About God - Part 1

So, perhaps you though that I would create a blog, cut and paste a few old writings and then forget about it. Nope. I have been working and thinking and drafting some bloggish stuff.

My first blog just for the sake of blogging is going to address the question that my children asked me last November in a little greater detail, that is, "What do you think of God?"

As I started drafting my answer, things got very complex. I visited Heather’s youth minister with Heather and Sue and spent a couple hours discussing various topics, the main one being our Easter discussion about "Who will be saved?" The pastor recommended that I read some of Lee Strobel’s books as he was a lawyer who set out to disprove Christian beliefs and instead became a believer. I am part way into "The Case for Faith." However, along the way I am researching material on the Internet about various aspects of his arguments, so the going is slow. Not surprisingly there are libraries full of stuff about God on the Internet.

Anyone who know me well, knows that I will question anything and everything. Sometimes we accept things in our lives without question and that is okay. Sometimes it will just occur to me to question those things, even everyday things, and I will need to know why they are as they are. Often it can just be the use of a word or phrase. One of my favorite examples was not a question by me, but by my niece, Christine, when she was about 8 years old. After searching unsuccessfully for some desired object, she said that she had looked in every nook and cranny in her house. She then looked at me and asked: "Uncle Eddie, what’s a cranny?" We have all used the phrase "nook and cranny" but until then I never realized that I did not know what a cranny was.

The point is that in trying to describe what I think about God, I have to ask, and try to answer, some seemingly simple questions that are really quite complex. I also have to question things that most people, especially Christian believers, accept without any or much question.

To start off, I need to make a general outline of the issues that I have had to answer or for which I am still looking for an answer:

1. Who or What is God?
2. Does God Exist?
3. What is God like?
4. How Can I Know God?
5. What Does God Expect From Me?
6. What Will God Do With Me When I Die?
   

The subtopics are these:

1. Who or What is God?
2. Does God Exist?
   A. What does "Exist" mean?
   B. God can’t exist because:
   1. Evil exists
   2. Science has proven creationism is wrong
3. What is God like?
   A. What is the Trinity?
   B. Who was Jesus Christ?
4. How Can I Know God?
   A. Through Faith: What is "Faith?"
   B. Through the Bible: What is the Bible, why should I believe what is written there?
   C. Through experience.
5. What Does God Expect From Me?
   A. Prayer?
   B. Fear?
   C. Adulation?
   D. Thanks?
6. What Will God Do With Me When I Die?
   A. What is Heaven?
   B. Who will join me?

Here are some quotes which I will incorporate into my discussion later:

What or who is God?

"God is that than which no greater can be conceived."

Göd is a small town in Pest County, Budapest metropolitan area, Hungary.

God is "The supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions." http://www.wordnetweb.princeton.edu/

Does God exist?

Anselm: A God that exists is greater than a God that does not exist. Therefore God must exist.

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot;
or he can, but does not want to;
or he cannot and does not want to.
If he wants to but cannot, he is impotent.
If he can, and does not want to, he is wicked.
But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil,
then how comes evil in the world?" - Epicurus

What is God like?

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."? Genesis 1:27

How can we know God?

"Faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason." -George H. Smith

What is Heaven like?

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him" (I Corinthians 2:9).

How can we know God?

"Faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason." -George H. Smith

Who else will be in heaven?

"No one comes to the Father if not through me." John 14:6 (I don’t believe this)

On the Bible’s trustworthiness:

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Inconsistencies_in_the_Bible

On Prayer:

"When I was back there in seminary school
There was a person there
Who put forth the proposition
That you can petition the Lord with prayer.
Petition the Lord with prayer.
Petition the Lord with prayer?
You cannot petition the Lord with prayer." Jim Morrison, The Doors

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are:
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets,
that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do:
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them:
for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

Matthew 6:5-8. (Perhaps my favorite Biblical passage).

If you got this far, I’ll bet you’re sorry you asked.