The Question of God's Existence

My younger sister and I were having a conversation the other day, which isn’t really unusual. Somehow the subject came around to God. My sister is a decided agnostic; I, on the other hand, feel there just has to be some kind of higher power out there.

Her argument for being a non believer is that how could some wonderful, benevolent being, which is in charge of it all let all the terrible things happen in the world. This is a common argument among agnostics, and I do see their point. Sometimes it is very hard to have the faith that there is someone out there watching over us.

She also makes the point that with all the religions out there being in such conflict with each other, how one would be able to find a “true” one. Of course, each church believes that they have the truth and the others are just muddling along.

Let me give you a little background on how we were raised, and you might see how we come to have such divergent beliefs.

My mother was raised in a strict Christian household. As a child, though, I believe we went to whatever church sent a bus around to pick us up. I remember attending services at Nazarene, Baptist, and Church of Christ; all of which proclaimed they had the true gospel and you would need to be baptized according to their tenants in order to be saved. This sounded rather complicated to a young girl and I couldn’t see why a baptism in one church would be any better than any other.

My father didn’t really have any belief at all. I know my great grandfather attended a church, but I don’t really recall the rest of the family following his lead.

My mother is now Pentecostal, and very happy in her choice, which is fine for her.

I lean toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and am indeed of member, but I do have some problems with how some members interpret scripture. My main problem is when my husband died at the age of 55, many felt I should begin sitting with the widows and living accordingly. I did not feel the same and have had some great difficulty in even attending church for the past seven years.

The real issue seems to be that everyone believes that they are the one and only true religion and only those who come to believe as they do are considered believers. Some faiths even go so far as to be intent on wiping out all they consider unbelievers, which make everything even more confusing.

I have come to realize that faith and religion is not the same thing. Each of us must have our personal relationship with a higher power, whether that is Confucius, Mohammed, Christ, Buddha, or the myriad of others that we, on earth, believe in.

My personal relationship is with Christ, even if I don’t feel that it is the same as others of my religion. I have to believe that there is something better on the other side of this life. Otherwise, what reason is there to live? I generally feel that my life here has been one of darkness, with tiny spots of light; the birth of my children and grandchildren, and meeting my third husband, who was the love of my life. Other than that, I do not feel particularly blessed even when I was living exactly as I was told I should be living. My husband still died less than a year after we had married, my eldest children lost their father, as well, in a motorcycle accident which made no sense, and my great nephew, Jesse, whom we all viewed as a shining star, was killed in a freak accident. I do see my sister’s point.

This is why I must believe that if I can just get through this life and keep faith that there is something better, so I will not go crazy. Since there is no way of actually proving one side of this argument or the other, I guess we’ll all just have to wait to see who was actually right.