Where is God?: Where is God?

Monday, August 21, 2006

Where is God?

Let me preface this by saying that I am neither an atheist nor a Christian, and the questions and comments are not all originally mine.

I am somewhat confused about religion. I fully admit that I do not know much about it (indeed this is an attempt to find out), but what I do know makes it difficult for me to understand how people can be believers. So I ask one big question – how do you know that you’re right? Here are some questions/problems I have about Christianity:

1. The Bible: many take the bible to be the word of God – most of the religious beliefs and practises are based on it. However, changes (accidental and deliberate) to the bible over the last 2000 years mean that less than half of the words now there are the original ones. So is God changing the bible to fit the times? That’s the only explanation I see, but we have stumbled across a problem. Not only do we have hundreds of different versions of the bible, but we have also become so good at copying it that we don’t make ‘mistakes’ anymore. So how will God modify it?

2. Selflessness: from what I understand, one of the most important things about living a Christian life is being ‘good’, and that often means being selfless. So doing things only because you benefit from them is a sin. But why are people ‘good’? To go to heaven. Ask any Christian why they follow God’s word and the answer is so that they can go to heaven. Isn’t this the same thing as saying ‘I’m only good because I get a reward’? Sounds a little bit selfish to me… Those of you thinking that you are not ‘good’ for selfish reasons answer me this: would you still be ‘good’ if doing so sent you to hell?

3. Different interpretations: everybody interprets the bible differently. Is this ok? Christians with the same fundamental beliefs live their lives in very different ways. Not all believe that premarital sex is wrong, not all believe that being homosexual is wrong, some think that you should go to church every day etc… So where is the line? Are there some basic beliefs that if you hold, you will go to heaven, as long as you’re ‘good’? Come to that, is it enough to just be ‘good’? Are these the basic beliefs:
a. God exists
b. Jesus was the son of God
c. He saved us
d. We should be nice people
If they are, what was the big deal about the Da Vinci Code? Surely it’s anyone’s right to believe that as much as the bible – the evidence for both is about the same anyway. And they are upholding the basic beliefs.

4. Lack of miracles: miracles were the evidence that Jesus provided to show he was the son of God. A miracle, by definition, is something occurring that should be impossible (not unlikely). So when was the last miracle? Has one ever happened to you? Was it what made you a believer? A disease being cured doesn’t count – that is merely unlikely, and just as many people have died even though people were praying for them. However, something like an amputee’s leg growing back – that works.

5. Talking to God: many believers say that they believe in God because he talks to them. If someone says that they hear voices telling them what to do, we usually send them to an asylum. How do you know you are different to them? Secondly, why is it that God hasn’t spoken to billions of people, including me? This seems a little unfair considering he is supposed to love all humans equally.

6. Other religions: if Christianity is the one true religion (and believers of other religions are going to hell), God is again being unfair to the billions of people who are never educated about Christianity, and never have a chance to believe in it. And it works the same the other way around. How many of you have been educated about every different religion and still choose Christianity? If you are brought up as a Muslim, you will be a Muslim. If you are brought up as a Hindu, you will be a Hindu. Or is it that it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in, just that you believe in a higher power? If that is the case, why do we have a bible?

These are just some of the questions I have. Let me say again that I am actually looking for answers, not trying to convince anyone of anything. But I do think that everyone should take a step back and truly analyse their reasons for believing what they do. Is the most important thing just to be a good person, and after that you can believe what you like? If that is the case, then I understand why some people are Christians, some Atheists, some Muslims etc… Religion can have a very beneficial impact on someone’s life (and if it’s true, all the better). If you do not think this, please tell me why. Please answer my questions. Tell me: where is God?

20 Comments:

I appreciate your questions, and hope that your quest, despite the narrow gaze cast by the questions you ask, is sincere and open minded.

Too often I have seen religious people such as myself, who possess some education on the subject, take advantage of and bully people like you who ask questions with certain presuppositions. My aim in responding to you is not to bully you, or to persuade you that I am right because I think that I know something or have direct access to the will or mind or nature of God (I don't think either), but rather it is to help you see that the quest for God is much more diverse than you seem to think that it is.

