Does God Really Exist?

Does God really exist? I don’t know where I’m going with this. I’ll just keep writing and see what happens. 

So does He exist? This is an age old question asked by millions of people in countless generations. I’ll just base my question on my own personal experience.

Why do I believe in God? I was born in a Christian home and started going to church at an early age and believed in Jesus at an early age. BUT! We all know that if you train a child in a particular way that’s what they’ll grow to know and believe. If you teach a child courtesy when they are young, they will grow up to be courteous adults unless something corrupts them on the way or unless something tells them that what they learnt was wrong or unreal. What’s the difference between a muslim child and a ‘me’ child. We both were taught teaching when we were young and both grew up to believe in them. So whose is wrong or a lie? I was taught that to know God is a personal thing…you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus. So let me get personal. I understand the danger of doing this. I am a human being and we are prone to remembering the negatives more than the positive…but here we go.

I grew up believing in God ok until I started questioning. We were taught not to question God but why not? Many people in the bible did. I started questioning why my prayers were not being answered. I remember really praying for a disc-man just after they hit the market. I ‘followed all the procedures’. Some said you need to be specific with God so I did. I remember this very well coz it’s something I really wanted to have. The bible says that God is our father. If my son really wants a disc-man and I can afford it, I’ll buy it for him. I remember wanting a walk-man (cassette player) and I asked my father. It took a while but I remember him calling me one day on phone and asking me what I’d like him to bring. Without hesitating for a second I said a walk-man. I was extremely excited when he did. It’s a really good feeling when someone gives you exactly what you have always wanted. I was a teenager then. But the disc-man; I remember praying continuously everyday upstairs in the room at a particular time for about a week or more. I even gave God the specifics: a black disc-man; Sony. Surely why didn’t God simply answer a young teenagers prayer? And it’s not like He told me anything like a disc-man is not good for you son because it will distract you from your studies or do you promise to improve your grades if I got you a disc-man? That’s what a father would do. Up to this day I have never owned a disc-man. By the time I could afford it, it was outdated.

Now my prayers have changed. I remember praying ‘please God don’t let the fuel isha in my car’. I was not too far from the petrol station. The fuel gauge of my car doesn’t work and the car had just kicked (that was the sign that I had a very short distance before the fuel was over). The car went off almost immediately after saying the prayer. It stopped at a very awkward place. It was difficult to get public transport from there. So why did God ignore my prayer? I will stop there before this becomes too long; but I can remember numerous, very numerous times when my prayers were not answered including the infamous one when I was attacked by guys from a rival school. We were from a Christian union function. Please note: I did not have a very good high school background. I used to attend almost every ‘funkie’ (club functions with other schools), for the sake of hitting on chics. I was in almost every club; some because I was good at what I did there but mostly for the sake of chics: Name it drama (I was good in drama), debate, scouts, chess (I was very poor in chess), cheering squad, science club, CU…actually I think the only club I was not in was YCS (a catholic club). I never attended ‘funkies’ at boy schools or shady girl schools.

But this one time, my brother invited me to attend a Christian Union function at a shady girl school. I was about to say no, but changed my mind. I decided that at least once in my high school life I should genuinely attend a Christian Union function. So I went, for God, not the chics. I sat at the front, was actively involved in the whole process. One of the facilitators even identified me as having taught me in Sunday school many years before. She was very proud to see that I was still holding on till then. On our way back, many of us wanted to buy fries. Our patron suggested that we send a few of us. 3 of us volunteered; I was one of them. Meanwhile, there was a football game going on in our school and we defeated the rival team. They were known to be the most rowdy school in the province. Their school was also a walking distance from our so we met somewhere in the middle. I remember praying very confidently, God please protect us. Full of courage I told my school-mates to walk behind me. We crossed the road and noticed about 10 or less guys crossing the road as well. I totally had no fear; at least not until I got two punches on my jaw. I couldn’t chew food for a week. My school-mates were ok. A police car appeared before anything else happened. That experience dented my belief in God’s divine protection. Whatever explanation you give me today cannot cover the fact that I feel less safe when directly facing danger. It happened again years later. Without getting into the whole story; I saw danger when about five guys suddenly appeared on the shortcut road I used home. There were 3 young ladies ahead of me. It was around 6pm. I immediately knew what they were up to. I said a quick prayer and walked on boldly. But when they grabbed the ladies, I remembered my previous experience; I turned around and ran just in time to see one of them start to run after me. I don’t know how long he did coz I never looked back. I ran… I have never run so fast; until I was safe. I ran for more than a kilometer. I was around 19yrs old.

