Is the Debate over God Worth It?

Seriously consider this question: Is the debate over God's existence worth it? Or rephrased, is it really worth it to argue for or against God's existence? More importantly, is the debate over the nature of God worth it? Before you get offended by these questions, bear in mind that there is an important dilemma surrounding these questions.

Here is what I want to ask you all. When wars are started over basic things such as a disagreement over the nature of God and who God thinks is right, you have to ask if the debate is worth it when millions of people die for it? Realistically, I don't know how anyone with any real sense of moral integrity can value a debate about God over the lives of the people that God supposedly created. At least according to the Judeo-Christian and maybe Muslim tradition (I don't know overly much about Islam), God created man in his image. If he created people in his image, I doubt he wants people to kill each other in his name. After all, if God is benevolent and omniscient, then whether or not humans get the ideas right are irrelevant. A truly good God should only want good effort and the strongest attempt at a moral life as is possible.

Wars over religion are stupid, no matter what. Whenever one culture or religion begins to attack or fight with another one just because of differences in belief, a serious tragedy has occurred. If anything could make God cry, I think it'd be petty conflicts over differences in belief. We are all humans born forth from the same planet, no matter what religion we are. Unless you subscribe to some belief that aliens deposited humans here (which though possible is only fractionally so), we all came from the same soil, from the same life-giving earth. To kill each other over different beliefs about God and religion or even lifestyle is just stupid and tragic. If I subscribed to the anthropomorphic version of God, I would imagine him shedding tears at how his children are destroying each other.

We are too inclined to conflict, to war. Some cultures have managed to avoid excessive violent tendencies. The Hindus have existed in their own subcontinent without ever trying to expand out of it. It has survived multiple invasions and attempted cultural assimilations and has never once attempted real retribution. Only in recent years as Muslims and Christians continue to try to crush their culture and replace it with their own have there been violent retaliations. This is expected though; punch somebody enough times and they deserve to hit back. This does not mean that Hindus are perfect, but there is something to be learned from them. They happily assimilate other religious beliefs into their cultural system, while other religions reject everything they have to say. How come we, as humans, are not listening to each other? This becomes only more tragic when blood is spilled because of this.

If religion can only lead to contention and strife, then it's not worth it. I don't believe that religion inevitably leads to conflict. There is the possibility for peace between religions, but only when each person values another's religion as much as they value their own. In fact, you have to believe that they are as justified and as correct as you are before you can claim to be giving their religion proper and fair treatment. If you fail to do this, you are tarnishing your religion, and should take your failings elsewhere. Though you can't succeed at this immediately, the effort needs to be present. If you're not even trying, then you are failing to love other people like your God loves you. In order to be worthy of the God within and the God who made us, you have to be willing to love your neighbor and his beliefs more than your own. Until then, we will be nothing other than failures to the godliness that God instilled in us.

I personally do not believe in an antropomorphized version of God. I don't believe it's impossible, I just don't hold it is a belief in my personal life. I relied too much on God as an agent in my life, when I am supposed to be my own agent for action. God is meant to be a source of strength, not a being to give you what you want or fix your life for you. Part of our free will is the ability to make our own choices and do our own actions. No God who truly wants us to grow up could ever live our lives for us. That would be a kind of death for us, and God wanted us to have life. I relied on and prayed to much to the human God. That was a personal failing. I imagine God more as the total sum of all possibilities, the whole of reality made manifest. The concept of a conscious God is no longer present in my thought processes. Consciousness was too limited, and God is eternal. I personally subscribe more to the idea that God is everything, except I don't call it God, I call it eternity or reality, and I don't worship it. I feel blessed to be a part of the ceaseless process of reality, but I will live my life without the expectation of someone coming to save me (that was a personal fault by the way).

Anyways, the next time you feel compelled to engage in a religious debate, trying to prove whose conception of God is the best, remember that you're likely causing more problems than good. God needs no champion; he's God. His existence and power are not belittled or weakened by people disbelieving, so no matter what your views are about the objective truth about God, remember that fighting over it is pointless. If your God is truly God, he will remain God no matter what you do. Make yourself worthy of that God by spreading the only thing that a good God could truly want: peace and love (and peace and love does not mean spreading your religion, it means spreading the good of humanity). Once you have achieved that, then you have found the God within, and will then see the God without. If you value the future of humanity, please, please make this your most important of goals. If this is not achieved, many people will continue to die.