Please correct or rebuke me if my tone ever seems to you to be patronizing or antagonistic, or if you find me guilty of dumping huge volumes of information into your lap in the hopes that you can't possibly sift through it all. Such intellectual dishonesty is all too prevalent in discussions about God and religion.

To respond to the substance of your post, I will take selected quotes from your text, and respond to them to the best of my ability. Please remember that I am neither a scholar nor a priest, nor in any way, shape or form an ordained minister, and that while my views have been shaped by a particular religious tradition (United Methodism) I do not speak for any relgion, sect, or religious organization.

Here goes. I hope that this is in some way helpful to you, even though my own views may or may not be typical:

1. The Bible: many take the bible to be the word of God – most of the religious beliefs and practises are based on it. However, changes (accidental and deliberate) to the bible over the last 2000 years mean that less than half of the words now there are the original ones. So is God changing the bible to fit the times? That’s the only explanation I see, but we have stumbled across a problem. Not only do we have hundreds of different versions of the bible, but we have also become so good at copying it that we don’t make ‘mistakes’ anymore. So how will God modify it?

This misunderstands what is often meant by the claim that the Bible is in some special way the Word of God. But, before I try to explain why, let me first of all point out that, in fact, there is no single book called the Bible. The word Bible, which literally means "book," is actually a collection of many different literary works compiled over the course of several hundred years. There is no unified Biblical canon (literally "rule"); there is instead three separate canons for three distinct religious traditions:

Judaism, Protestantism, and Catholicism (the Eastern Orthodox tradition shares the Roman Catholic canon, and so for this discussion is lumped under the heading "Catholic").

In the interests of space I won't comment any further on that subject at the moment, save to refer you to Jaroslav Pelikan's excellent book Whose Bible is It? for a more detailed discussion.

There are many different beliefs about the nature and authority of the Biblical text, but it is important to note that regardless of what one believes about the Bible, each work in it was penned by human authors writing in particular cultural and historical settings, meeting the felt needs of their spiritual communities. The work of these "authors," which often began orally and was later written down and perhaps even later still edited and adapted until it reached the "final" form which made it into its respective canon, was seen by the community within which the "authors" worked as representing in some unique way a message from God.

Later communities have since affirmed that they, too, can in some way hear the voice of God speaking through the text. But that does not make God in some literal way the author of the text. Rather, it means that a spiritual community (or, in most cases, many different spiritual communities) see the work of a human author (or, more accurately, in most cases a human prophet, whose words were remembered and recorded by a community of faith, and then edited by later religious leaders) as representing some form of divine revelation.

There is, of course, so much more to be said, but I really need to move on to other topics. I'm quickly running out of time and space. I can see that I'll have to come back to deal with some of the issues you've raised another day.

But why are people ‘good’? To go to heaven. Ask any Christian why they follow God’s word and the answer is so that they can go to heaven. Isn’t this the same thing as saying ‘I’m only good because I get a reward’?

That is an excellent point, and cuts to the heart of people's motives. However, it is more than unfair to assert that "any Christian" behaves in a particular way to recieve some reward, no matter the nature of that reward. I, for instance, am a confessing Christian who doesn't even know that there is such a thing as heaven, or any kind of after life. I certainly hope that there is, though I have some philosophic issues to resolve there. However, especially given my agnosticism about an eternal reward for my actions, I can't claim that I consciously behave in a particular way because I expect that such behavior will get me into heaven.

If you ask me, someone who fits into your category of "any Christian" (unless you narrow the category to include only people who answer your question in the way that you expect them to, which would certainly trivialize the word "Christian," reducing it to people who have a particularly defined motive for their moral behavior), why I follow what I believe to be the will of God, it has less to do with a particular reward and more to do with a belief that things work best for the world when those it in act in accordance with the will of God.