So was God trying to teach me something, which I apparently haven’t learnt till today: or does He simply not exist?

I have never seen miracles with my own eyes; miracles that I can believe happened without a shadow of a doubt. The only miracles I have seen are on TV or stories which might as well be cooked or staged. I will not deny the fact that I have prayed and prayers have been answered; but none of them lack a counter explanation. My favorite is my legs. When I was about 25yrs old, from out of the blue I got a pain in both my legs. It was so bad one Sunday morning I couldn’t get out of bed and there was no one in the house. I called an instrumentalist friend of mine and told him that I wouldn’t make it to church. I was one of the instrumentalists. I had never missed a session before. My legs pained so bad for about a week on and off. The doctors couldn’t find anything…or I was probably going to the wrong doctors. One day, I remember very clearly I got so furious at the pain and commanded it to stop paining in Jesus name. Within minutes the pain stopped and never ever came back. So there, my own personal miracle: BUT, there’s a counter. The human mind is a very powerful tool. What happened beyond that is not beyond the human psychology. With your mind you can choose to live or die at that crucial moment. This is a proven fact. Pain can be controlled by the mind. Notice, when you are annoyed and someone steps on you, you feel a lot of pain. That pain is biologically measurable. It’s actually real pain only that your nerves have exaggerated it. When you are in a very good mood and someone steps on you, you will not feel the pain or you will feel less. The mind controls this. If you distract your mind with a movie, your stomach ache will seem to disappear yet it’s still there. What if that’s what happened on that day. What if it was just a strong exertion of my mind? If it was something like my chopped off finger growing back in seconds, I would not doubt coz that is humanly impossible. Every answered prayer of mine has a counter explanation or loophole or the probability of coincidence. I wish I had privileges like Adam who spent time with God every evening, Abraham to whom God spoke to audibly, Noah who was the only man God spoke to when He wanted to destroy earth, Elijah who saw many strange things including being fed by birds, an angel and running faster than a chariot, Elisha who made a whole army of soldiers go blind, Joshua who shouted and made city walls collapse, Isaiah who saw the throne of God, Samuel whom God audibly called in his sleep, the disciples who walked with a man who claimed to be the Son of God; even if they doubted the miracles they saw Him being whipped, ‘thorned’, nailed to a cross, poked with a spear, die and rise again on the 3^rd day. They still doubted though, at the beginning, when they saw Him. This is normal for a human being. Though Jesus reproached them for being unbelieving He did not tell them ‘too bad if you don’t believe you won’t go to heaven’. He told them to touch Him to assure them that He was human and not a spirit and also to touch His wounds to  assure them that it was the same Him, Gideon told God if it’s really You make the ball of wool wet and the ground dry. God did, just to alleviate doubt, I assume, he told God ‘now make the ball of wool dry and the ground wet’. God did.

What if the bible is a well thought up coined super-tale? If it is then it’s perfectly crafted; with all the bases covered and escape phrases. The bible says ‘whatever you ask in my name I will do’ (John 14:13-14) and about 2 other verses. Then it goes on to say ‘you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss’ (James 4:3). Without getting into much doctrine, there are many “contradicting” verses in the bible. The bible has no perfect working formula. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you.’ Fine: but after how long? Should I seek Him for all my life then all these things will be added when I am 82yrs old? One well crafted illegal deal will get me all 'these things' in 2 years. After that I will be a very good person, go to church, pray, be faithful to my wife, be a good father, a good employer, always do legitimate business, give to the needy…by the way have you noticed that the so called secular world is more philanthropic, as much as it might sometimes be for show or to reduce payable tax; someone...many people are being helped. The bible seems to have a way of protecting itself from being discredited. I’m saying this assuming the bible is a-well-thought-up-coined super-tale.

 We base all our belief in God from the bible. What if we deleted the bible? Of course this would mean deleting thousands of other religions who have extracted their beliefs from the bible including Islam, Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, and Mormons etc. We would remain with facts. If we didn’t have the bible would we still believe in God, would we know Him?

