A guy at my home group down the street has the following to say about God: “I call my Higher Power “It.” Well, because I ain’t ever seen “It,” I speak to “It,” but I ain’t ever heard “It” speak back, and I don’t know anybody that has. But, what I do know is that “It” works.” (It wouldn’t resonate when spoken with proper grammar anyway.) I love this description of God so much that I use it at other meetings and pass it off as a quote of my own. The reason I love it so much is because I do not hear anything factually incorrect in it, and I have never liked the absence of facts or evidence whenever God is being discussed. There are two questions I ask myself these days, and they are at war with each other: 1) Why is faith in something without evidence substantial, and 2) Why is faith in nothing better?
In addressing the first question, I understand the thought process of someone saying, “I don’t think there is a God. I know there is.” They have found something to believe in that provides them a set of morals and values that makes them a better person than they would be without it and gives them hope all the way until their eventual dirt nap. Unfortunately, it’s just not the case. They don’t really know that God exists. I don’t really know that God exists. Nobody really knows that God exists because there is zero evidence that He, “It,” or She (LOL. Could you imagine?) does. This isn’t so much a problem for the individual, but what about when it becomes a collective belief? There is this idea that “Judgment Day” is upon us. A day where God returns to the Earth to kick the shit out of the non-believers and eat some Big-League Chew…. And he’s fresh out of Big-League Chew. It is also a day in which God brings the believers with Him into Heaven while casting the others into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. Judgment Day is embraced by many, and I understand why. The ultimate goal is to one day walk with God, and for that reason, many people are super comfortable with the end of days. Again, what happens if this belief is drastically wrong? What happens if something like a plague ever hits us (Uh-oh. Getting warmer.), the world enters a state of sheer chaos, people mistake this for the Rapture, and now everyone’s life hangs in the balance due to self-fulfilling prophecy? Religious dogma putting the entire world on the brink over something that may or may not be real is a scary thought.
The common response to the second question is always, “do we really need a book to teach us the difference between right and wrong?” At some point in time, humanity realized that it had to create some type of order out of the anarchy and chaos it was living in. If we take the Bible as absolute truth, this means that Adam and Eve were the first two humans to exist and that the principles that God wanted us to live by have been known since that time. Yet, murder, rape, slavery, etc., seemingly ran rampant anyhow, and those evils still occur even today. You could argue that these acts of evil in 2020 aren’t done by any real Child of God, but it is hard to ignore the numerous atrocities committed in the name of all religions throughout history and today. Certainly, it does not appear that Holy Books have prevented any evil, whether it be then or now. At least not from the standpoint of the collective. What about the individual? What happens when the individual abandons faith? I suppose I can share a personal anecdote on that account. For a long period of time, I rejected religion as a whole and the Christian God in particular. This idea that God and Satan were real entities was causing me more insanity than sanity. To hell with it (no pun), I said. Why would I want to believe in a God who will send me to burn for eternity just for not believing in something that He provided no evidence for anyway!? “Fuck ‘em! Don’t need ‘em anyhow.” The experiment of believing in nothing was underway. This experiment resulted in me acting in the most self-centered, self-seeking, inconsiderate, narcissistic, thoughtless way I possibly could for the next decade. In turn, this belief in nothing brought me to a place that you could call “my own personal Hell.”
What we are seeing in America now is exactly that. We are seeing individuals who believe in absolutely nothing run roughshod with loud opinions that have no morals, values, or spiritual principles behind them. They might tell you that they believe in something, but as the great Jordan Peterson said, “We only learn about ourselves by watching how we act.” Nobody who truly believes in all of these good things, whether it is anti-racism, anti-bullying, equality for all, anti-fascism, the list goes on, acts the way that we have seen these people act. Also, nobody who says they still do believe in God would ever act the way we have seen some of those people act. God has been abandoned by the American individual, and we are seeing a direct result of what comes when belief is abandoned. How did this happen? People had nobody to point to and say, “those are the people that I should be living my life like.” Christians, even on-the-cusp Christians like myself, need to bear this blame and shoulder this responsibility. We are supposed to set an example, and we have failed. All you have to do is take a look at my social media, particularly my Twitter feed. I BURY people with whom I disagree. Instead of trying to understand, I call people names, and I judge others before they even utter a word to me. Earlier this year, you could have found me passed out drunk on the floor, failing my relationship at the time miserably, making fun of people, lying, cheating, and stealing. The list could be increased “ad infinitum,” as they say in the literature that alcoholics are so inclined to read. Still, I want to tell the entire world how to think, how to vote, why they are wrong, and why I am right. Not very Christ-like, is it?
With all that said, big game tonight, eh boys? Big fuckin’ two points on the line here, boys. Actually, we got big games all week, it seems. It almost appears that the fabric of American existence hangs in peril. When people discuss the candidate of their choice, it’s almost as if they see no defects in them. Either that or they don’t care to admit them. To me, that sounds like idolization. I am guilty of that, and for that reason alone, I am going to miss the “big games.” There is only one that deserves to be idolized, and that one is God. No, I don’t necessarily mean God in the classic religious sense. As I’ve mentioned earlier, God may not even exist, and I understand that. What I mean is that now, more than ever, we desperately need to take an individual walk with God, whatever or whoever that is to us. You might ask what the alternative is, and as far as I can tell, we have been living out the alternative. Look where it has gotten us. Yes, there is no evidence that God exists, but there is no evidence that He does not either. It would behoove us to at least play pretend. Or, I guess you can enjoy that hot ass lake.
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