In this view, however, there is a real problem, which is much more serious than the trivial problem of motivation (does it really matter why someone acts in accordance with your moral standard, so long as they continue to do so? Motivation becomes relevant only when it can predict an inclination to deviate from a moral norm as soon as the motivator/reinforcer can be achieved through such deviation). The real problem is this: How can one really claim to know the will of God, especially in light of inter- and intra-religious disagreement?

You allude to this elsewhere, and this is perhaps where the most fruitful discussion can be held. In the opening to your post you ask:

So I ask one big question – how do you know that you’re right?

I don't know that I'm right, and I think that when I am inclided to suspect that I am right, I am most likely to be wrong. Religion, at its heart, is personal rather than propositional. It is about affirming a particular experience of life and of God, and about cultivating lives ordered around that experience. Religion does, of necessity, have some propositional content. But that content exists to facilitate the personal (but not individual - the person is found in the context of a community) experience.

I teach, and I am not alone in teaching this, that we should not become attached to the propositional component of our religion; the belief system which is often mistaken for faith. This is because, if God is as truly mysterious as each religion often teaches, then God lies beyond all descriptions. Descriptions work as loose metaphors, not as definitions which pin down the divine nature. As such, if you take your metaphors too literally and become attached to them, limiting God to the propositional content of your theology, your theology is bound to be wrong in the most absurd way.

I'm sure you have seen such pig-headed wrong thinking, which is why your discussion about relgion is such a narrow one.

If time permits, I will be back to discuss some of the points that I didn't get to today. Again, I am sorry if it seems like I am dumping so much in your lap. I hope that you get the chance to read this thoughtfully and critically. Please also read it charitably. I have participated in too many discussions in which my words have been twisted into the least charitable construction possible. The pursuit of truth (and I am not here claiming to possess such an ellusive thing as "truth") is the biggest casualty when statements offered in good faith are so manipulated.

By Sandalstraps, at 12:22 PM
You asked for comments. Here are a few:

1. You pose that the Bible has changed and that "less than half of the words now there are the original ones". According to the best sources available, this isn't a true statement. In truth, there is a better than 99% certainty that the current Bibles we use match the original manuscripts. There is no evidence of modification, either intentional or unintentional, in any large degree nor in anything significant. (By "significant" I mean a transcription error where a 0 is added to a historical number is not significant to the message of the Bible.)

2. You suggest that "one of the most important things about living a Christian life is being 'good'." This belies a fundamental misunderstanding of Christianity. Christianity is not about "being good". (More to come)

3. You ask, "is it enough to just be ‘good’?" The fundamental premise of Christianity is that no one is capable of being good enough to get to heaven. While most religions operate on a scale of "good" of some sort, where you simply need to be "as good as most" or "better than others" or some other relative good, the standard of Christianity is "perfect", and the first position of Christian belief is that no one is morally perfect. Heaven, then, is not earned.

You ask further "what was the big deal about the Da Vinci Code?" I can't fully answer that because I didn't think that a fictional movie from a fictional novel was any big deal, but if "Christian" means "follower of Christ", and someone makes Christ out to be just some guy with no real importance, the "Christian" means "nothing". I think you could see how such a conclusion would cause a stir.

4. You asked about miracles and defined "miracle" as "impossible (not unlikely)". By creating your own definition, you make the topic impossible to discuss. (Typically "miracle" is defined as "outside the laws of nature", not "impossible". To define a miracle as "impossible" and then say, "Has it happened?" just makes it look incredibly stupid.)

6. I'm always amused by a) religious relativity ("it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in, just that you believe in a higher power") and b) the notion that "God is being unfair".
a) It is popular to think "All religions are equally valid", but logically disastrous. If Islam, for instance, says that "We are the one true religion" and Christianity says "We are the one true religion", then there are three possibilities. 1 - Islam is and Christianity is not. 2 - Christianity is and Islam is not. 3 - Neither are. There is not the 4th possibility - both are - because "the true religion" cannot be "both/and". The statement is exclusive.

b) You want fair? Do you really want fair from God? If the God that we believe in is real and the basic premise of Christianty (above) is true, "fair" would be the immediate and unconditional annihilation of all life on the planet. "Justice" would mean the end of every person. Everyone decides to ignore God's commands and violate His Laws and "good" is not an option. I don't think we really want "fair" from God, do we?

