This might sound like an odd question or a even question with an obvious answer, but I don’t think it is either.  If someone, me or anyone else for that matter, claims to have a belief in a god or gods or whatever, it would seem that the obvious question would be “why?”  And this is even more obvious that there should be a “why” if your belief in god(s) would cause you to think or act differently(meaning differently from how you previously thought or acted).

Decisions or Choices

When we do something, anything, there is always a reason why we did what we did.  It might not seem obvious, and some of us do things without consciously thinking about it, never realizing that there actually is a reason why we did what we did.  For example, when you grab a bowl of cereal in the morning for breakfast, if I were to ask you why you chose to eat that, you might say that you didn’t really think about it, but you did.  You probably didn’t put a lot of deep thought into it, but you did think about it, possibly the day before or even when you were shopping and bought the cereal in the first place.  We do not just take random actions throughout the course of our lives.  They are deliberate decisions, even if we only think about them for an instant and then dismiss the thought, as it was so trivial.

No God For Me

Our thoughts about god(s) are foundationally important to how we think about other things.  For example, if someone does not believe that any god exists(a.k.a. an atheist), they will then by necessity need to find a source of direction.  That could be another person or a government or it could be themselves.  For most people, I suspect that the answer is themselves.  This is a great answer, from the individual’s perspective, because that means that they determine what they will do.  They determine what is “right” and what is “wrong,” or even if there is a “right” or a “wrong.”  Nobody can tell them what to do!  Of course, someone else might try to tell them what to do, and then the individual will need to determine if they want to follow that other person.  If the other person is larger and threatening, the individual might decide to acquiesce(i.e. to give in to avoid physical harm).  If the other is the government, and there could be penalties that are “not worth it,” the individual might cede his personal autonomy.  There could be a variety of reasons that someone might concede their will to another, and these too would be reasoned responses, not just flippant, unthinking actions.

My God

But what about if someone does think/believe that god(s) exists.  This would have an effect on how that person lives their life.  Of course, that would then depend on what this god said should be done.  If someone creates a god in their own mind and then ascribes to that god certain traits, beliefs, requirements, etc., that will then dictate how the individual responds.  For example, if someone believes in a god who thinks that you should be nice, that person will likely try to be nice, however they are defining “nice” or their god’s requirement for niceness.

The Choice Is Yours

This all might sound a little philosophical, in part because it is, but it really comes down to how a person thinks.  And if they wish to, they can think however they like.  One person can chose to believe that god(s) does not exist.  Another can believe there is only one god.  Another can believe there are a variety of gods.  Yet another can believe that god is unique to each individual, a separate god for everyone.  There are also variations within some of these ideas as well.  The possibilities are almost limitless.  But in the end, each of us chooses something, and whether that choice is well-reasoned or hastily made, it is a decision that is made.

Factors That Can Affect Your Choice

There are a variety of factors that can impact your choice regarding belief in or about god(s).  Family can be a major factor.  Throughout most of human history, religion was almost like family.  You were “born into it.”  Whatever your family believed, you believed.  And that belief would usually not change as you aged.   You would then pass those beliefs to your children, and so on.   Government can have an impact.  If you live in a country that bans all religion, most people will likely go along with that.  Why bring extra trouble in your life over something so trivial(in the minds of many people).  Your own life experiences can have an impact on your belief in god(s).  The list goes on, but the most important point to realize is that none of these factors should be a determining factor in a person’s choice.  After all, your choice about god(s) is going to impact other choices you make in life.  And allowing others to impact your choice gives them incredible power over you and how you will go about your life.   I am not suggesting that you should ignore outside factors, but rather that you should listen to what others have to say, but in the end you should make up your own mind.  After all, it is your life.

My Choice

Finally, we get to my choice.  I won’t even begin to try to enumerate all the different belief systems regarding god(s).  There are a variety of “major” religions, like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.  And within each of these there are a variety of variations.  It boggles the mind how many different options there are at the religious smorgasbord.  As someone who has studied these, and others, I can understand how someone can get overwhelmed and just give up.  And what if there is only one correct answer, and all the other responses are wrong?  That makes the decision-making process all the more stressful.  But let’s do it anyway.

