sam's path to God

Everyone has their own unique path to God. Sometimes, that path can be called 'atheism'. In other words sometimes, we draw away from God in order to satisfy some human set of weaknesses..

Many atheists see 'belief in God' as a weakness. But i see atheism, based on resentment, as a weakness. When we hate/resent God, we reject God based on human weakness/need. When we deny God, we reject Them based on our insecurity/resentment/hatred..

Based on my personal experiences, i see rejection of God as human weakness. i myself have rejected God based on excruciating personal experiences. “i hate you God!” or “f u God!” or in the extreme: “you don't exist!” .. What's the worst insult we can tell anyone: “you're Nothing!” or “you're a Loser!” or “you should just kill yourself!” These are the worst insults we can throw at anyone.. And so, the worst insult we can throw at God is: “you don't exist!” or “I don't believe in you!”

i believe many atheists reject God based on resentment/hatred for some past experience(s) they blame on God: “you caused this you asshole God!” or more destructively: “if you cared, you wouldn't have done that to me!” Therefore, “you don't exist!”

But God does or does not exist based on our personal experiences. God exists or God does not exist. There's no in-between.

.. My own personal path to God has been Convoluted with a capital “C”. As a teen, i felt it 'in vogue' to be atheist .. Previously, as a child, i 'sensed' God in: whispering pines, singing sands, bubbling brooks, gasping fish (caught for food), squirming worms, prolific catfish, death-defying slugs, terrifying alligator snapping turtles, poisonous snakes that refused to attack me, a sexy smile from a co-student in high school,.. and a humbling trip on a path at a crucial moment of pride. (This last example was written about previously.) It's not that i was looking for evidence of God; it seemed thrust in my face from nature. No matter how hard i tried to deny God, God was thrust into my face.

Many years ago, i tried to find a place 'where God didn't exist'. i crawled down a hole so deep, covered by so many felled trees, if i was crushed, only my family would notice.. But no matter how deep i crawled, i was still there .. The little 'insignificant' human named sam was there .. The Witness to Life was There; God was always there; i could do nothing to deny Her.

.. My 'worst' moment was in the American Southwest .. Some friends had betrayed me to 'authority' and so i was labeled: jerk, asshole, pervert, pedophile,.. - anything you can imagine bad. But protecting family saved me; focusing on protecting close-ones protected me. i was not focused on me; i was focused on protecting family .. Authority was sure i was assisted by friends, not true, they were forced to leave – to another educational facility. It was brute survival and familial protection that saved me. Nothing else .. So what was the end result? Love. Compassion. Love .. There's nothing more than Love .. What can i say? You must discover this for yourself..

This is the quintessential moment of your existence .. You can deny it, you can pretend it's not important, you can pretend 'it does not exist', but you are left with only – yourself. How can you deny yourself? If you exist, you need to decide: do you care or not care? If you don't care, stop reading, forget this essay.. Nothing can blame you for this particular decision. However, if you care, if you Believe, then read on..

So :) now, there's only the 'believers' and those curious who've read on.. i cannot prove to those curious 'God exists' and i cannot 'give evidence' to believers God exists other than what i've already provided.. So if you're here, it's by faith alone (or Patience;) .. What can i say? There's Truth in your heart – or there is not.

.. My path was so convoluted because only theoretical physics took me there .. Perhaps most of you cannot believe: why only through physics did sam find God? The answer is in the details of conventional theoretical perspective: quantum cosmology.

There are several versions of conventional cosmology:

1. colliding branes

2. inflation (several versions)

3. rebounding bangs

4. cyclic expansion (Penrose)

5. God

The 5th option is not really conventional.. i threw it in there to confuse you. ;)

What's Occam's Razor? As nauseatingly pointed out before, it's the principle that: given two theories of some set of natural phenomena, the theory with the least number of assumptions (or parameters) is likely the correct one. So.. What's the simplest theory among the 5 above? 1 requires multiple dimensions, 2 requires unrealistic physics, 3 requires an infinite set of 'crunches' with bangs, and 4 requires an infinite set of recurring expansions,.. ^^ So again, what's the simplest theory?

Implicit in each of the 4 theories above, there's a requirement of initial conditions. Each theory requires 'something' to initiate: colliding branes, inflation, rebounding bangs, or cyclic expansions,.. Every conventional theory requires a 'first cause' whether specified or not. (And let's make this explicit: none of the conventional theories acknowledges the requirement of 'first cause'.) So.. What theory has the minimum number of assumptions? Clearly, 1 through 4 require 2 each (including first-cause) but option 5 only requires 1: the Prime Cause Itself.

So.. Is this cleverly set-up? Did we deliberately define creation so that non-God alternatives would self-disqualify? .. No, i did not plan this. Anymore than i did not plan the Other Model to win, parameter-wise, over the Standard Model. i simply counted the number of parameters required for the OM: 13 vs 20. Just as above: the number of assumptions for each non-God alternative is 2 over 1.

i was deliberately forced, 'in my face', to acknowledge God-creation is the simplest theory with the least number of assumptions. God-creation, according to Occam's Razor, is the simplest theory of creation existing presently.

.. We can deny God from horrific personal experiences – times we felt 'let down' by God.. If God cared, God wouldn't have let that happen to me.. If God existed, there'd be no suffering in this world.. But i've argued previously that we suffer out of ignorance and we struggle because we must. There's no in-between for WHY we suffer, struggle, and similarly why God exists. God exists because God exists. i cannot offer proof God exists, but i KNOW She does in my heart.

A video version of this article can be found here.