By Stan, at 12:36 PM
George,

I've done my best to answer some of your questions here.

By Evan May, at 3:15 PM
George: You can see my answers to your questions here.

By Unknown, at 3:39 PM
All Christians must go by the bible. Some Christians may say it's ok to have premarital sex, but they are going against the word of God.

The different versions of the bible are to make it easier to understand, most versions stay true to the original.

Different interpretations are fine as long as those interpretations come from the bible.

We can all say the sky is blue and be right, or one could say it is purple and also be right(depending on location and such). God gives each of us an understanding at our own levels, so others may see things a bit differently. The main thing is to let God show you what's right when reading the bible, and not anyone but God.

The best advice I can give you on how to learn about God and Christianity is to open a bible and let God do all the talking and guiding.

By Anonymous, at 8:48 PM
Hi George,
You've gotten some strong feedback on your question, "Where is God?" I'll try not to overlap.

It does seem that your presuppositions are decidedly secular in origin - a mixture of BBC and Mainstream Media misrepresentations (your not related to Matt Lauer?). The only thing I could add would be a short list of "where" you might find God.

Gen. 1:1a - In the beginning, God...God is the only uncreated being in the universe. He is an integral part of everything.

Gen 1:1b...created the heavens and the earth. He created all material things, as well as spiritual and intellectual things. If you can read this, thank God.

God is the author of purpose. You were created for a purpose. You were intended to conclude a wonderful deed or two. Do you have an idea of what that might be? Have you inexplicably taken up the raising of a child or have you helped a widow or a homeless person? Why are you here, George?

You ask "where is God" then you go on about Christians. Are you looking for Christians or God? The two are light years apart.

In short if God exists you'll find Him in logic, you'll find Him in other people, you'll find Him in philosophy, in nature, and in the deepest recesses of your heart, etc., etc.

He can be pretty stubborn though, kind of like that professor at college that could turn all our silly musings upside down with a word. He can make you look like a fool. He might not even answer your question. Remember that if He is real He doesn't have to. He would most likely turn the tables on you and ask, "Well, where is George?"

By Jim Jordan, at 9:45 PM
George, your tone is courteous and I thank you for that. Each of your questions could take a week of class. For instance, a full discussion of The DaVinci Code would involve a mini-course in the role of women during Jesus' life and how the Gospel accounts are remarkable for mentioning women by name, letting them speak, and allowing any to be present at Jesus' resurrecion. All of these posters can give it a valiant try, but if you truly want to understand Christianity, you will have to dig deeper than comments on your blog. My puny contribution:

2. Selfessness: Yes, most of us would still attempt to be "good" if we thought we were going to burn in hell. Much like my atheist friends still try to be good even though they believe they'll be nothing but wormfood. Much like we tried to be good before accepting Christ. We struggle each day to "do good" out of love. No frequent flyer points into heaven, just grace.

3. The DaVinci Code. Fiction is good. Fiction author pushing his book as non-fiction is bad. Sorry, they are not based on the same basic beliefs. Have you read both the novel and the Bible before stating that?

4. "A disease being cured doesn’t count...just as many people have died even though people were praying for them." Jesus didn't spend all his waking hours making people see, walk, and rise from the dead. People still died when He walked the earth. It was not His mission on earth to go around healing. He used his miracles to send messages about sin and faith. I think perhaps that miracles occur more than we think, and they are God's gifts in an imperfect world.

5. We haven't sent people who hear voices to the asylum since the late 80s. Mental illness occurs without discrimination. I would not correct someone if they told me God was speaking to them. If they said God told them to commit evil, I would consider them the same danger as the sociopathic murderer who doesn't believe in God. On a lighter note, when I was in France, people spoke to me in French, and I am going to learn the language so that next time I know what they are saying. Study God's word in the Bible, and perhaps He will speak to you, George (read me sincere, not condescending).

