I Just Realized... I'm Not A Christian

“Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to.”
-Dan Brown Angels and Demons

I was raised in a “moral” environment – we went to Sunday School and church every week, and participated in all the church things. We didn’t pray at meals; we didn’t pray at bedtime. Always, though, there was the understanding that we should be grateful for what we had, and not judgmental of how others lived their lives.

My parents were never overtly religious. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t faithful.

As I get older and more in-step with my mother, I’ve noticed that she has a very different faith than I do. She’s constantly questioning what she believes religion tells her – particularly the idea that everything has a purpose; “His eye is on the sparrow, so I know he watches me.”

Events like the tsunami bother her to no end. How could God let all those children die like that? What could be the purpose in that?

Very recently, tragedy has occurred in our family. Death has visited where none thought it could. Talking to my mom, all she can say is, “How could He let this happen?” And that is where our faiths differ.

I’m a Deist. I do believe there is a god. Maybe it’s God, or Yahweh, or Allah, or Buddha, or Shiva, or any or all of the gods worshipped in the world. I believe there is a god, but I don’t think that god directly intervenes in our world.

Life is life. Life is NOT fair. We’ve had such advances in society that we forget even 50 years ago, children died fairly regularly. We’ve become insulated from just how not-fair life is. But to blame god for the random acts of life is a lesson in futility.

God is. God has provided. God is strength and purity and creation and light. Will our spirits join god when we die? I don’t know. I hope so.

But, I can’t believe that his eye is on the sparrow. To believe that would be to believe that he allows innocent babies to die as part of some greater purpose.

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