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God Exists, but Without My Belief
By newsguy | November 29, 2007
I believe God exists, but I don’t believe in God.
God only exists because we, as humans, believe in God. Instead of believing that the universe was created by a divine being I think that we, as humans, have created God by believing in the concept of a divine being. Without us, there would be no such thing as God.
In this sense, God is very similar to other artificial belief systems, such as ideologies or countries. For instance, the country we call the United States only exists because we, the people, believe in it. Obviously the land would be there whether we believe in it or not, but if history had gone differently, it might be called Sweden or Canada or something else entirely. The power of patriotism supports the existence of the U.S., just like the power of belief supports the existence of God. People in other parts of the world may not believe in the USA, but I’m sure they believe it exists.
Let’s not forget that God, as we know it, is a fairly recent concept. There were many other gods in the past. The Thunder God Thor and the Egyptian Sun God Ra were just as real and relevant to people in their time as God or Allah are now. However, people stopped believing in them, which caused them to disappear.
Photograph by TC. Some rights reserved.
Why did those former gods go the way of the dinosaur? After all, they served a purpose. They helped people make sense of a bewildering reality. Thunder must have been a very scary thing for the primitive people who didn’t understand what it was. To make sense of it, they came up with a god. When people came to understand what causes thunder, there was no need for a thunder god anymore. When people noticed the sun came up every day even if they didn’t perform their rituals, they became painfully aware of the lack of divinity of the G2 celestial object consisting of hydrogen, helium and trace quantities of various other elements.
Modern humanity constantly grows closer and closer to understanding the nature and origin of the universe. Because of this, the current concept of God is quickly losing relevance in our world. The ongoing conflict between science and religion is nothing more or less than the conflict between people clinging to a primitive system of beliefs that was created to make sense of the world and people who are making an active effort to move beyond those primitive beliefs and gain a true understanding of our reality.
If you hadn’t figured it out yet, I’m not a very religious person. However, I don’t have a problem with people who believe. In a sense I envy them, because they gain a sense of security in their lives which non-believers, whose feet are firmly planted in an ever-changing reality, can never fully share.
Faith is a beautiful quality to have, but when faith turns into organized religion, things often get ugly. I have a problem with bigotry, and I truly abhor how the religious right has hijacked the political system in my country. It infuriates me when religion stands in the way of scientific progress (the stem cell debate is only the most recent example) or limits people’s freedom (to get married, to choose when to have children). In so many cases organized religion has become a negative, even destructive force in our world. However, to those individuals who are able to set aside their existential doubts and anchor themselves in their faith, I say: good for you.
I have never been able to do this. I am all too aware that God is an artificial construct. Because of this, I believe God exists, but I don’t believe in God.
Submitted by Stefan Raets. Stefan is a refugee from the corporate world. When he isn’t reading or writing, he’s probably feeding or diapering his newborn son.
Topics: What do you think? |
December 11th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I do not see God as a being so much as a collective consciousness based off of energy, if that makes any sense.I do not and probably never will believe in this human looking divine being in the heavens who sits and does whatever pleases him and has the powers of superheroes. I believe in science and energies. It is so narcissistic that we created god in our image!