I believe in God
I believe there is a God. That God is the creator of everything that ever was, is, and will be. The evidence for that is, to me, both all around us and within us. My perspective is shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition, and more specifically by Protestant Christianity. Those influences come from my upbringing where I wasn’t a member of a church, but at times was exposed to teachings in the Baptist, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian churches, and later, from my time in the Church of Christ as a young adult. Over time, however, my understanding has also been shaped by years of introspection, observation, and study. At one point I regarded those particular Christian teachings as the absolute truth in their entirety, but I have come to see that while truth is certainly present within them, it can also be found in other faiths and even in the natural world itself. I believe all religions share a common thread of truth: the story of God and the reflection of His image within us. I believe He has a plan for humanity, a plan etched into the very fabric of our existence in ways we can only partly comprehend. Yet I also believe that every religious tradition has, to some extent, been distorted by human flaws—our greed, our envy, and our desire for power and control over others.
From that foundation, I turn to the larger question of existence itself. If something must be eternal—stretching infinitely in either direction—then everything else must exist within and because of that eternal reality. That “something” has only two possible explanations: a theistic one, where an eternal spiritual being—God—created the universe, or an atheistic one, where the material universe itself is eternal and self-sustaining. In other words, either God is eternal, or matter is.
Those who adopt the atheistic view generally justify it through science—what can be observed, measured, and tested. They point to the big bang, evolution, and the physical laws that govern the universe. Some of these are well understood, others are still unfolding, and many remain mysterious. Their position is that the limits of present understanding are not evidence of anything beyond nature—what we cannot explain today may be explained tomorrow. Human history, they argue, is filled with examples of myths and gods invented to account for mysteries that later yielded to science. In this, I believe they are partly correct.
Where I think they go wrong is in insisting that science must necessarily support only the atheistic explanation and therefore oppose the theistic one. Science rightly concerns itself with what can be observed and tested, but it is a philosophical leap—not a scientific one—to conclude that the theistic possibility must be dismissed simply because it cannot currently be tested. The more accurate statement is that we do not yet know how to test the question of God. To lack evidence is not the same thing as having evidence against. Just as science cannot prove God, it also cannot disprove Him.
What is God?
With that understanding in place, I can now turn to what I actually believe God to be, or at least qualities he must have.
Size – Infinity Beyond Comprehension
If we begin by assuming the existence of God, then His size cannot be measured in any terms we know. To call Him “infinite” is not simply a poetic description but an acknowledgment that He must transcend every scale of reality, both great and small. Consider our own position in the cosmos: the Earth, immense and full of life to us, is less than a speck compared to our Sun. The Sun itself, though unimaginably massive, is just one of hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. That galaxy is only one among trillions of galaxies scattered across the observable universe, each filled with stars, planets, and structures beyond our ability to number. And even this observable universe—already so far beyond human comprehension—may itself be only a fragment of a greater reality still hidden from us.
The sheer immensity of these scales overwhelms the human mind. We struggle to grasp the distances between planets, let alone the vastness between galaxies. Yet for God to be God, such immensity must be trivial. He must not only know of every star, every galaxy, and every unseen realm beyond our reach, but must also have created them, hold them in balance, and sustain their existence moment by moment. He must be able to act on the largest imaginable canvas, shaping entire cosmic structures that span billions of light-years, while also maintaining intimate knowledge of the smallest realities—subatomic particles, quantum fields, and the delicate harmonies that knit creation together.
Placed in that perspective, our size becomes almost laughably insignificant. We inhabit a thin film of atmosphere on a small planet circling an ordinary star, lost in a galaxy that itself is one among trillions. To us, these scales are beyond comprehension; to God, they are as nothing. If the entire universe is but a grain of sand in His hand, then what are we within it? Our existence, when measured against His infinite being, is so small as to vanish. And yet—it is precisely in recognizing this disproportion that we begin to understand what kind of God we are speaking about.
Age – Eternal Existence
If God exists, He must not only surpass every measure of size, but also every measure of time. To say that God is “eternal” does not merely mean that He has lived a very long time, or that He will continue to live forever. It means that He stands outside of time altogether, unbound by beginnings or endings. He simply is, without origin and without conclusion.
For us, time is one of the most absolute and unavoidable realities. Every second passes beyond recall, every year carries us forward, and eventually every life comes to its end. Even the most enduring human achievements—nations, civilizations, empires—rise, flourish, and fall in what amounts to a blink of history. The longest-lived human beings scarcely touch a century. Compare that to the age of our planet—4.5 billion years—or the estimated age of the universe—13.8 billion years. To us, these numbers are staggering, beyond real comprehension. We can count them, but we cannot feel them.