Starting Here – God – Yes or No?

The best place to start is to ask if you think that god(s) exists.  If the answer is “no,” this whole process gets pared down in the extreme.  I have friends in the past who were atheists.  And their reasons for being atheists just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  I had a friend in college who was an atheist because the people in the church he had belonged to were hypocrites.  Giving up on the existence of god(s) because some people are hypocrites would be like giving up on western medicine because your doctor commitment malpractice.  One person’s failure does not mean the entire profession is corrupt or wrong.  I am not suggesting that the church he was a part of was teaching what is right, but my friend appeared to be putting his faith in other people in the congregation instead of putting his faith in god(s).

One of the most obvious starting points for me has to be ,“How did all this happen?”  Me.  You. The sun.  The Earth.  Planets.   Stars.  All of it.  It exists, so it came from somewhere.  So either someone(s) created it(whoever that might be), or it just always has been in existence.  The idea that everything just has always existed seems ludicrous to me.  The second law of thermodynamics is centered around the concept of entropy.  Entropy basically states that over the course of time, things get worse.  All you have to do is look at your own life and you will see this.  Your car, your house, your body, they all get worse with age(if not altered by outside forces).  You can keep your car going, but you have to maintain it.  If no one maintains the universe, it won’t get better; it won’t even maintain, it will only get worse.  If that is the case, how can life, including people, have evolved and gotten better?  And what about life itself, in any form?  Entropy would mean that life would not come from non-life.  Things do not spontaneously come into existence.  A house doesn’t just happen, it has to be built.  All of this leads me to believe that something or someone created everything.  It just seems impossible that this all could have just happened, especially the way modern science believes that it did.  An atheist once told me that the only thing more ridiculous than the big bang theory and evolution was that some god existed!  He had no clue as to how all of this got here, but he was convinced that it wasn’t a god or the big bang/evolution.

Onward and Upward?

Once I rule out atheism, I come to the reasoned conclusion that there must be a god(s) or someone who made everything.  And although I have ruled out atheism, my list of possible choices does not appear to be significantly diminished.  This is where it actually gets difficult.

Paring Down My Choices

Since this topic could be a book, or even a series of books, I am trying to condense as much as I can.  One way to eliminate a lot of possible choices comes from the fact that many religions have gods who seem to be just like people, and not very good people.  Many gods in many religions seem to be little more than over-sexed teenagers, or maybe co-eds on spring break.  And if you are trying to convince me that there is a god who made everything, that depiction of a god seems more like something a person would make up.  Here are some gods throughout human history who are less than appealing:  Molech(he wanted you to sacrifice your children by burning them alive; Dionysus(Greek god of wine and fertility – this sounds a lot like a college frat boys dream god!); Loviatar(a Finnish goddess death, pain and misery – because why?); and the list can go on.  Many religious belief systems throughout time have had gods similar to these.  And if your god is just a super-powered bad person, that just sounds like something some person made up.

I will also remove all those religions that effectively state that I am god(or more specifically, I am part of what makes up god).  Clearly, someone made that up because who wouldn’t want to be a god?  Right?  And what about “natural” religions, those religioons that effectively worship the sun, moon, earth, etc.  For those, how did all of this happen(creation)?   Worshipping the earth, a lifeless rock with things growing on it seems ridiculous.  The moon is a lifeless rock with nothing growing on it.  The sun is a big ball of hydrogen atoms that are being compressed and super-heated to convert them to helium atoms.  Worship a ball of gas?  Really?

To this point, a whole lot of religious belief systems have been discarded.  The remaining choices are now much smaller.  The remaining choices include things like Islam, Judaism and Christianity.  All three are actually inter-related.  Judaism is the oldest, having existed for about 3,500 years.  Christianity is about 2.000 years old.  And Islam is about 1,400 years old.  All three look back to one person in particular that they hold to be very important:  Abraham, who lived 450 years before Judaism began.  All three religions seem to teach some good things; and all three have had some very checkered pasts(or at least adherents).   Of course, the fact that someone professing to believe any idea doing something terrible does not mean that the idea should be dismissed out of hand.  If so, then no religion could be correct.

