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This was a hard article for me to write. I believe in God. I can
tell you that much with no problem. But explaining why I believe in
God gets difficult. It's like trying to explain why I'm attracted to
men--I can't explain why, I just am. Likewise, I can't really
explain why I believe in God, I just do. There's something in us and outside of us that begs us to believe. Something pulling us towards belief. And I don't know what that something is. But there are things that attest to the existence of God. The world around us, in all it's beauty and splendor attests to a creator. But even stronger than the beauty we see outwardly, there is an interconnectedness felt within nature--something connecting all of humanity, connecting all of nature, and connecting all of the supernatural. Emotions, compassion, empathy--all of it works to connect us together, and that connection is divine. Something is working to keep that connection alive. There's a power that keeps us connected. I believe that power is God. I don't much about this God. I don't know if God is a physical being or a concept that defies our understanding. I don't know if God communicates with man in ways man can understand. But I believe there is a God. So I'm a theist for the simple fact that I believe in God. Yet I'm probably agnostic since I don't claim to have knowledge of this God. In the past I was gnostic, or more specifically Christian. I claimed to know God, and even to have a relationship with God. But that faith died. I don't know where my faith in Christiandom ended, but I can look back and see the signs. Most of them point to the Bible--the religious book of Christianity. We all have different understandings of God. The writers of the Bible had an understanding of God that I could not accept. They believed in a paradoxical God of wrath and vengeance as well as love and grace. They believed in a male God. They believe in a God who commanded his followers to kill other nations. I don't believe God picks sides and so I don't believe God would choose to destroy any people group. I don't believe in a God who would kill his creation. I don't believe in a sexist God, a racist God, a homophobic God, or an ethnocentric God. I believe God must be loving, or else God would have had no desire to be a part of our environment. You create something to take joy in it. Killing it ends your joy prematurely, even if you believe you'll take joy in its destruction. I believe God plays no part in interfering with the choices that indivuals make. If God forces an individual to make a choice they don't want to make, then that person is no longer an individual, but rather simply an extension of your arm. God can not create and/or work with a humanity that makes it's own choices and then go and take the ability to make choices away. If God revokes your ability to make a choice, God has revoked his purpose for existence. But you know, I could be wrong about anything. I don't really know. It's all speculation. All I know is that something within me causes me to believe. And so I believe.
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