(Week 8 Fixed Topic Sample) Religion: Do I Believe God Exists?

Whether God exists or not is a difficult question and, as far as I know, there is no easy answer and...frankly I don't know what I believe. That's the honest truth.


I often characterize my religion as "honest, confused truth-seeker humanist" and stay open to all possibilities.

When people tell me they believe or, more suspiciously, claim to know for sure that God exists, I often wonder whether they should ask themselves whether they mean "want to believe".

Some believe that God should be defined the "creator" of our world, but I am not sure whether it is ever possible to prove or disprove that a creator exists, so that line of discussion seems meaningless to me. However, I do believe that something called God exists in our minds, and each of us has a different perception of what that is.

So, in that sense, yes, I do want to believe in God and feel that this belief is a beneficial belief.

Before I explain that, I need to tell you my definition of "God." My personal definition or interpretation of God is "the ideal good of our existence, personified." In other words, God is and SHOULD BE the most perfect "personality" we can imagine as our idol or leader, with the most power and most attractive personality we can idealize. We should worship that and learn from it. Children should be taught to revere it and believe it and become like it.

God is our ideal of the person we want to serve and live under. Since different individuals and different societies have different ideals, they have different images of "God" or gods. In some societies, they have not yet agreed upon what a perfect leader's traits will be, so they do not have a "God" or they prefer to have many gods with various personalities including those who "demons" or "devils" who cause trouble and are in conflict with other gods. In any society, I think the pursuit for some type of "God" will always continue, and different groups and societies will always continue to argue what God should be like, or what God wants from humans.

The Christian God/Jesus/Holy Spirit has many desirable characteristics. He loves humans, values modesty and forgiveness, and rewards those who do good in their afterlife. I think that is pretty close to my own ideal.

Extra: Last, for those interested, here is a clever satirical essay called "American Jesus" by Roger Pulvers, columnist of the Japan Times. This is a very sharp jab at politics and religion in America.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20111106rp.html