Rhymes with snapple...

Take a guess where I am....

Rhymes with snapple

Take a guess where I am....

The existence of God part II

When I was thinking about why I believe in God... at my very deepest point, I think it's because in some of my most jarring, painful times in life, that's where God suddenly becomes more then an intellectual abstraction to me... Where I BELIEVE he is. And where... HIM just BEING REAL makes the future (Even a future of pain) more bearable for me and even when I watch others suffer... there is a hope for them.... For me...

And call it a coping mechanism, but gimme THAT kinda coping over existential aloneness ANY day. There's often an undertone of arrogance that I've found in my embrace of the idea of profound, universal aloneness... I don't believe we are beings that are intended to be alone. And if all but one of us died, i dont think that person would be alone. often can't even prove that I'm alone in this universe... In fact, many people way more intuitive than me have said that nature even whispers to them the we indeed are very much inhabited by and surrounded by a Creator... in and around us everywhere. He's just more obvious during pain. Some of the times I've questioned God's existence is when I'm living life easy.

As I've tried to communicate with God during some of the worst times in my life, I've felt a presence ... a calm ... someone near me... someone even holding me in the pain. And THAT is more real than any philosophical abstract anyone has ever offered me for or against the existence of God.

C.S. Lewis said it this way: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

The existence of God part I

Excerpt from heading # 233 here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm#SECTION_III

“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up... Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose... But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

I believe he is for more than this argument. The deeper reason comes next.