6. I bow to the others on this, except to say there are lots of converts, including those to atheism. I studied different religions for 3 years and finally accepted Christ as I sat on my back porch drinking a beer and reading "The Case for Christ". It surprised the shit out of my atheist, sociology-teaching friends.

"Is the most important thing just to be a good person?"
An atheist friend once teased me by saying, "According to you, Hitler could have confessed his sins in the bunker and is in heaven right now." I asked, "so what's your point?" Let's use Hitler on a yardstick of good and evil, putting him at 36 for being most "evil". Let's put Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, my mother, anyone you pick, at 0 for most "good". You and I are at 10 and 20, not saying who's where. Where in between is the cut-off for going to heaven? None of us could agree where it is. Maybe you think it's George Bush; maybe it's the guy who dinged my car door last week and drove away without a note. The truth, as impossible as it is for me to comprehend, is that God doesn't owe us any measurement tool whatsoever; however, Christians believe that accepting Jesus Christ is the benchmark God provided. It may be painful, because some of us have to struggle with what happens to people in our own families, but once we have chosen God and Christ, we surrender control and put our trust in Him that one day all will be as it should be.

You didn't mention this, but I laugh when people say God and/or Christianity is a "crutch". You mean like all the people in our lives who care about us are "crutches"? Yeah, I lean on Him. The metaphor is still...lame.

"Where is God?" cannot be answered. God is "I am" - period.

By Anonymous, at 10:32 PM
I respect your willingness to ask the hard questions.
I have tried my hardest to answer them as I see the answers.
Please head over to the site to check it out. I thought it would be beneficial for more than just the commenters on this site to see.

God Bless.

By Anonymous, at 5:23 AM
Let me begin by saying that I'm neither a theologian, scholar, nor intellectual.

George, I'm glad you are asking these questions. To me it's just further proof that the Holy Spirit is still working in the hearts of men.

The Bible is the inerrant, Holy Spirit inspired word of God. Contrary to some beliefs, it has not changed since it was first inspired.

Let me encourage you to obtain a Bible (New American Standard, New King James, New International Version) and begin reading in the book of John.

At the time when I was questioning my existence...why am I on this earth...what is my purpose...a believer gave me a Bible and suggested that I begin reading the book of John. I believe you will find your answers there.

I will be praying for you.

By Unknown, at 5:42 AM
George,

I don't know if you like books or if you like to read them, but there are two books I would like to suggest even if you don't like them because these are very informative as well as intriguing. Lee Strobel used to be an avid athiest and he asked the similar questions and did a thorough job researching the subject. If you read his books "Case for Christ" or "Case for Faith" it shows his work and the results of what he found. It is also because of his researching that he became a Christian.

By Carmel, at 8:29 AM
Maybe the Christian beliefs are more:

-Jesus died so that we might not

-Jesus is the "son" of God, or just a part of his spirit either

-God is love

-We were made to serve him and bring him pleasure

-God loves us beyond our imagination

-Our blessings are not our own, they were given to us to help us serve and worship him(we are given a surplus of food, take the rest to the hungary)

-God loves everyone the same

-He made us and loves us

-etc.,etc.

Emma C.

By Anonymous, at 4:52 PM
Greetings George :)

I was exactly just like you before, so i feel i just want to share with
you my experience in finding God.

I am an average theist guy...used to be Christians in my childhood and since i was in elementary school i am constantly looking for and asking WHERE IS GOD?...just like your Blog.

Right now i (Personally) have A Realization that i don't need any religions as I Realized that THE DESTINATION (GOD) IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE WAY (RELIGION).

Fact is: i only need an OPEN HEART to God (as our Spiritual Heart is the only KEY of DIRECT CONNECTION TO GOD), to find and feel GOD'S LOVE

i am not an Atheist...i believe in God because i can TRULY Felt & Enjoy GOD'S Love everyday...anytime i want...how ?...Since i open my Spiritual Heart to GOD...now i am so grateful and feel Blessed every second.
Thank God i don't end up being an atheist.

