One Skeptic’s Thoughts about God: The launch of a series

I wish I could say with any kind of certainty that what I think I know about God is true. The reality is that I may very well be just as confused about God stuff as many others are. That might sound strange coming from a former pastor and a so-called believer.

In the interest of transparency, let me say that I believe in God because I choose to.

I don’t believe in God because I have undeniable empirical evidence to prove God’s existence, or my version of who God is. I believe in God for multiple reasons, but ultimately, I believe because I’ve made the decision to accept that God exists. I can’t prove it with any certainty. I’ve simply taken the results of my years of searching to know about God and added that to the influence of my life’s circumstances. I choose to believe what I believe, in part, because I was born into a devout Christian family. I’ve never not known about God. My mother teaching me about God are some of my earliest and fondest memories. I’m talking about being two and three years old, my mother telling me about him.

By the way, when I talk about God I’m talking about the Christian God, the trinity: The Father, his son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

For those who may not be overly familiar with the concept of the Christian trinity, the god who is made up of three distinct persons, yet still just one god, it’s understandable if you find it confusing, or weird. I’ve accepted the trinity as fact because it’s what I’ve been taught my whole life, but I can’t explain it experientially.

I’ve never had any supernatural experience where God spoke to me in an audible voice, not even in my head. Though one day I should tell you the story about a bunch of cows in a field that gave me a sign from God—really. At least that’s how I choose to see it.

Do I believe that God might speak to me in multiple other ways? Yes. Well, maybe. I don’t know for sure. Again, I choose to believe so.

My point is that there’s no real certainty when it comes to knowing about God. I can’t claim any different. I don’t want to comment about others who can make a different claim. I can only speak of my beliefs, my doubts, my experience.

I fully respect every single person’s right to believe something completely different from what I believe. It’s not my place to judge them or condemn them in any way, especially for not accepting my version of who God is.

I want to launch this blog series about God because I want to share my deepest thoughts and doubts about all this God stuff in the interest of adding to the conversation out there for those who are searching for some kind of insight. I’m hoping I might help others, and that I may also learn from this experience.

My intention is to be completely honest about my thoughts and beliefs about God, not just with you, but with myself.

I believe that God is love and peace, that we have messed this world up in so many ways and created so many religions, including elements of Christianity, that don’t even come close to reflecting what God might have been trying to reveal to us over the course of human history.

I want to share my thoughts in the hopes that it may add to us all wanting to become better at knowing the God of love and peace that I long for, that I believe I may have seen glimpses of.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Peace

Note: In my next post I plan to write about the source of my skepticism.