This is fundamentally the most important question of life: Is there a God? Many people too easily dismiss the existence of God without giving adequate thought, study and examination to this vital question. If there is no God, you are just a bag of complex molecules that have risen out of primordial soup and you will soon return to nothingness. If there is no God, you are an accident of nature and you are on the fast track to annihilation. If there is no God, what you do or say has no lasting significance, and your life has no purpose. If there is no God, eat, drink, and be merry, for soon you will not exist.
But if there is a God, then there are other vital questions that must be examined, such as:
What evidence is there for God’s existence?
Who is this God?
What is this God like?
Can I know this God?
Does this God care about me?
Does this God have any expectations of me?
What if I ignore God?
All these questions and others, we will examine in this booklet. I am asking you to keep an open mind as these questions are explored. But for today we will look at two questions.
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THERE IS NO GOD?
I have asked atheists (one who does not believe in God) the above question and received the following responses:
With all the suffering in this world, there can’t be a God.
Science tells us that everything came to be by chance.
I can live my life fine without God.
I have never thought about God.
I don’t want to think about God.
I believe in God like I believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
I don’t want any constraints on my life.
I can’t believe in God because of the way religious people act.
No one has ever told me about God.
I prayed hard and God never answered. God is not there.
There are a host of other reasons. Some atheists have intensely wrestled with the possible existence of God. Many atheists (like many believers) have not given due diligence to this question. Some have rejected consideration of God’s existence as casually as they reject cream for their coffee.
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD?
Some people believe because their mother told them about God, or their church told them about God, or their culture told them about God. Many have not carefully explored the question of God’s existence. Others believe in God because of a combination of the following:
The Creation: Could the world have just come together by chance? Can laws of nature exist without a lawgiver? Can stars, solar systems and planets just form themselves and set themselves in motion. Why is the sun at just the right distance to so we don’t freeze or fry, by chance? And what about water, it has incredible properties, and there is plenty of it and wait a few days, and more will come – did these life supporting properties just come about by chance (on the east coast that is true). And what about your genetic code written in every cell of your body with volumes of information that contains the blueprint of how you are made – all by chance? (Some estimate if the information in your DNA was typed out it would take a library of 50,000 volumes to contain it all!) Can a series of accidents and mistakes form the complexity of the human mind?
Here is a simple example that I often use:
Suppose I had a box full of Lincoln Logs. From a height of 5 feet, I dump the Lincoln Logs on the floor. Would they by chance form a house with windows? How many times would I have to repeat this until they formed a house with windows? We all know the answer: never. We will never get a Lincoln Log house by chance. It takes a measure of intelligence to create a Lincoln Log house.
If chance can’t put together a Lincoln Log house, it most certainly can’t create (not to mention, sustain) countless galaxies, our solar system, human life and the beauty and wonder of the earth.
The Scriptures: The very first verse of the Bible tells us that it is God who created the heavens and the earth. The Bible tells about why the world is as it is (with pain, suffering and death). The Bible tells of God’s plan to save people from sin and its ultimate end - eternal damnation. The Bible then describes how this plan of salvation came to fruition. The New Testament of the Bible tells of a way to live that is still the best way man has discovered, and it tells of a plan of eternal life God offers to all. For many, their Christian life experience, the guidance of Scripture, the prayers answered, the wonders of nature seen and studied, tells them in their deepest thoughts that there is a Creator.
Important Bible Verse: Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
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