How to Open your Heart you ask?...then pls Follow your Heart & please first watch Open Heart Movie in: www.heartsanctuary.org/en/open-heart-movie.html

and also read this links:
http://www.openheartworkshops.com,

For more complete stuff read on
http://www.padmacahaya.com and i think you will find "all your answers before" there, offcourse if you do...i know u will find HIM... as His Love is always shining on & loving all of us (any religions including our Atheist friends :) )

So Where is God? I say you can always find HIM within your (Spiritual) Heart in the middle of your chest...it's that close... period :)

With Love & Light to your heart :)
Ted

By Anonymous, at 7:40 PM
Response to comment: "Where is God?"
If a person sincerely wants to know God, he will. If he doesn't, he won't. God will be revealed to you or hidden from you depending on your response to Him. God has set our lives up to be born in a certain time, live in a certain place and respond to Him. "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us (Ac 17:26-27, NKJV)."

By SerpentDove, at 3:52 PM
Every religion and every God from all over the world teach us to be good, to do good for ourselves and for the mankind. I really appreciate His willingness and His love for people.
However, ask yourselves, why do you need to idolize someone you have never seen and say you help someone because the God asked you to.
Why should you spend a certain time in church on your knees while during that time you can do something good for another person.
Why should you confess with a priest? If God really sees everything, why can't he see that you confess something with your heart and don't make us waste our time?

By gvanci, at 5:07 PM
to geofrod

Your questions were intended for Christians, So I will not bother with them directly but may answer most of them indirectly. I am a Theist and do believe in a God.

At one time I was a Christian until I was guided away from it. I became a Theist because of events in my life that guided me to my Faith. I have no doubts that atleast one God exists.

I have a name, image and persona for this God but these things are only valid in regards to me. For they are based on personal experience. Does atleast one God exist to me yes. Does atleast one God exist for an Atheist No, for an Atheist is an Atheist because no evidence has been given to that Atheist to make him or her a Theist.

As for the Bible it is a book a book written by men for men. While I consider the public teachings before the Jews by Jesus as recorded (since Jesus may not have even existed)as being valid I consider everything else to be trash to be thrown out.

I was brought into the Faith, I became a Christian because in the US there are few religions were one can look for answers, Christianity being the biggest of them. I read the bible and found it full of contradictions and inconsistancies.

The bible does not represent the God that brought me into the Faith. If Jesus did exist then I would consider him a man of God, a teacher of God but that is as far as it goes.

I consider the Christian religion to be a big bag of dropping's, a smelly bag at that. If they actually attempted to follow the public teaching of Jesus before the Jews they would not be to bad, but since they reject his teachings and have corrupted it into evil everything that he had stood for, I consider it one of the greatest evils bestowed upon man.

Jesus and the Old Testament both say that only the public teachings teachings of Jesus are valid. And yet the Christians pull out all sorts of garbage to justify their behavior and ignore the actual teachings of their so called God.

So to give you the short answer to God or Gods is this.

God or Gods exist only when God or Gods give evidence of their existence to individuals.

God or Gods Do Not Exist when God or Gods do Not give evidence of their existence to an individual.

A simple answer to a simple question.

Mark L Holland

By Anonymous, at 10:20 PM
Hello, your question is a good one. Where is God? I want to offer the non-religious, critical thinking answer.

God is first, is a word that represents.... well, let's face it, there are several hundred ideas about what god is. So if we want to really understand what god is, we have to try to understand things from the ground up. So for the purpose of clarity, you need to imagine you've never heard anything about God, forget any ideas about "him" or "her", or being good or bad, being judgemental, somewhere specific, etc. Let's just say "god" is "a conscious entity that is totally or partially responsible for the existence of the universe. Again, for the time being, let's leave god out of the questions about if hes responsible for various aspects of my life.

Well, there are basically two possible scenarios that would define the world as we know it.
Model A. the universe exists, no god exist, and somehow this naturally existing environment, accidentally created life which experiences it.