And yet, even billions of years are nothing more than a passing instant when set against eternity. Stars are born, live out their ages of burning glory, and collapse into darkness—all within a span that is no more than a breath to the eternal God. Civilizations, which to us feel weighty and enduring, are less than shadows flickering and gone. Our entire species, in all its history, occupies a sliver of cosmic time so thin it hardly registers. Measured against eternity, we are scarcely here at all.
This is what it means for God to be eternal. He existed before the universe began, He will exist after it ends—if it ends—and His being is not measured by the ticking of a clock or the turning of an age. To Him, the whole of history, from beginning to end, is present in a single, unchanging gaze. For us, who live and die within the confines of time, this stretches the imagination to its breaking point. But for God, who is eternal, it is simply reality.
Placed in that perspective, our lives—so precious to us, so filled with urgency—appear as almost nothing. A human lifetime is a wisp of vapor against the endlessness of eternity. Even all of human history, with its wars and wonders, its discoveries and destructions, barely amounts to a moment. Just as we are infinitesimal in size compared to the cosmos, so too are we infinitesimal in duration compared to God’s timeless existence.
Intelligence – Absolute Knowledge
If God exists, His intelligence must go far beyond anything we can imagine. To call Him “all-knowing” is not to suggest He has memorized facts or mastered some infinite textbook. It means He possesses perfect and intimate knowledge of reality itself, not bound by the categories or disciplines we use to describe it. Physics, chemistry, and biology are human attempts to map patterns we observe in creation, but God does not study these things—He authored them. The very laws we use to explain the universe are simply tools for us, while to Him they are nothing more than brushstrokes in a design He conceived from the beginning.
This knowledge extends to every level of creation. On the grandest scale, God knows the stars, the galaxies, and the vast architecture of the cosmos—not as distant objects, but as works of His own hand, sustained by His will. On the smallest scale, He knows the particles and forces that make up matter, the intricate details of molecules, cells, and the building blocks of life—not as puzzles to be solved, but as designs He Himself shaped. And between these extremes lies a staggering web of systems upon systems: ecosystems, weather patterns, planetary dynamics, the interdependencies of life, the human body, the human mind. We see fragments of how these pieces fit together, but He holds the entire fabric of reality in perfect balance and understanding.
For us, knowledge always comes from the outside in. We investigate, observe, test, and theorize. Even our greatest breakthroughs only give us glimpses of how things work, and often only in isolation. But God’s knowledge is inside-out. He knows not merely how things work, but why they are as they are. He knows every connection, every dependency, every outcome of every system—not because He studies them, but because they are the expression of His own will and wisdom.
Placed against this, our knowledge is exposed for what it is: limited, partial, and fragile. The deepest insights of science and philosophy are faint outlines compared to the reality God fully knows. We balance equations, map genomes, and model galaxies with great effort, but He holds the living reality of all these things in Himself, effortlessly, at every moment. His intelligence is not accumulation, but authorship. It is not analysis, but absolute and sustaining comprehension.
Properties – Beyond the Laws of Creation
If God exists, then His very nature must be fundamentally different from everything else in creation. Unlike us, He cannot be subject to the laws of physics, chemistry, or biology, because those laws themselves only exist because He brought them into being. To say that God is bound by such laws would be to suggest He is a product of them, rather than their Creator. But for God to truly be God, He must exist prior to them, outside of them, and free from their constraints.
For us, the laws of nature are absolute. Gravity anchors us to the earth. Time pushes us forward without pause. Thermodynamics governs the energy that drives every system. Biology dictates the rise, decay, and death of every living thing. We cannot escape these realities; they are the framework within which we exist. But for God, such laws would not be restraints—they would be constructs. He would be the one who established them, balanced them in harmony, and ensured that they fit together in a coherent whole.
This would mean God’s properties are wholly distinct from the created order. He would not be physical matter bound by space, because He would have originated matter and space. He would not be energy coursing through the universe, because He would have established energy itself. He would not be subject to time, because He would have set the flow of time in motion. The “laws of nature,” which to us appear unbreakable, would be nothing more than the regular patterns of a system He devised. They would be reliable because they express His design, not because He is confined by them.
When we marvel at the elegance of mathematics, the consistency of physics, or the beauty of biological systems, what we are really seeing are the kinds of ordered patterns that such a God would necessarily produce. The so-called “laws of nature” would not be higher realities binding Him, but expressions of the rationality and structure He Himself originated. To us they appear unbreakable, but to Him they would simply be the framework He devised to govern creation in a consistent and comprehensible way.
