Of God (Part III)

[jars of clay]

When we last left off, I stated first that the religions of today's world have a single great and common flaw, and that is they are selfish. Now I do not mean this is an attacking sense, but merely as stating a point, the religions of todays world all have a focus on Man reaching God. I also stated that their entire religious system was based off of this facet, this idea that humans, if they tried hard enough, could be like God in a sense, that if they tried they could attain the level of holiness that only God has. I am getting ahead of myself here, we have yet to agree that there IS a God, and that he is good or holy or just.

I must return to the looking at the two facets we already dealt with, first being a sort of common moral standard that we all seem to have inside of us, and second that man as a whole is not satisfied with the things of this world. That as a whole we cannot fill this hole that exists inside of us with anything pleasurable that we can see touch and feel on this earth. Now from this last point we drew two conclusions, either there was something else that we couldn't see or necessarily feel that existed to fill that hole inside of us, or there was not. Both of these lead to faith, but those faiths lead to two different effects. Either you have hope in that there is something else that can fill your empty and unsatisfied feeling, or you have despair in that you cannot fill this gap in your life, and as such you commit suicide, or allow yourself to be distracted by the cute tunes and the quick thrills that are the pleasures of this world.

How does this prove there is a god? In the first it does not, it merely proves a power force or happiness that we cannot see, feel, or touch, the god (if we wish to call it that) is emotionless and is not all powerful, but merely a blunt instrument that we use to fill ourselves and make ourselves whole. I do not believe this is the case, for if this were then the "god" would be just like the pleasures of this world, and as such would eventually lose its luster and would expire, and we would be left looking for something more.

I have not dealt with this before, but if we are to agree there is a god, then one of the conclusions we must make is that this god is more real than this world. What I mean is that for god to truly fill this hole inside of us he must be perfect, and must be able to fill that hole 100% of the time. This god must be able to give us that peace and therefor must be infinitely greater in strength and goodness than we are ourselves. In short, if this is a proof of god, then the god we have so far is good, and also infinite in his power

I would like to focus more now on the former of these two facets, I said in the end of my last post that all humans have a somewhat universal set of moral codes that exist in all of us. From this we derive the sense of what is "fair." When someone cuts you off on the road, or maybe jumps in line you feel this thing call fairness. We see someone doing something they shouldn't and our first universal response is "that is not fair!" but why? What makes it unfair? Who stated that there was something fair in the first place?

First of all, this does not just apply to today, in all of history you can see that the governments set down moral standards and codes, ways of life that kept their citizens safe from harm and injustice. You also saw in certain cultures courts and lawsuits going on from one side to another, this sense of injustice that the people feel as they sue their fellow human beings. From the ancient times to today you have had a very structured sense in all human beings of fair and unfair, and also what is right, and what is wrong.

What of the Post modern view of what is right and wrong? Can all these religions be crushed with a single argument that there all right? No. Post modernism is an oxymoron. For post modernism to be correct, it must not be a view on God in itself, which it is. For post modernism to be correct it must be impassive and unbiased. But it is just as much a religion as islam. What is more, post modernism takes faith. This is not a war over reason and faith, this is a war of faith vs. faith. You must have faith that the side you have taken is correct.

Let's say you are driving, and you come up to a wooden bridge that spans a deep chasm. Now you have two choices, you can choose to go over the bridge, or you can choose to find a different crossing. No big deal right? No matter what you choose (to cross the bridge or not), you must have faith that the choice you made was correct. the same goes with what religion you choose, or if you choose the religion of post modernism, you must have faith that the choice you made is correct.

I will deal with how a universal moral code is proof of a God, and also continue to sort of piece together the kind of God we have proven, but I have bored you enough for the time being