If God is real and God is truth, it would mean that no matter what we do away with, including the bible; if we search for the truth, as everybody seems to be doing, we will find God. Truth remains truth whether there is compelling reason to believe in it or not. If a baby grows up alone on an island near the sea, he will eventually realize that he has the ability to swim; whether there is a book (bible) or a person (preacher) to tell him that he can or cannot. The only reason why he will never realize he can swim is if he doesn’t get curious and start searching for something to do…which is highly unlikely. If God truly does exist, then we will realize it whether compelled to or not unless there is someone blinding us from doing so. If Satan is real, then God is real. I’m beginning to get confused here. If God is real then research and science will figure it out eventually or at least figure out that there is a super power somewhere and we need to access that power. Scientists will try and access that power but after failed attempts will realize that it is impossible as human beings to access God with science then realize that they had the answer all along...it had been in written in the most common book…the bible. BUT, if God is real then Satan is real too. Therefore he will work against people realizing that God does exist through science and technology. Therefore people will take drastically wrong turns e.g. evolution and build all their facts based on that turn. I don’t know how it works; does God just watch Satan deceiving people and do nothing? If God is real, then evolution isn’t; so why did God let such a terrible lie loose. He should have nipped it when it was being conceived. How many people believe in evolution? Hundreds of millions?

Why then would God watch his own people do mediocre things, Christian music is mediocre (not all of it but majority of it). Most of like is wanting professionally or lacks content or both or is repetitive in theme, content and style therefore lacking in creativity. A lot of it doesn’t even honor God; you wonder why it’s called Christian music. Almost all matatus (public transport vans), written Christian verses or playing Christian music, drive recklessly and pay bribes to cops, businesses with Christian names like Jehovah driving school or the Messiah baking shop have bad products and has staff that doesn’t behave in anyway Christian. Ask any executive or businessman, majority will say that they would rather work for or supply to a non-religious organization. It should be the other way round. Self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous work more effectively than church accountability groups. They say that Africa has the most Christians and the most prayerful people then why does it have the most riots, the most hunger, the most disease, the most poverty and the most twisted governments? By the way isn’t there a verse in the bible that says all authority is given by God? If so then why does God give Africa, the people who pray to Him the most, the worst authorities? Christians are mostly knee-jack reactors hardly original. Pop Idols and other talent search is invented then you hear The exodus talent search. Movies are created followed by Christian movies, Rock then Christian rock, Rave then gospel raves; which is a terrible idea, Djs then Christian djs, TV stations then Christian TV stations including Christian news, Magazines then Christian magazines. There is nothing that I know of that a Christian did first. The only thing I know original to Christians is the church facility. Many copycats have risen recently to imitate the church style of meeting together to worship. Otherwise everything else, name it; the richest man, the fastest runner, the best footballer, the best guitarist, the best pianist, the MVP in basketball, the best American football player, the person with the longest hair, the fastest rapper, the best shot in the army, the fastest swimmer, the bestselling book author, the best actor, the most awards won person, the first man on the moon, the first man to discover America, the man who discovered electricity, the Wright brothers, Albert Einstein, the best painter that ever lived, the best customer-care bank, the fastest growing business, the creator of facebook, the man who discovered the internet, the most respected man on earth, the UN peacekeeper of the year, any Guinness Book of World Records person; I can continue naming them; the fastest Formula One driver, the fastest motor sport rider, the owner of Virgin, the best performer of all times, Larry King,  Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, the best vocal trainer in the world, the man who owns the biggest cows, the best Nat Geo photographers, the most diplomatic president in the world and the Queen. I can bet you anything that almost none of these persons are Christians.

Science is proven facts. I love science. It’s very intriguing; it’s filled with a lot of splendor and mystic and it’s filled with a lot of controversy. Controversy is a result of ignorance. When people did not know about ball lightning, they claimed that balls of light in the air or on the ground were extra-terrestrial beings until research and modern technology proved them wrong. I’m sure there were some preachers then telling people that they were demons or it was a sign of God about something. Ignorant preachers who think they know it all…do some research before you open your mouth. 

Some things are just too intriguing to be independent of an assisting or controlling power. The Earth’s size is perfect. If it was larger it would contain free hydrogen like Jupiter and if it was smaller there would be no atmosphere like mercury. The earth is a perfect distance away from the sun: further away we would freeze, nearer we would burn yet it moves at a speed of over 100,000 km/h and maintains this perfect distance. The earth has a perfect sized moon that controls the tides but not too much to make the water spill over the continents.

It’s the perfect and only survival element. Who thought of water? Water carries nutrients and chemicals through the bodies of living things. Water is designed to freeze at the top and insulate the bottom to prevent entire lakes and oceans form freezing to death. The sea is salty but water is designed to evaporate without the salt so that we can all benefit from clean usable rain.

What else can process more than 1million pieces of information per second except the human brain. The brain has the ability to screen information, select what is important and focus on it. The brain has the ability to recognize, feel, relate, reason, dream and plan. Create a computer than can do that! I dare you! The most powerful computer processors do not match up to the animals with the smallest brains, like the ostrich.

Then there’s the human eye that can handle more 1.5million messages simultaneously. The eye is not explained in evolution. It can’t. It has no evolution pattern.

