Is God to be found sat on a cloud looking down upon us, watching our every move? Or is God actually inside all of us, in our soul.
Some people go to a building such as a church or synagogue to find their God. Others might go for a walk in a forest, or sit on an empty beach looking at the sea to feel close to God.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the question ‘Where is God’, is ‘Where is God when something bad happens?’.
If you believe that God created the universe and the earth, you could argue that
God created humans. Humans created war and evil, not God. But God must have given
us the opportunity of doing bad. He perhaps gave us a choice to do right and wrong.
Will we be judged on our choices, or is choice an illusion. Science is increasingly
leaning toward the belief that we actually have no free will. In the many dimensions
of time and space, beyond just the three that we can comprehend, it could be that
our destiny awaits us and we cannot change it. This might support the idea of being
able to choose a life in which to incarnate into as a spirit; being able to look
at a life that is mapped out and choose which one we would most learn from whether
it be as Cleopatra or Jack the Ripper. Have all the Billions of lives that have and
will exist on this planet for its entire existence already been chosen and planned
out for us? If we look at the concept of parallel universes, which again science
is leaning towards all the time, then the fact would be that for every decision we
make, the other decisions we could have gone with ‘branch out’ into another universe
and do happen, just with an alternate version of ourselves. In this case, we have
to ask, would all the ‘spirits’ of all the versions of us be one and the same? And
when we choose a life to live in the world of spirit, do we choose which ‘branch’
we will take, or does this branching universe effect actually allow us to have a
choice in a world of no free - will, something that sounds bizarre. We must accept
that we will probably never know the answers, at least not in our life time, although
it is probable that as science develops at the rate in which it is, there will be
some sort of answers out there at some point.
Bad things happen to good people, that is a fact. But the question is why? Well, the most obvious answer would be to learn from it. The first time you experience a death of someone close to you, for example, might be a very difficult and trying time. But you can then use that experience to help you through another traumatic time in the future, or in a counselling role to help others deal with the same emotions. Someone who has been a criminal but then repented might feel that they have more compassion than others, or that they can help victims of crime. Someone who is a murderer, well, perhaps they chose that road to experience those negative emotions and the dark side of the human being that we all have somewhere inside us. Or are evil human beings actually mentally ill? It has been the case that people who suddenly turn to paedophilia, for example, have been found to have a tumour growing in the part of the brain which controls sexual emotion or desire. When the tumour is removed, they can turn back to their ‘normal’ self, feeling ashamed of what they had done. Perhaps what we would call evil people actually have brain damage in some way. That is a very difficult area to go down because it is such an emotive subject, but one day in the future, scientists may discover a way to control or remove this ‘illness’. Where would that leave religion? Science actually changing our thoughts, our feelings ... our souls.
Some religions promote ‘karma’, which means you get back what you put out into the universe. If you put out negative emotions, you attract them. If you hurt someone, you will be hurt. It is a nice rule to live by, but how far can it be taken? If you are suffering in some way, do you deserve to be? Or is suffering a test to see how you can deal with it, maybe coming out the other side a better person .
A lot of people find it hard to connect to a God when they don’t know what he looks like, who he is, where he is, or why he put us here. We presume that God is love, and we use the ‘devil’ concept as the antithesis to that. If you believe that life on earth actually is hell, as some people think, then you might argue that God and the Devil are one and the same. Perhaps we are our own God; we review our own lives when we die and feel the hurt or joy that we have bought to others. In this way, we would be our own judges. When we look into the face of God, maybe we simply see ourselves. Maybe that is where God is to be found!
