Other Nonsense

As long as I've been alive, my religion has been that of my parents and my parents religion says that God exists. Thus, for a long, long, long, long time, I was pretty sure that I "believed" in God but I didn't really believe it. (I was a skeptic). I "believed" in God because of my religion but I didn't actually believe that there existed some higher power or being or what have you that may or may not have created the universe, may or may not be merciful, may or may not decide when and who dies, may or may not judge your life at it's end, and may or may not have created heaven.
Problem is, I'm a tad too logically oriented.
Recently, I came back to this idea however, and I have a few related questions to answer:

• What is God?
• How is God
• What does God do?
• What is in God's power?
• Why do people believe in God?
• Should I believe in God?
• Should you believe in God?
• Should humankind believe in God?

So many questions but where to begin?

What is God?

In general, a human creation. Most religions say that God is a supreme and all powerful being. God may or may not:

• Have created the universe
• Have created the earth
• Have created humankind
• Be merciful
• Be kind
• Be understanding
• Be watching us all
• Decide our fate
• Decide who dies and when and how
• Judge everyone's life after death
• Have created/Run/Decide who gets into heaven/hell/ect. in the afterlife

How is God?

We don't really know. Maybe he's mad at the human race and is punishing us. Maybe he's watching us but can't influence anything. Maybe he's watching and can influence things but doesn't. And then maybe this is how it all began:
One winter day God was walking around his carpeted (come on, he's God, he definitely has whole house carpeting) house in socks. He ordered himself a pizza because he didn't want to cook and when he reached for the door knob, there was a discharge of static electricity (In other words, the Big Bang). And while God was eating breakfast, the universe was expanding with negative energy and creating all of the atoms we see today. Maybe he's not watching and can influence us or maybe he can't influence anything. Maybe God is just some nerdy college student who started a power Artificial Intelligence Simulation on a really, really powerful computer. What then I ask?

What does God do?

Well, see above. God is either watching us or not and is either able to influence us/events or not. Also, God may or may not be aware of our existence (assuming his existence is not dependent on humans believing he exists) and may or may not want to intervene in our lives.

What is in God's power?

Again, see above. God may or may not be able to influence worldly events. If he can influence the world, then we call the occasions when he influences the world miracles. Some people claim that miracles occur.

Why do people believe in God?

This is probably where the important part begins. Why do people believe in God?

For Morals

One can justify belief in God by saying that believing in him gives one morals. This usually assumes that God exists, is watching the world or is aware of events, judges humans, and some action is based on his judgement. For some, this means heaven and hell exist and God judges who goes where based on how you have lived your life. This implies that there exists absolute good and absolute evil. Good and evil are arguably solely human inventions. Not only that, but believing in God for morals implies that God does not actually exists but only exists in your mind. Thus by supposing God exists to give you morals, you are simply asserting that you will judge your actions based on a what is good and what is evil. The problem with this is that the person who believes in God for morals is the one who is defining what good and evil mean. It's a tautology!!!

For the Afterlife

"When you major in English, you major in death." This is what my Introduction to Literature professor told us on the first day of class. He said that all of literature is about humans trying to deal with death. But not all literature has to do with death. Essentially, literature's and religion's existence is for the purpose of answering life's tough questions. One of these is "What happens when we die?"

You know what happens? I don't. In fact, no one does and that's why people believe. One can believe in heaven, hell, something in between, afterlife, or even reincarnation. But again, without any sort of proof, all of these concepts are by definition human-made and their existence or non-existence is barely a valid question.

Should I/you/people believe in God?

I have no idea. So far, I only see that God is clearly a human creation and if you suppose that God exists because humans thought of him then you decide for yourself if you want to believe in God or not b/c his existence is a question that cannot be answered. The thing is, God is conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are generally annoying because they are also tautologies (meaning that they involve circular logic like: This rock is heavy because I can feel it's weight in my hand and I can feel this rock's weight in my hand because it is heavy). Conspiracy theories like "The world will run out of oil in 5 to 10 year," can neither be proven or disproved because the only people that know how much oil is left (the oil companies) are bound to secrecy by obscenely high profit margins. In the same way I feel that God is conspiracy theory; his existence can neither be proven nor disproved. Thus, since the word and concept "God" are human creations, I think God only exists because of humans and thus, is merely a figment of the collective human mind's way of coping with death, justice, and luck.

So does God exist?

Yes, in the human psyche.

My thoughts on death, justice, and luck are a topic for another time.