My Case for God

I don’t know if there is a god, but I’m inclined to believe in one and I’ll tell you why.

First, let me say that I realize none of what I’m about to say is concrete proof of God’s existence. I don’t think there IS any concrete proof on either side; hence my skepticism toward both. I’m merely going to present some things that SUGGEST to me the likelihood that there is, in fact, a god.

The first and foremost evidence I see is the sheer number of people who’ve ever lived and died throughout the course of human history who HAVE believed in a god. I’m sure you’re familiar with the age-old expression that “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”. Literally trillions of people have believed in God since cavemen painted on walls about one. That’s a LOT of smoke for atheists to being saying there’s no fire. That’s a lot of people believing in an idea for atheists to say there’s NO truth to it. Now, of course, one could point out that the vast majority of believers who’ve lived and died came from more scientifically ignorant times, and that’s true, but the scientific revolution has NOT stamped out the idea of a God. Besides, as I’ll explain later, I don’t believe the idea of a God is unscientific. It just seems statistically unlikely to say that every last person who’s ever lived and died who believed in a god were all 100% wrong. Really? All of them? To my mind, it takes some pretty big balls to say you know better than that many people. Not all of those people we ignorant common folk. More than a few of them were quite well educated. Many have been more educated than you or I.

Then there’s the people who claim to have had direct contact with God or at least an angel. Whether they claim they heard God’s voice or that they’ve died and met God personally, again, I have trouble believing that every last one of those millions of people were either lying, crazy, full of shit, or mistaken. Same goes for people who claim to have seen or been haunted by ghosts. Again, too many people have made such claims for me to believe that every last one of them is full of crap. It just seems statistically implausible.

As I said before, I don’t see the idea of a God as being unscientific, even by today’s standards. The God I believe in is the kind who set the universe in motion but doesn’t typically get involved with it since then. I think the absence of God’s fingerprints on the world is by design so we could have the choice to believe in him or not. I believe in evolution and the Big Bang and pretty much side with science in most disputes it gets into with religion. I think that for all PRACTICAL purposes, God DOESN’T exist. He’s not around in any OBVIOUS way and he’s far from reliable as far as helping anyone with anything. 

Another reason I'm inclined to believe in a God is because I think the separation between science and spirituality is an illusion.  It goes along the lines of Clarke's maxim that "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."  I think what we call "spirituality" is probably perfectly scientific phenomena, just not according to the science we have NOW.  I think one day we'll understand that consciousness CAN exist outside of the body and "God" is just a being of intelligence beyond our current understanding.  At some point, we're going to have to change our ideas about what God and Science are and their relationship to one another.

There’s also miracles to consider. I DO believe that miracles happen. I’ve heard too many stories of people being spontaneously cured of a terminal disease or surviving an accident that definitely should have killed them to say that they were all just very lucky. I know, I know; I said earlier that I don’t think God really gets involved in the day-to-day upkeep of the universe, and this is a bit of a grey area that even I’m not certain about. This is, perhaps, a subject for another day, but basically my theory is that we all have an individual plans or goals for our lives before we’re even born and maybe God sends an angel around to help us out if we deviate too far from the plan or to help us achieve our goals. All I know is that miracles DO happen. Why they happen to some and not others, God only knows.

Anyway, I don’t think it matters whether we believe in God or don’t. The God I believe in doesn’t get upset if we don’t praise or even acknowledge him. Just be nice to each other and try not to piss anyone off.