God.

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Whether you believe in a "God" or not, I will never judge you.
These are simply my beliefs and thoughts on the matter, please do not take offence.
I mean no harm, intellectually, spiritually or otherwise to any person.

My beliefs.

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When I think of God or read about God, I can't help but be consumed by massive amounts of doubt and curiosity.
Could there truly be this all knowing, all powerful being?
Does he truly love everyone or everything?

My entire life, I've been presented with the idea of a God.
A single one, up until I learned about mythology and the idea of many Gods.
Regardless, there's on thing that always remains throughout my findings and studies..

Doubt.

Doubt.

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Doubt does not necessarily mean discounting something or believing it couldn't be true.
It's merely a speculation that it might not be true, or has the possibility of falsehood.
What does this mean to me as far as God goes?
As an idea, a thought even, God surely exists to me, yes.
Many a person believes it and throughout time, there have been many different recollections and stories written about him (assuming he's a being, not a force or energy).
There's no denying that the idea of God is very real.

What about reality though?
What about the physical realm?
No one can be completely certain, as even those with faith only have just that, faith.

My doubt begins with the bible solely.

A book written by MAN, ultimately, and passed down through the hands of many other men, being translated the entire time from language to language, interpreted differently through different eyes. Even being passed down through the hands of kings.. This is what bothers me the most, is to believe that after going through the hands of kings and many many men, that people honestly believe nothing was changed to keep order or to instill a king's will unto others to maintain order and control.. The simple fact is that the bible was not created by God, although, if he does exist (if being the operative word for me) it is supposedly his words recorded by man. If God is all knowing and all powerful and knows all that is, was and will be.. Why not create a book (or many books) that have some undeniable feature that can be taken as nothing but divine? Something that people could never discount? That could never be altered? That would be known purely as God's word?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

If.

I say if there is a God for one reason and one reason only.
Because IF there is a God/Gods, he/it/they instilled me with that doubt..

If there is some greater being that made me, they/it made me with an unwavering inability to accept man's recorded word as theirs/it's.
If there is a great creator, they instilled within me, the inability to have blind faith and to follow anything or anyone blindly..
Would they truly create me this way just to punish me for it?!
I don't believe so..

What I believe is that if there is a God, that I was made this way purposely and they knew that I would never blindly follow anyone or anything or any idea.. That I would analyze everything and break things down into their most simple forms and produce a decision based on said evidence. That being said, I believe that if God does love all of his creations, that he will not judge me based on how he made me.. That he will accept me and love me as long as I live what I believe to be a morally and ethically right life. If he made me, he gave me my moral compass and would probably expect me to use it.

The truth is, there's more evidence of gravity than of a supreme, all-powerful being.
The truth is, there are many stories of Gods, but they are simply that to me, stories, until proven undeniably otherwise.
The truth is, up until this point, I've had no clear and undeniable evidence that I should believe or have faith in.

The other if I ponder is, what if God isn't even an entity?
What if God is merely a force, attempted to be measured and highly personified?
What if God is love? Like the Rastafari believe?
Think about it for a second..
Your heart and your head know what you will do, always, before you do it and well all have those in order to live.
Everyone, even killers, rapists and murderers, love something..
Whether it be those atrocities or more positive things.
Maybe these stories and such and the presence of "God" is merely our conscience?
Our heads and our hearts, collectively..
Right and wrong being derived from them..

All powerful and knows what is and what will be.

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The biggest issue I have with God and religion in general, is that we supposedly have free will.
God supposedly knows everything that has happened, will happen and is happening currently.. Correct?
How do we then have free will?
Is it free will simply because it hasn't been made clear to us what we will choose?..

So when people try to push God or religion onto me, here's my rebuttal.. and it generally shuts up anyone I've ever talked to, unless they're extremely ignorant..

Me: "God created everything and knows all that will happen, right? Everything that happens in this world is by his design, correct? We are given free will as a gift from this God, correct?"
Religious person: "Correct!"
Me: "Ok, fair enough. So then explain this to me. Why are children being raped? Where is their free will to decide not to be raped? Not to have that atrocity put upon them?"
Religious person: * Silence *
Me: "Hmm?..."
. * Long pause *
Religious person: "Well, you see, the rapist is using their free will to force their will upon them.."
Me: "Yes, I understand that, what I'm asking is, what happened to that child's free will? Where is their choice?"
Religious person: * Silence *
Me: "Ok so let's just disregard the free will portion of that for a moment.."
Religious person: "Ok.. Go on.."
Me: "Negating that fact, this was part of his plan somehow.. Correct?"
Religious person: "Yes.."
Me: "Ok, so what kind of "great," "loving," "all-powerful" being, decides that children deserve to be molested? To live a damaged life? To be forever scarred by the will of another who is evil? Or that people period should suffer the injustices of rape? Murder? Theft? Oppression? Depression? Any of it? Is that truly a "great" God? Or a great evil?"
Religious person: * Silence... Awkward looks.. *

I guess my real question is..
How can one have faith in a great creator, when this is what his creation is?
When this world, in all it's horror, is a scary, dangerous place?..
When such horrible and disgusting things are happening?..

Decisions

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I understand that some people decide to believe in some great being.
I, however, just cannot and will not..
Whether it's because I'm made this way or because I've decided to be this way, I can't.
I can, however, believe in the possibility..
Which is why I will NEVER discount that there is a God.. Only speculate and doubt highly.
Just because I see no real proof of something, does not mean it does not exist.
I have to keep in mind, that also, I do not see any proof that he/it doesn't exist either.
Meaning, ultimately, that I am agnostic.
I believe it is possible, but also that it is very unlikely.

What you decide does not affect how I perceive you.
I am not one to judge and everyone is entitled to their beliefs, even if I don't agree.

The one thing I will never do, is bash the idea of God.
The other thing I will not do is claim that the bible does not teach good morals and ethics.
At it's very minimal stages, the bible is a positive guide on how to live your life morally and ethically (for the most part).
As to whether it's truly God's word.. I don't believe so.

I hope I did not offend anyone too much, as I know this can be a touchy subject and people get passionate.
My intent with this is to merely present those things that I think about and struggle with when it comes to the idea of God and religion.

Thank you for taking the time to read and feel free to give any feedback you would like..
You may present me with ideas or thoughts that I hadn't previously considered that could potentially change my perspective.
Just because I have certain feelings/beliefs about the topic, does not mean I'm closed-minded.
It simply means that this is what I have observed in my time here and these are the conclusions I've come to.

Best wishes to you all, fellow Steemates!