What’s Missing

I’d like to know why the Culture has made me feel bad for believing in God?

Maybe it’s because we’ve had so many assholes talking at us about God, when in reality they were using God to make themselves gods on earth. -see most televangelists circa 1980 to 2000

And then there’s organizations like the Catholic Church who purposely hid evidence that people in their organization were breaking the law and God’s laws by molesting children. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Catholic hater, but I think that many times throughout history, the Catholic Church has been more concerned with the organization, comprised of its priests and bishops, than with the spiritual well-being of it’s members. And don’t even get me started on infallibility…

There’s also the Church of Atheism, headed by its twin popes of Dawkins and Hitchens. Those guys can be as dogmatic as the popes of the Catholic Church.

All I know is that when I see the sunrise or when a particularly beautiful day seems to elevate everything I see and hear and touch and taste and feel emotionally, I know that there is a God. When I see thousands die in natural disasters and there are women crying in the streets over their dead children, I know that there is a God. I know that there is something greater and more beautiful and terrible than I can imagine. And this is the failing of most religion; God may love us, but he has a difficult and sometimes horrible job to do. That job is supporting the universe, and to do that, people have to die as well as be born. People have to be allowed to be evil to each other so that we can be greater than we are and learn what is good.

You see, I don’t think God looks after each one of us like a little child, at least physically. God is as the mountains and the oceans are. He does not make it possible for your country to win wars or for you to win the lottery or for your favorite sports team to win the championship.

God gives life and takes it away. He produces beauty, but allows horror. God is life, and in between the terrible parts, God is love.