Is there a God? Many believe that the evidence points in the opposite direction.  They see the damage that has been done to the world in the name of religion and the contradictions and inconsistency of both religious movements and their holy books. 

Some will present the existence of evil or suffering as evidence of a world that is lacking any purpose and laugh at any suggestion that the world is held together by the loving presence of any Divine Beings. Others will suggest that scientific evidence offers reasons for our existence that do not need a God.

Psychologists, anthropologists, social scientists... all can give you theories on why man needs to invent gods to rule his world.  Religious experiences, it is claimed (both those before and after death) can be explained by chemical and neurological functions. 

Many testify to unanswered prayers, to lives brainwashed by religious dogma, to the restricting, soul destroying, properties of institutional belief. They speak of shattered dreams, unfulfilled expectations and of being used and manipulated. When it comes down to an even narrower focus on the worlds most adopted religious movement - Christianity - then the doors to ridicule are opened even wider. 

It appears a ludicrous story. God (in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary) creates the world in six days, some bad stuff happens with a snake and the world is cursed.

Along the way the devil falls from heaven, the world is almost destroyed by a flood, and a wandering tribe of nomads are chosen to be the ones through whom God will make things right again.  These 'Israelites' (recognized to various degrees by other world religious movements as 'people of faith'), commit mass genocide against any who get in their way, ridicule all other beliefs but there own, and establish themselves as a force in the Middle East.

Over the years they have a variety of positive and negative experiences relating to their disobedience or obedience to their jealous and angry God, who gives them a variety of laws to live by. By the time the B.C. era ends they are conquered people under the rule of Rome.

Then, amongst them is born, by a supernatural process, one who is later claimed to be God's Son and the promised Messiah figure of Israel. The way he carries on, the majority of religious Jews don't want anything to do with Him. 

He gathers around himself a small band of followers, is reported to have accumulated some original sayings and done some amazing miracles, only to be murdered by the authorities to whom he appears as a threat. (Which is hardly surprising when you consider some of the things he has said about them!)

Following his murder a small bunch of followers start spreading it around that he has come back from the dead. The only account we have of these things (their account!) tells us that they see him ascend to heaven and get filled with power from on high to start a new religious movement that bears his name.

In the earliest days of the movement a Jew, who takes the name of Paul, (who was not amongst the original disciples), becomes the movements architect, theologian and interpreter. What starts out as a Jewish cult, gains ground in the Gentile world.

'The Way' proves remarkably adaptable.  It's philosophy is sometimes hi-jacked by those seeking power and sometimes rejected altogether, but in a 'one step backward, one-and-a bit steps forward' motion it continues to grow and be known as the Church.

Eventually this peaceful movement is adopted by the powerful Roman Emperor Constantine and becomes a convenient tool in his violent efforts to unite the Empire.

The influence of the Christian movement can be seen in almost every sphere of life, from language to philosophy, from ethics to politics. There are those who would say it was a negative rather than a positive influence.  In many instances, when a person embraces it's teaching, it produces conflict rather than peace.

As a world religion it shows little uniformity but is fragmented into numerous groups, many of who claim to be the 'only true believers'. Different factions have (in a seemingly inconsistent attitude to that of it's founder) persecuted and murdered those outside their beliefs, and condemned each other to hell both on earth and in eternity.

Some are apocalyptic in nature, looking for Jesus to return (immanently) to blast away the wicked. Some exercise a degree of political power. In contemporary North America the 'Christian Right' are passionate about opposing such issues as abortion and homosexuality, which it would seem are sins far greater than nationalism, world hunger or racial prejudice.

One could go on and on and on and on about the inconsistencies, the lack of evidence, the travesty and tragedy of religion, Christian or otherwise.  It would not be unreasonable to conclude that the whole thing was a crock.  Many do. 

So why believe there is a God, when there seems ample evidence to the contrary? Why believe in Christianity, when the history of those who claim to believe, is such a sordid tale?

Well, for one thing, the whole story has to be taken into account. Nothing has been mentioned of the positive advances that religion - including Christianity - has brought to the world.  In fields from education to medical care, from social reform to civil rights, a great deal of what is positive and we take for granted just wouldn't be here were it not for the positive influence of Christian teaching.

Nothing has been said about the truly remarkable stories of faith, of lives turned around that otherwise would have been wasted, of incidences of answered prayer, of miracles and wonders and everyday occurrences of Grace.

Nothing has been said of those moments when things happen in life, that appear to point to there being more to life than that which we can measure or quantify or explain. Nothing has been said about the sense, common amongst peoples of many different ethnic backgrounds and experiences, who quite independently of each other have developed a feel for the reality of eternity, a sense of the Divine, a part of themselves.... which somehow relates to a 'something' out there beyond the boundaries of space and time.