Christianity almost seems to piggy-back Judaism, in a very basic sense, whereas, Islam appears to sidestep Judaism and go back to Abraham.  All three claim to worship the same god, albeit somewhat differently.  They actually agree on some things, but differ on other subjects.  Each also has divisions within their own faith:  Islam has Sunnis, Shiites, etc.; Judaism has Reformed, Conservative, Orthodox, etc.; Christianity has a multitude of denominations like Catholics as well as a variety of Protestant groups(who left the Catholic Church).  But how to choose?

Narrowing Down Even More

Judaism is waiting for a messiah(leader/king).  Christianity believes that the messiah was Jesus.  Islam isn’t looking for a messiah.  They believe that Jesus was a great teacher and prophet, but not an intended messiah, and certainly not the Son of God, as Christianity professes(or at least most groups who claim Christianity, or claim to follow the God of the Bible).  Christianity also uses the same texts that Judaism uses(called the Old Testament by Christians), but includes others(the New Testament).  Islam does not use the texts of Judaism or Christianity; they use the Quaran, which was written by Mohammed, their prophet.

The entirety of Islam appears to come through one person, Mohammed.    The Jewish law, called the Law of Moses, came through one man, Moses, but it was confirmed by numerous prophets over the course of the next 1,000 years.  Christianity comes through one person, Jesus of Nazareth, who lived in the first century AD.  Unlike Moses and Mohammed, Jesus never wrote anything.  He taught, and others wrote about what he did and taught.  Jesus was also the Messiah(or Christ or Anointed One) the Jews were waiting for, and had been waiting for, for over a thousand years.

Additional Reasons For Christianity

Christianity has had such a tremendous impact on cultures for millennia.  The years are based on BC(before Christ) and AD(Anno Domini – the year of our Lord).  There was so much persecution of the early church, especially that first 100 years, where people were dying because of their faith.  And although it is true that people from all types of faiths die for their faith, most do so with no first-hand knowledge.  Many of the people who died in the first century, like the 12 apostles, knew Jesus personally.  If it was all a farce, they could have avoided gruesome and painful deaths if they knew Jesus wasn’t really Who they claimed He was.

The Biblical account of creation, which many find laughable, even a lot of people who claim to believe in Christianity, appears to be so ordered and thought out, as opposed to the sheer randomness of evolution

Christianity’s “adoption,” if you will, of so much of the Jewish faith, quite literally relying on it completely to get to Jesus, helps to provide a “from the beginning” to the present kind of explanation. 

Even the Bible’s depiction of heaven seems to make more sense.  Although it is described in physical terms, because that is all we can understand, those physical terms are symbolic of the spiritual.  It is not that there is a literal street of gold.  But to describe the street you walk on as being made out of gold helps people to understand how wonderful it must be.  In Revelation 22, it seems like the most important thing about heaven is that God is there.  If a person were trying to tell you how wonderful heaven would be, he would likely tell you about the kind of things he would want to be in heaven.  God might not even make that list!

Arguments Against Christianity

There are a lot of arguments against Christianity.  I mean, just look at how fractured it is.  There are countless groups out there claiming to be Christians, yet they disagree with so many other groups.  Nobody can seem to agree on what the Bible actually teaches.  With this being so, how could God allow people to do this to His plan?  But it is important to remember that people are people and they make their own choices.  This means that they can make good choices and they can make bad choices.  They can be selfish, self-centered, intentionally blind, hateful, the list goes on.  And some people are genuinely not understanding the Bible, for a variety of reasons.

The End – Mercifully

I could go on for a lot longer on a variety of topics raised above, but eventually this has to come to an end.  And in the end, each of us has to make a decision about what we will believe, and what we refuse to believe, or accept.  My hope is that you will take the time to look into this incredibly important subject.  Don’t just believe what someone says for no good reason.  Look into it yourself.  Question everything.  Find God.  He wants you to.