Why Do People Need to Believe in God?

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  Posted by Edgewalker54 October 16, 2016 - Filed in Personal Journal - 869 views
  

  Why Do People Need God?

  Edgewalker

  My early dealings with God were simple, transparent and temporal. So many prayers; for good grades, peace from schoolyard bully’s predation or parental wrath.  Church and Sunday School were a staple of Sunday morning, when the adults went to services and the kids attended Sunday School. Wednesday night were also big, for a while.

  We were St John’s Methodist, a caring and open church. Everyone knew that God looks over his existential flock, guarding and guiding our way through life. I was in my early teens and right in front of me, a car killed my friend. He chased a basketball into traffic and he died. Where was God? Why did my friend just die? Six months later, a close companion-in-crime went to a place to meet me, midnight at the University. First floor elevator was pubic but if you climbed onto the top of the car, you could roam the halls of knowledge and deface things that offended your eclectic 13 year-old dystopian psyche.

  I couldn’t escape my home that night and so couldn’t be at the rendezvous but figured if I was a no-show he would just go home. He died that night, at the bottom of an elevator shaft and wasn’t found for four days, until I told the police what we planned to do that night. My guilt and punishment were profound, but all I could ask was “Where were you God? Why didn’t you save him? Make him go home?” Rather than be angry with God, I started to doubt the stories I learned in Sunday School of a benevolent and omnipotent Being that cared about all of us.

  When the Civil Rights movement happened in ’64, I was 10 years old and with a child-like question, I asked my Dad, “How come they don’t ask God to help ‘em sort this out? We’re all God’s Children, aren’t we?” Looking back on it, he had a sad smile on his face. “It’s not always simple like that son; some folks think the black man is inferior, less than we are just cause how they look. That’s wrong son, don’t ever forget it.” And I never have.

  With a nod to the ‘back story’, I ask again, “Why do humans need God?”

  At 63 I have learned many things, one being; It seems as though we need to believe in something greater than we are. Poor, pitiful primates yearning for the stars. Something poetic there, perhaps not. Second, sometimes when we have lost all faith in ourselves, hit rock-bottom… and we look up and ‘Find God’ (I’ve been there, no regrets). We are saved. Never mind that You were the one that did the program and made 90 meetings in 90 days, even if you’re high when you went, sometimes. I was the one that made the choice, I did the work and always I looked up, and doubted. Very powerful stuff being ‘saved’, one must experience it to grok it.

  Thirdly, (spell-check says that’s a word) I truly believe that there are many that MUST believe in a ‘Hereafter’, another dimension that you will be transported to, after your earthly body ceases to function within emergency parameters. Preferably, with golden streets and halos all around… even if you were having sex with several preteen boys at your death… but you were SAVED! The folks that toil in the shadows, from the office worker to the lowest street-crawler all are united in their belief in Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla or some paradise where they will be happy and loved… after they die.

  Then there are those that seek the shadows, the twisted tainted hollow people that have tombstone eyes. Do they look up for God, for a savior? No, many look down, within their blacked inner being and they bring forth another, more malevolent being. Satan, devil, Beelzebub, Demogorgon and more names for the demons of their hearts than for the gods they shun. Yet, they still believe in something more wicked than themselves and so draw strength for their depravity.

  Which brings me to the Punishers; the people that want wicked people to pay for all eternity for their immorality of a few short years. They want there to be a GOD to punish the sinners and if they look deep enough into their hearts, they are afraid they will be among the Damned and so point frantically at the sinners and screech “Take them, they did worse things than I did!” They have to seek absolution from their sins so that others will take their place.

  The fictional Vulcan’s of the Star Trek universe have based their civilization on Logic and Reason. Their back-story is one taken from Humanities’ Book of hate and depredation, anger and violence, war without end. Centuries ago, they cast off their superstitious beliefs in otherworldly gods, embraced Logic and they prospered. Yes, they have emotions and they run as deep and dark as any human but logic dictates acting from anger or hatred or love, in not logical. “Just because I do not show my emotions does not mean that I have none.”

  My brother-in-law died yesterday. He was grumpy, grouchy and I loved him anyway. He didn’t believe there is a god. He believed we are born, we live and then we die. No afterlife, nirvana, nothing… One moment you’re alive, and then you’re not. Poof. Just dead. He said that it didn’t frighten him, he asked me, “Why would I be afraid of ‘nothing’?”

  Indeed, why would we be afraid of ‘nothing’?

  Joe Day

  October 2, 2011 at 11:45am · 

  Creator, I appreciate your greatness! I BELIEVE in You...I TRUST in You...I am THANKFUL that You have given me another day of life! As I face this day, I PRAY that You will give me the COURAGE to face what today brings. I am GRATEFUL that You will never leave me. Thank you FATHER for I know I will have a better day today with added blessings. 
  Just felt the need to share. If you are offended by my belief... just keep on scrolling.

  Funny how feelings change so much in 5 short years.