Model B. We realize the universe is, in the only way we can define it : "what we experience".
We ask the question, what do we know about where experiences come from.. are dreams experiences? well they're not the experience of the awake world, but they are something that we "see, hear, touch, that we interact with", and when we're awake, you can hear my thoughts when i type them out, so part of what you experience awake comes from other consciousnesses, and what you experience asleep comes from another part of your consciousness, so the question is where does the rest of the experience come from? I just say we start with what we already know, as a theory, that experience comes from consciousness, and i have no great reason to assume its the opposite. This suggests the universe is an environment projected by a separated more powerful level of the same stuff our own consciousness is.

So this model suggests, you are god, and the reason you should be good to other individuals is because they are you as well, and because everything and all experiences come from consciousness, which is what god is, we need to find a way to align with our ultimate self, and reconnect the individual pieces here. So I will do whatever I can to make sure your life is successful, because your life is my life.

Its a new and growing idea, but has always been around.. Check out the films "What the bleep do we know" and "leap". Kindof nutty but they're on the right track.

Why does god let bad things happen to good people? If you were to see yourself in a nightmare, from your awake self, how much would you be worried about you, knowing that in reality, you're fine, and those experiences are just temporary, and you could actually take over and control the dream whenever you liked if you align with the greater perspective. "this is a dream, I can do what I want with it"

By Anonymous, at 9:01 AM
Hello, I am a christian...

Christians don't believe that God is just there we believe he is there as a particular kind of being. We believe in the spirtuality/Non-Physicalness and aseity of God. A lot of people say they can't see God. Well duh... :P

Are you asking in this question "Where is God?" for physical evidence like a big hand from space waving at you saying " I'm here"? If so you are making some ineresting assumptions. The main part being what we will call the "neutral zone". You are assuming the existance of a neutral zone where someone can lay out the facts/arguments and you can try to reason your way out of this neutral zone to some sort of a conclusion. It doesn't work that way. You can't reason your way to God. God is not the conclusion He is the foundation. Facts or arguments/logic/reason do not establish God. God establishes Facts and arguments/logic/reason. If God is not your foundation He will never be your conclusion.

The difference between atheists and christians has nothing to do with conclusions it has everything to do with foundations. What is a foundation? When someone asks you a question the answer you give will be based on your foundation.

If you ask me what my foundation is I say it is God and His word. If you ask me why this is my foundation the answer I give you will be based on my foundation i.e. God and His word.

In other words if you ask why I believe the Bible is true I might open my Bible and show you a verse that says it is true. Still begging the question you say?

When someone says that he wants to base his worldview on reason and I ask him: why do you do that? And he turns around and gives me a reason what is he doing? He is opening up his bible/reason to give me an answer.

So... The question should be "Which worldview is the true one?"

Those who want to base there worldview on reason and just reason are (I would say) borrowing a piece of my christian worldview and rejecting the best part. :P In other words they lack the necessary parts that make reason coherent. And not just reason but truth/beauty/goodness-morality.

I am completely convinced that the christian worldview is the only worldview that is and can be consistant with reality.

My question for you would be: what is the foundation of this neutral zone? have you gotten out a flashlight and checked under this neutral zone to see what it is standing on? And maybe while you're at it you should check what your foundation is, what you're standing on.

By Ben, at 11:39 AM
BTW I would suggest that you study some christian theology before you say anything about it. ;)

Maybe you didn't know this but the bible is translated from the original hebrew and greek documents into what ever language.

Questions 2-5 seem to imply a bit that you have not read the Bible? The end of question 5 was ineresting where you said that God should love everyone equally? Show where it says that in the Bible because I can't seem to find that idea anywhere around here....At least not in my Bible... :P

Question 6 was interesting. for one your idea of fairness is wierd. Secondly you just don't know what the Bible says on the issue. If you want me to explain anything more just ask because I'm really smart...LOL. Not! :P

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By Anonymous, at 1:42 PM

Where is God?

Monday, August 21, 2006

Where is God?

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