My parents did not take my brother and me to church until I was 8.  Before that, my mother read us Bible stories at bedtime.  My first idea of God was the guy in the Old Testament who runs everything.  My parents never talked about God, so I didn’t know if the guy existed.  Like King Arthur or the Lone Ranger, he was in a book.  Maybe he existed, and maybe not. 

In college, I learned about different concepts of God.  (1) God created the world and continues to run it (fundamentalist). (2) God made the world, but now he has left people to solve their own problems (God is dead.)  (3) God didn’t create man, Man created God (Pantheist).  (4) God never existed.  Let’s quit talking about him. (Atheist)

I never liked any of these.  The one I liked best was the God played by George Burns in the movie “Oh, God”.  He created the world, but he has better things to do than meddle in human events.  Still, every once in a while, he shows up and coaches somebody like John Denver.

I never really believed the old testament stories were literally true.  I knew most stories, like King Arthur and Sherlock Holmes, were made up by authors. I never believed God would answer a prayer or do anything that would affect human events.  But, I never liked Atheists.

When I learned that Einstein said “God doesn’t play dice.” … that resonated with me.  I always had a problem with people who went around saying that man arose from Evolution which is a random process.  Therefore, there is no purpose to a man’s life.  I always liked people who had faith.  I always liked people who would consult their faith (or beliefs) during a crisis, because I always thought people with faith performed better than people who didn’t have faith.

I was unwilling to believe things that seemed like supernatural hokum … things that either were patently false, or very unlikely.  Of course, as I got older, more and more things that had seemed believable when I was younger moved into the “very unlikely” category.

At some point, I decided to believe in something like George Burn’s or Einstein’s God.  This goes beyond merely believing that “Man created God”.  I think God is Einstein’s name for a force that represents the mysteries of existence.  I feel like the Big Bang argues for the existence of some kind of creation, and against random factors.  That’s about it.

Finally, I think everyone needs to understand that there is still plenty of stuff that even the smartest guys today do not know.  I think God is a way of showing respect for all the mysteries, the ones we may someday understand, plus the ones we will never understand.

Categories: Commentary, Philosophy