despite the fact that science is, in fact, self-destructive. Eventually science, as it itself explains, must come to the conclusion that something at some point was created from nothing. An event, a physical element, whatever it may be, somehow happened or was created with no trigger whatsoever. Science's whole goal is to prove that everything is finite, despite the fact that it's only solution to the existence of the universe is that it is infinite, or infinitely cycling. So, science must eventually contradict itself, thus causing it's own self-destruction. Taking that into account, let's discard the idea that science holds a challenge to the question of God's existence.
What I've realized thinking about this argument, is that proving God's existence is really just a matter of defining God. Since we technically can call God anything we want, we could automatically prove there is one. I can say God is Love, and we know love exists in one form or another, so, we've basically given enough proof. But that's not too impressive, since we obviously need a bit more than that justify having a God at all.
We credit God with our creation, with everything that exists. God is, in this case, in everything. One could thus argue that God is, in fact, everything. Okay, so that doesn't really mean much. This physical world is finite, individual lives come and go, the Earth itself supposedly has an expiration. Maybe God "flows" through everything, but if God IS everything, then basically God isn't just the physical thing - God is the concept. God is Idea. If every chair, or anything that could remotely resemble or be functionally used in the same manner, were destroyed, the idea of a chair would still exist. It doesn't require the mind of Man to keep an idea in tact. All ideas are forever there to be discovered. God is, thus, the same concept on a universal scale. God is Mind, not as a brain or consciousness, but the concept of knowledge, of cognizance. God is the concept and manifestation of Life. We then, as God's creation or reflection, represent God like our bodies represent our own spirits, which in turn are to God like drops of water are to the ocean or rays of light to the Sun. An ocean or the Sun, however, still exist regardless of whether the ray or water molecules are acknowledged. Even if we do not physically represent God (individually or otherwise), we can in consciousness or idea, a.k.a Spirit.
These are just thoughts, and I continue to develop them and consider their authenticity as I apply them to my observations and experiences.
Holy crap I just wrote a novel.
Feel free to comment.

Originally posted Wednesday, July 20, 2005