Circumstantial Proofs of the Existence of God

So there I was, on my couch, having what I felt was a spiritual experience. I prayed for the ability to accept my wife leaving me, for the courage to face it, and for the strength to deal with it.

My prayer was answered.

It was as if the crushing mountain of oppression that was threatening to annihilate me was instantly gone. Now you see it, now you don't. I'm talking soul-crushing, mind-numbing, paralysis suddently lifted and replaced by serene confidence that I could survive. I cannot stress that enough. This was not just a minor change in attitude. This was salvation. This was a deliverance of something impossible, a FedEx overnight delivery of the impossible and unimagined dream. Anyway, I think you get the point.

So now I had to wrestle with a lifetime of dismissing God as irrelevant. I had never seriously doubted that He existed, but I certainly had my share of atheist friends and wouldn't have dismissed the possibility. Mine was no firmly held believe until this experience. Over the years since then I have compiled a few different arguments that fit together to provide even more pieces to my certitude. Let's just say that I have yet to find something whose conclusion makes me think there might not be a God.

Today, I will just list them. Over the next few posts I'll outline them in more detail and share some of the pondering I did. I'm not trying to convince anyone, each person has to decide for themselves. I'm just sharing some of the ways my scientific, logical, rational, inquisitive mind has explored the ultimate question and always had the same answer. Some are arguments for the existence of God, some are arguments for acting as if there is even if there isn't.

* The overwhelming number of believers over time
* The Watchmaker argument
* The Universal constants argument
* Personal experience
* Media undertones
* Ability of prophets to start a religion despite severe opposition
* Scientific proof
* Euphemisms people use
* Altruism versus survival of the fittest
* Occam's Razor

* It is better to believe if there isn't than not believe if there is
* Look at the good it has done regardless of whether there is a God
* Hypocrisy in adherents doesn't disprove God
* Spiritual influence on world events

Some of these I'm sure you are familiar with, some are all mine. I'm a thinker. It's what I do. I could not have accepted God had I needed to turn my brain off and accept everything on Faith. I assume He gave me a brain for a reason. I admit that each and every one of them is subject to my individual biases and observations. I am, after all, fallible and finite.

Next time - two billion heads are better than one.