Some reasons for believing in God.

[txaslftist]

I believe that there is a God. There are many reasons I believe this, and many of them stem from my upbringing and my formative years, and what I was taught as a child. For purposes of this post, I will leave those reasons aside and concentrate on why, as a liberal and a believer in non-violence, I come to the conclusion that there is a God.

The strongest evidence I have for the existence of God is the belief of others and the impact that belief had upon their lives and the lives of those around them.

Although I am a Christian by nomenclature, the first example I would choose for the existence of God is Ghandi. Ghandi was a Hindu, and accepted the existence of both God and Satan. He stated that Christ's sermon on the mount was such a beautiful statement of faith that it made him weep. He fasted and prayed daily. He was the author of nonviolent resistance and the best example of its utility, but placed all the credit for his successes in the hands of God. I know of no example of an atheist who had such a benign impact on the world, although there are many examples of spiritual men who did have such an impact. He acknowledged his sins and imperfections and prayed to God for absolution.

My second example is the Christian Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He adopted the methods of Ghandi and applied them in this country, albeit not in their Indian fullness. By his example and through the movement of which he was a great part, segregation by law was ended in the United States. He also gave all of the credit for his successes to God. He prayed daily and acknowledged that such prayer gave him insight and wisdom. He did not live a pure life, but acknowledged his imperfections and offered repentence and prayed for absolution.

Following the rule of threes, my third example is Malcolm X, a muslim. Although his methods differed from those of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi, he acknowledged the existence of God and was able to change hearts and minds for the great benefit of men. He also prayed daily and sought repentence for his sins, of which he acknowledged many.

These three great men had tremendous social and political impact, and all three acknowledged without doubt the existence and relevance of God. Although each of the three approached spirituality from different paths (Hindu, Christian, Muslim), they each came to the conclusion that there was God, that God is relevant and active, and that without God they could achieve nothing. They also all three acknowledged both the sinfulness of man and that they were themselves sinful. They each also sought to overcome their sinful natures (with varying degrees of success) and spread spirituality to others.

Examples of men who believed and were able to great things with God's help are too numerous to list. For myself, the example of Ghandi is sufficient. That this gentle, love-filled soul was able to change the most populous nation on earth at the time with the acknowleged help of God is sufficient to convince me.

Others may point to the beauty of the world, to the joy of living and to the sense of divinity that comes from holding a baby in one's arms. These things may be sufficient in and of themselves to convince others of the existence of God, and certainly they play a part in my own spirituality. There are doubtless an infinity of reasons for acknowledging the existence of God, and I am certainly not capable of listing but a few.

I certainly recognize the evils that have been inflicted on others in the name of God, as well as the evils that have been inflicted based on atheism/communism/capitalism/socialism/greed and a host of other 'faiths'. The only response that can be given to this host of evils is that men will do evil to one another, and need little in the way of justification.

Distilled to their basic sense, however, the faiths of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam share in some principles that are difficult to refute. First, that men are sinful, bathed in sin, grow in sin and are constantly tempted to sin. Secondly, that there exists a higher power with authority to expiate that sinfulness through genuine repentance and prayer. Third, that the first principle men should apply to each other is love.

Coming to faith and bringing others to faith is the highest calling of men, and all three of the religions I have referenced acknowledge that and share that goal. I do not know enough about Buddhism to state emphatically one way or another that it shares in these principles, although I suspect that it does.

Religion is not a racket, although men will make a racket of anything given a chance. The first step in coming to enlightenment by whatsoever path one chooses is an acknowledgement of the existence of God, no matter what name you give him/her. To deny the existence of a power beyond oneself seems to me to be simply error.