How Can God NOT Exist

How can God NOT exist?

            This is not an article filled with facts, figures or foot notes.  I have no credentials for that kind of thing and am happy to leave it to the experts.  What I am is a wife, mother, teacher, and member of the human race with eyes, ears, and a thinking brain, all gifts from someone or somewhere.  Happenstance?  Sludge?  Or by the design of a Supreme Being?

What is the meaning of life?   Where did we come from?  These are two of the most common existential questions of all time.  Civilizations since the beginning of recorded history have been asking and attempting to answer these questions in their own cultural fashion.  Some have found workable answers while others are still searching. 

            Historically speaking, all civilizations have developed a belief in some type of higher being.  Whether it be the Egyptians with their Gods Ra, Horus, Anubis, or the Ancient Greeks with their gods that kept aloof high atop Mount Olympus.  The Scandinavians had Odin who resided in Valhalla and the Chinese had their Shinto gods of nature.  You get the idea.

            Because of the almost unanimous search for God across all cultures, one can arguably draw the conclusion that there is a Supreme Being who has written his existence onto the hearts of all men.  I do anyway.

            There is the story of the young boy who wanted to know about God.  He pestered his mother for answers, but she was always busy with the housework and wasn’t sure she had a satisfactory answer, so she finally told him to go ask his father. 

            The little fellow then went to his father and kept after him hoping for an answer.  The father also put him off, partly because he didn’t know how to answer his son, and partly because he didn’t really know God himself.

            Finally, one day the grandfather picked up his grandson and took him fishing.  As they sat peacefully on the dock with their lines in the water, the boy decided to ask his grandfather.

            “Grampa, do you believe in God?”  His grandfather was silent for so long the little boy thought he was also avoiding the question just like his mom and dad had.

            Finally, the old man put his arm around the boy.  He looked lovingly into the eyes of the son of his son.  “Buddy, the older I get the more and more I can’t believe there is NOT a God.”

            I really like this story because, as I age, I feel the same way.  I’ve been Catholic my whole life.  I learned the Catechism, received my sacraments at the proper time and followed my parent’s example.  I learned the ten commandments and tried to follow them, not always successfully and even after all the years of practice, I still fall short.

 Finally, after much thick-headedness, there came a time when I understood them, not as a list of no-nos from a mean God who didn’t want us to have fun, but as a blueprint that would insure that are lives would be joyful, light, and free of the consequences of sin. 

            That was the point when I started understanding just how GOOD and present our God is.  I started noticing more and more all of his perfectly ordered works that surround us daily.

            For example, look at the earth and the solar system in which we reside.  Every 24 hours our planet rotates in a circle giving us night and day, not too fast, not too slow that carbon-based life form is prevented, but just the right speed.

What powers this?

            Along with this movement is the earths yearly rotation around the sun and because of the earth’s tilt on its axis, we have seasons.  Beautiful seasons where the earth is dressed in the life-giving green of spring, abundant crops of summer with a food chain that feeds all creatures, followed by the reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn as the plants recede into their rest phase of winter with its frosty crystals and cold temperatures.  Always new, always orderly, always interesting.

 What powers this?

            Let’s take a look at the smallest form of creation, the minute atom, the building block of all creation.  Its structure follows the same order and design as the larger cosmos.  A central nucleus is orbited by electrons, just as the sun is orbited by it’s planets.  All atoms follow the same pattern and are made of the same material.  What differentiates them is the amount of proton in each nucleus. The electrons orbit around and around the nucleus and never stop.

What powers this?

            Now, let us draw breath and feel our hearts beat as it pumps life giving blood, laden with oxygen and nutrients to all parts of bodies.  Can we control how and when our hearts beat?  Can we stop our hearts at will and then restart them like some kind of party game?  The power comes from electrical impulses from our brain which is an involuntary function.  But where do this electrical impulses come from?

What powers this?

            Let the last example be babies.  A man and woman share their love in a marital embrace and from that embrace, a life comes into existence.  The mother goes about her daily business, eating, drinking, sleeping (and running to the lavatory way more than usual) while the baby continues to grow and grow and grow until birthing time. 

What powers this?

            Many nonbelievers have burned up countless hours of time and a mountain of paper trying to explain scientifically that the Power is some technical, or natural phenomena that couldn’t possibly be God.  Their arguments are only academic, because they cannot prove any of it.  These arguments are only theories.  A thorough examination of these theories will leave those of us searching for the absolute truth completely dissatisfied as God-fearing experts have poked countless logical holes into them.

            And really, what is so bad about believing in a loving God?  My money (and soul) is on the existence of God!