By Eugene Barnes
Is god real? This is a question I've struggled to find an answer to. My grandma was born into a Christian family and went to Catholic school for the most part of her life, and my great grandparents were members of the church for their whole life. Around the age of 7 was my first experience going to church. To Be honest, the first couple of times I went to church I enjoyed it. The people there were really nice and welcomed me and my grandma with open arms and answered all the questions I asked them about god. After about 3 years of going to church every Sunday my faith was tested, during my 4th grade year we started to learn about slavery and I was told that slavery lasted nearly 400 years. Fourth grade me was confused as to why god would let something so bad happen for so long. When I went to church that following Sunday I went to ask the pastor. “Although slavery was a bad thing, everything is a part of God's plan.” After that I really questioned if god was real or not. If god was real and putting people through slavery was a part of god's plan then I didn’t want to go along with his plan. Shortly after that I stopped going to church, mostly because I thought it was boring and a waste of time but what that pastor said always stuck with me. As I've gotten older the more I think about if god is real or not the more I realize I just don't care. If I had to answer the question “Is god real” I would say yes and no. It's a hard question to answer because people think of god different in different ways, for example the Greeks, Egyptians, and Vikings think there were a pantheon of gods while the Christians, Muslims and Jewish only believe in one god. Personally, I don't believe any of that is real but I do believe in a higher power. So I guess my answer would be no, I don't believe in god. As to how this question will impact my life further? I don't think it will. I feel like I’ve come to a conclusion I can live with and I have also come to the fact that I might be wrong.
3 Comments
Linda Dunsmoor
1/4/2023 11:55:58 am
The eternal questions! Very well reasoned and written.
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Lynn Girven
1/5/2023 03:13:51 am
Eugene, that is a profound topic. Some faiths believe that everything has a reason, and others believe that God is there to provide comfort, and there is evil in the world.
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Daniel Hart
1/5/2023 07:09:11 am
I'm Jewish, so I've always been sort of on the religious margins in America. I didn't go to school with very many other Jews, so I often found myself having conversations like this with Christians. I've gone through my own journey of intense pride in my faith, to questioning, to ultimately where I am now: comfortably atheist with strong connections to Jewish culture. But I do still believe in godliness - the idea that humanity can find the divine when we work together and create interpersonal miracles. Too often, people use "God" or their faith to justify dehumanization; like you said, Christians justified slavery by saying black people were not the same as white people under God. I think it comes down more to how each of us conceive godliness, holiness, and divinity on a personal level, more so than what we think this nebulous being in the clouds is expecting of us.
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