God

People wonder sometimes how an intelligent person can believe in God. If you're wondering this, I have no easy answers for you, but I have a response. I think God is a mystery; this leads me to think that people cannot claim to know much about God. People get seduced into projecting themselves onto God, as if God was made in their image. People love to project themselves onto other people, including parents, children, other loved ones, and anyone who is in conflict with them. Where God is concerned, we probably need to think in terms of whatever evidence we have (as is true for most of life). And you have to look for, or examine, evidence carefully. Evidence, in my personal experience, does not come in material forms only. There are immaterial kinds of evidence, ephemera, and intangible factors that prove all kinds of things. In this realm, a person can find evidence for the existence of God. I have, and that is why I believe that God exists and that God lived, visited plenty of people, then vanished into transcendence. The evidence I have for this is not material, though it is historical in some aspects. The crucial evidence for the existence of God is, I think, transformation (and lots of other people appear to share my view, though that doesn't make it correct per se, but is reassuring). In other words, my life changed. When people speak of God, they need to be very careful, so I don't want to be too rash in my assertions. Anyone who wants to know about whether or not God exists has to find out, I think, for themselves. It's not a second-hand relationship you can impose on others. And it's probably--speaking from my experience--about love, and not about fear. Perhaps God may occasionally choose to speak through other people, but it seems that belief begins within oneself alone.