By: John Davis
When it comes to religion and believing in God, everyone in the world falls in one of three groups. Whether you are black, white, yellow or green, and regardless of whatever language you speak, and what religion or no religion you believe in, and no matter what your race is, and what part of the world you live in. Everyone on the face of this earth belongs to one of three groups. They are:
1) The Believers: Those are the people who believe that there is a God. He oversees the whole world and controls everything in it. Nothing in the whole world happens without his knowledge or approval. Some of those people are extremists who follow their religion to the letter, and often go beyond what the religion calls for. The Christians of them go to church every Sunday, pray to The Lord often and believe that he’s the son of God. The Muslims of them are frequent visitors of the Mosque, prey five times a day and fast in Ramadan. And the Jews of them are in the Sainagage every Saturday, light up the Menorah and fast for eight days at Pass Over.
Some of the Believers are more moderate. They believe in God but don’t do some or none of the rituals that the extremists do.
2) The Atheists: Those are the complete opposite of the Believers. They don’t believe in God, have no religion to follow, and often at odds even fight with the Believers.
3) The Confused: They are not sure if there is God or not. They are confused and have no clear idea as to the existence of God. They would say something like, we would worship God and become believers if someone could prove to us that God really exists, and we would forget about him and become atheists if someone can prove to us that he doesn’t. Until either of those happens, we’re going to stay on the fence.
People don’t go around asking themselves and others if God really exists until a dramatic incident happens. Here are some examples:
- A beautiful 7-year old girl runs down the street to fetch her ball and get hit by a car and dies.
- A tornado or hurricane wipes out an entire village killing many women and children, and leaving everyone else hungry and homeless.
- A country invades another country and destroys buildings, homes and historical sites, and killing hundreds or thousands of defenseless people.
If you ask a genuine representative of the three groups mentioned above, where’s God? And why did he allow something like this to happen?
The believer would tell you that there is God, but don’t expect him to come down and pat you on the back if you do a good deed, or slap you across the face if you do something bad. He would allow things to happen for a reason, and will punish or reward people on “judgment day”.
On the other hand if you ask the same question to the atheist representative. He would say, I told you that there is no God. If God really exists, how could he allow something like this to happen? Why didn’t he stop it if he could? And why doesn’t he let everybody live in peace and harmony since he’s capable of that?
The confused rep. would say, you know!! The believer has a good point. God is not going to live our life for us. He’s going to let us live and act however we choose, and deal with us on judgment day. But on the other hand, the atheist fellow has a good point as well. Why did God allow unjust incidents to happen? And why didn’t he stop them since he’s capable of that? I am so confused.