To God, or Not to God

I don’t like to pick on my regular commenters. God knows I have so few of them. But every once in a while, one writes something that I have to respond to. And sometimes, my response is good enough that I decide to make it a whole new post. Or maybe I’m just desperate for blog fodder. But whatever it is, I’m not trying to pick on anyone, so it’s not meant like that.

In the comments to my last post regarding obedience to our alien creators, I read this from a much beloved commenter regarding his belief in God:

“Now, God is far beyond our ken…”

If there is a God, then I agree with that statement. For the record, I technically consider myself agnostic and not atheist, for this very reason. Because even if there is a god of some sort, he/she/it is clearly beyond our understanding, and that’s obviously the way it’s supposed to be. And for all we know, it really could be an alien race. It could be anything. That’s why I think the default position is to believe in no god and make the best of things from that. That’s all any reasonable creator could expect from us.

So what's the point? Whether one believes in God or not, we all just do what we think we're supposed to do and imagine that whatever judgment system there is will eventually approve of us, sooner or later. So what's the point of the whole god thing? Why not just take responsibility for the actions we take and admit that we have no earthly idea of why we're here or what we're supposed to be doing? We're all just doing our best, based upon our own experiences and abilities; and that's all that could be expected of us, no matter who or what created us.

But where does a belief in a god that's beyond our understanding fit in? I just think it's an unnecessary crutch and an excuse. If there is a kind God, he doesn't require our belief or love. He just wants us to enjoy the life he created and to help others enjoy theirs. Just like any good parent. And if there is no God, that's also what we should be doing and what life is all about. Life is to be enjoyed.

The real problem is that we might have a malevolent God, in which case we're just screwed. And that describes just about everything we see in the Old Testament. A jealous god who freely uses collective punishment to ensure complete obedience for thousands of years. But I've seen too many great things in life to believe that there's a malevolent God. So I think I'm good in any case. Especially as my dad’s a Deacon in the Catholic Church, and if that’s not a “Get Out Of Hell Free” card, then I don’t know what is.

But like I said, I really don’t think we need to be worried about this stuff anyway. Whether there’s a god or not, everyone’s just going to do exactly what they’re doing, and what happens is what’s going to happen. People do what they think they’re supposed to be doing, and they’ll regret anything they need to. And if God doesn’t understand that, then he just hasn’t been paying attention.


And now that I’ve totally shaken everybody’s faith in everything…

MERRY CHRISTMAS ! ! !