The big bang! Fine! But what caused it? Everything that exists is a result of events set in motion by a cosmic explosion. What caused the cosmic explosion? No explanation! Dead End!

Who came up with the laws of nature? Why does a cup of tea cool after a while instead of getting hot? Why does gravity apply? Why couldn’t we float? Why is gravitational pull of a certain strength and not more? Everything in nature can be calculated. Speed, sound, nutrients, age, amount of lightning, height of a tree, the pull of gravity, the amount of rain, the amount of water carried by a wave, the amount of sun’s heat and the list goes on.  Anything that can be calculated can be controlled. Why isn’t everything random like evolution would like it to be? If everything can be controlled, who is controlling it? Mother Nature?

Why is DNA so amazing? It’s a 3-billion-lettered code. How did that end up in the human cell? The DNA code is so precise that someone must have come up with it. If it was not that precise, we would have human beings with gills and plants with hair. In other words there would be no life possible after 1 generation.

Watching strange animals do strange things like a flying snake, the flying fox, a see-through jelly fish that can kill a man, a fish with a tooth for a horn, a lizard that can kill a goat with one bacteria filled bite, a bird that can imitate all sounds including the sound of a car alarm and an electric saw, a hummingbird whose heart beats 20 times in a second, the bees that kill an intruder by generating heat with their vibrations, a lizard that can run on water, a blue whale whose heart is the size of a small car, a pig whose skull can morph according to whether it is in the wild or in a domestic environment, wild dogs that attack better than the SWAT team, an giant octopus with suckers each of which can lift 20kgs, an eel that has a mouth within a mouth, an anaconda that can swallow a crocodile, a baboon that can tell the difference between a human male and a human female and grabs a baby when being attacked knowing that the fellow baboons or humans cant harm it when its holding a baby, a tiny almost see-through Australian amphibian that can live up to 100 years and can go 6 years without food, a lion that can pick out a weak or injured animal from a herd in the dark by listening to the pattern of the running hoofs, a fish that can stay 3 days out of water without dying, a fish that can only survive under extreme pressure 750ft deep and bursts its veins when removed, a tree that can grow to 350ft, an ocean that oxygenates itself by system of oxygenated water being cooled in the poles and sinking to the bottom causing warm water from the tropics to flow to the poles in a continuous cycle keeping the bottom of the ocean well supplied with oxygen, a whale that makes its baby swim in its drift to enable it to keep with her speed and many more.

Evolution my foot! How could evolution be so diverse? Why did that fish, I can’t remember its name, decide to come out of water and form limbs, while the others stayed, why some creatures evolved into snails while others into humans. How stupid can you get? How does the solar system work in such perfect coordination? Why are living things perfectly placed on earth where it’s not too hot or cold and it’s the only planet with water? I can’t imagine living on Mercury, one year takes 88days. How depressing. What happened to the dinosaurs? They definitely were not there in the days of Noah coz the 50 foot tall Dystylosuarus wouldn’t have fit in the 45ft tall ark. So who is wrong, who is calculating wrongly. Christian researchers claim that the earth is less than 10,000 years old; scientists say that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old. What about the fossils? That can’t be one massive conspiracy.

So does God exist? He does. Without using the bible I have convinced myself that there has to be a Super Power out there; there has to be someone behind all these things. Too many facts point to a Supreme Being, a Super Controller, in charge of great patterns and co ordinations. In the study of anything there is always a dead end where scientists can’t explain something. So there is a God but which God is the real one? The Allah, Buddha, God Almighty? Which one?

Only the bible supports all the above facts successfully. Jehovah Witnesses believe that the Holy Spirit is a force. I think that’s demeaning God. God is Almighty he doesn’t need the assistance of some force. If God is so great then it can’t be that easy to access Him. Muslims believe that Jesus (Issa) was just an extraordinary prophet. The bible says Jesus was the son of God and he died on the cross so that human beings can access God. A human being is just a super-animal and a mini-creation. I will not believe fellow human being who tells me he has direct access to God…who do you think you are. The power of a  human being can be only be calculated by what he owns. Take that away and you are just like me and any other animal. You can’t survive anywhere else on our 12billion km solar system except very few parts of our 24,000km earth and you want to match up to God. Shame on you!

So who is the God of the bible? Really? I don’t know. I think we understand Him wrongly and misinterpret the bible to suite our personal desires. Anyway, finding none other greater, I will believe in this Supreme Being whether He answers my prayers or not. I will believe the bible and everything it says, whether it is controversial or not. Its either that or I believe in something of less than God. Why serve the servant while I can serve the King.