Can we think a god into existence? Can we imagine an explanation for life, the universe and everything, and call it reality? Some people think their own ideas explain the meaning of life…
Today politically correct faith is governed by the idea that each individual can make up his own mind what God is like, “if” there is a god at all. I’m probably being generous when I say that people who think this way make up their own minds, because from my own experience it seems that such people never really do make up their minds. What they “think” about who or what reality is, or what God is, changes, in some cases faster than the weather.
And that’s no surprise. If there are no anchors of thought or conviction, no acceptance of or reference to an ancient or previous standard of wisdom, how can there be anything but confusion, vacillation, and shifting sands? What’s new ain’t necessarily true.
Ah, but how do I know that I’m right…right? Aren’t I being very arrogant and narrow minded to say that I am right?
In answer I’d say that my beliefs are on solid ground. Civilization was formed and shaped on the assumption that truth is to be searched out, and error discarded. Some things are right and some things are wrong. A teapot is not God, no matter how much you wish it were. It can’t create anything, it can’t speak, it can’t control anything or anyone, it can’t forgive you and it can’t give you love.
If, then, conclusions can be made by logic and evidence, what’s so bad about using reason and available evidence to come to a lasting, firm conclusion about reality, and believing it to be right? What’s wrong with holding the view that certain beliefs are clearly erroneous, and some are tangible, practical, meaningful and testable? Man didn’t get to the moon by encompassing a thousand different plans for how to get there: people put their heads together and came up with one method that would work.
We can hear a thousand different people say “I think…” then a thousand different ideas of who God “might be”; what he or she or it is like, how many gods there are, what sort of people it loves, which ones are going to be in heaven “if” there is one, and countless other variables. People decide what God is like based on what they think he should be like. They’re attempting to create God in their own image, when it should be obvious that we, being the creation, were made in his image. They are being at least as arrogant as they insist I am, because they have no more solid support for their thoughts than I do-in fact less. Yet what they think is intended to trump what I believe usually without any attempt to objectively compare or consider my beliefs.
People think what they want to think. But if there’s a God at all, he or she or it must have certain characteristics, and not others. He must like certain things but not like others. He must have certain plans but not others. Not all ideas about God can be right, any more than all the lottery numbers chosen by millions of people on any given day can be the winning numbers. Let’s search for the truth-not make up our own.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to think, I’m saying that if God is formed by what we can imagine in our minds, God is not God at all, and we’re on very shaky ground.
Biblical scripture describes our creation, why we were created, who did the creating, what he’s like, what’s gone wrong with that creation, and what the Creator did and will do to correct the damage to that creation. Its narrative is supported by history, by nature, by real science, by human nature, by archaeology and by prophecy. The Bible claims to be a message from our Creator, and backs up the claim in many ways. It’s a complete package, with handles.
For many centuries, and in many countries and lands, people have been (and are being) killed for defending and upholding Biblical scriptures. Even centuries BC, the great prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah were harassed, persecuted and martyred because they took a stand for what they were convinced was the word of God.
Jesus had the very same problem in his own day, and he told the religious zealots of his day-those who later had him killed -that if they couldn’t pay attention to the writings of Moses-the leader they claimed to follow-there was no chance they were going to be able to recognize the one Moses foretold, even if he was standing in front of them…
It seems logical to me to base my beliefs on what is testable, solid, and worth dying for, rather than what I can cook up in my own mind according to my own tastes.There’s an explanation for life, the universe and everything which is tangible and reasonable, and there’s no need to attempt to invent another idea which “seems” right. Biblical scripture puts it like this:
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12 NKJV)
Fuel for Faith 