Admittedly, some may put these experiences down to U.F.O's, Psychic forces or prayers of the saints, and of course some of these experiences can be explained by other causes than the existence of God. Many who have had them would certainly not attribute them to the God espoused by Christianity. However, the combined sum of all these experiences, (that are not uncommon in our present day), amounts to a body of evidence that points to something beyond our selves. Maybe, as the 'X-Files' declares, 'the truth is out there'.

Yet why would anybody want to be anything more than agnostic?  And why, considering its mistakes and blunders, past, present and future, would any sane individual want to have anything to do with the Christian church?  This is how it goes for me.

I believe in God because that something out there keeps interrupting and affecting my life.  I am a believer because on an almost daily basis my life is surrounded by a Grace and Providence that I don't know how to explain nor can attribute to any other source than the Divine. I believe because my experience of life is intimately connected to my experience of that which I name God. I cannot say why the same may not be true for any other person.  I do not know why this should be so for me, and not for somebody else.

Was I somebody who was always looking for an experience of God? No. It came and grabbed me when I least expected it. There was a time when I truly believed that life was all a matter of the material.  That you could never know where you came from or where you were going, that nothing had a reason and that the best you could do was make the most of the experiences that happened to you and seek to have a good time.

There was a time when I seriously believed that the only barometer of right and wrong was whether an experience was helpful or hurtful to another.  Hurtful experiences tended to produce hurt in return. Helpful ones tended to make friends last longer.  Karma. What goes around comes around, but ultimately we answered to nobody. I believed that there were no standards, other than those that had evolved to make life tolerable.  Right and wrong were not absolutes, but necessary for happiness.

All of this did not need a God or Divine presence to explain it.  Natural processes were a sufficient explanation. Why invent a God to sanction common sense? Why postulate a theory of God being the thing that filled the gap, when you didn't have a gap that needed filling?

There is a British TV 'Sci-Fi' comedy series known as 'Red Dwarf'.  In one of the books of the series, the characters end up in a game known as 'Better than Life'. The game is so addictive, that once you have it hooked up to your brain, you cannot escape. You become a 'Game Head'.

In the midst of being trapped in the Game, one of the characters becomes aware of a pain in his arm, as though someone were ingraining a message into his flesh. It turns out that's exactly what's happening; the one doing the rescue job writing on his arm a message in blood to wake him up to the fact he was in the game and needed to escape.

My experience of what I describe as God has been as though something out there was desperately trying to get me to see that this game we call life is not all that there is. Often this realization has come through experiences of pain or disillusionment and even death. It draws me towards the image of Jesus Christ dieing on a Cross, whose disciples suggest lived the perfect life and claim that He had an intimate relationship with God.

His resurrection, as both a presence in the out there and as a bubble of incomprehensible hope somewhere inside of my self, makes their claims even more startling. The effect of this I can best describe as being a process of de-fragmentation. Taking me apart and putting it all back together in order to make room for more God stuff to happen.

Is this a genuine belief containing grains of reality or am I being duped by missing out some important elements in my diet? To use the "Red Dwarf' analogy, is religion the addictive game that has me hooked, or is it the force trying to get me to see life for what it truly is?

As the years go by and I try and react to the influence of 'religious' experiences, my life has become richer, deeper and more focused. Yet, I would be the first to admit, in the words of a contemporary song, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for".  I say that, not because I have found faith to be an empty or un-fulfilling experience, but because the more I learn, the more I realize that I have to learn, and that my knowledge will never be complete.

There always remains the possibility that I am a deluded fool. That is an option open to all of us. At the end of the day, the question of the existence or otherwise of the Divine is intensely personal. I believe there is a God.

I believe there is a God who is parent to all humankind. Who weeps over our displacement and desires unity. I believe in a Jesus who called enemies to embrace and despised religion that caused separation. I believe in a Holy Spirit that comes unexpected as a cool breeze on a stifling day, to refresh our lives and fire us with visions of possibility.

If I had an impossible dream it would be that none of us would allow the conclusions we reach to lead us into feeling that any others conclusions, have less value than our own. That we would not allow our answers to become walls we hide behind. Walls certainly provide an element of security, but they also block the view.

That rather than allowing our beliefs to be a wall, we would let them be our window. That we would be prepared from time to time to climb out of our window, run out into the fields and embrace those who are climbing out of different windows. Belief is not meant to be a prison.

There is so much that we don't know that there always remains the possibility that we are all wrong. The best we can do is live by what we believe and dare to love those who choose to believe something totally different, for they too are human beings, weaved of the same love and life, the same DNA and the same flesh and blood as ourselves.

Is there a God?
For my self, my whole being resounds with the affirmative.
Yes. There is a God.
God's love has been revealed in Jesus Christ.
God's love can be known in the Holy Spirit.
That is my belief.

My hope is that, however we answer these questions of ultimate meaning, our answers lead to a growth in understanding of those who answer ultimate questions in a different way. I have no wish to become embroiled in childish 'I'm right, you're wrong' debates.

My experience of life leads me to believe in the existence of God. When all is said and done, all of us live by faith in something.