Compared to Him, we are fragile creatures bound in every way by the structure He set in place. We live, breathe, move, and think only because of the laws that govern us, while He alone would be uncaused, unbound, and self-existent. Our existence would be contingent on those laws; His existence, by necessity, would be contingent on nothing.
When these qualities are considered together—His infinite size, His eternal age, His absolute intelligence, and His freedom from the very laws that govern us—the picture that emerges is staggering. A God who truly exists would have to be all-encompassing in every sense, transcending every measure of scale, time, knowledge, and power. By comparison, we are beyond insignificant: a fleeting breath, inhabiting a vanishingly small corner of reality, bound entirely by limits we cannot escape. Such a God would not be anything like the gods of myth or comic book imagination—human figures enlarged with superhuman strength or magical abilities. Those are projections of ourselves. The reality we are describing is far greater: a being so vast, so fundamental, and so complete that even the entire universe is small in His presence, and we ourselves scarcely register against His immensity.
Creation
The next natural question is how everything came to be. If there is a God who is infinite in size, eternal in age, absolute in knowledge, and beyond the laws of creation, then what would it mean for Him to create? Every culture in human history has wrestled with this question, and nearly all have produced some form of creation story.
The Babylonians told of Enuma Elish, where the heavens and earth arose from the clash of primordial waters. The Greeks began with Chaos, the yawning void from which the first gods and the ordered world emerged. Hindu tradition speaks of the cosmic egg, Brahmanda, and of cycles of creation and destruction guided by divine forces. The Norse imagined Ginnungagap, a vast emptiness where fire and ice collided to bring forth the world. The Mayans, in the Popol Vuh, described gods shaping the sky, the land, and finally human beings. And of course, the story most familiar to me is that of Genesis, where God brings light, order, and life out of nothingness.
The differences among these stories are obvious, but what matters is not their details so much as what they represent: the recognition that creation is a mystery too large for us to fully grasp. If there truly was a creation event, it would have been so vast, so complex, and so far beyond human comprehension that no culture in any age could capture it in technical detail. Even today, with all our advances in physics, chemistry, and biology, a precise explanation of creation from God Himself—if He ever chose to give one—would almost certainly be beyond our capacity to understand.
And that, I think, is the point. God does not need to prove Himself to us by laying out the mechanics of creation. It is presumptuous of us to think so, and naive of us to think we would understand even if He did. If such an explanation were ever given, our current understanding of science would almost certainly be inadequate to interpret it. Creation likely involves realities beyond the reach of our theories, beyond the boundaries of our dimensions, and perhaps beyond anything our minds are even capable of conceiving. The limits are not with Him but with us. And when you consider how small we are—creatures inhabiting a speck of dust in an immeasurable universe—it is an act of arrogance to imagine we could demand proof from a being of such enormity.
The Creation Story
The next natural question is how everything came to be. If there is a God infinite in size, eternal in age, absolute in knowledge, and beyond the laws of creation, then what would it mean for Him to create? The opening of John’s gospel echoes this directly: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” This reinforces what we have already reasoned — that God existed before anything else, and that all things owe their existence to Him. Other traditions express similar ideas in their own way: Hindu philosophy speaks of Brahman, the ultimate reality underlying all that exists; Greek thought described the Logos, the rational order behind the universe; and many ancient myths begin with a primordial chaos or void, from which order and creation emerge. Though they differ in detail, they share the intuition that something greater than the visible world must have existed first, and that everything flows from it.
Genesis begins from the same premise: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” From there, it describes creation in broad movements — light breaking into darkness, waters divided from waters, dry land emerging, life springing forth, and finally humanity. It is not written as a technical account of physics or biology. Rather, it is the kind of description one would expect if the truth of creation were ever put into words for limited minds: a sweeping story that conveys order, purpose, and authorship without attempting to explain mechanics we could never fully grasp.
That, I believe, is the point. Not because God could not describe the details more precisely, but because the details would have been useless to us. What value would particle physics, thermodynamics, or evolutionary biology have had to people whose world was measured in fields and seasons? Even today, if the actual mechanics of creation were revealed in full, we would almost certainly still find them beyond comprehension. It is presumptuous to think God owes us such an explanation, and naive to imagine we would understand it if He gave one.
The creation story, then, should not be judged by its scientific precision. Its purpose is different. It provides a narrative that orients us: the world is not an accident, but a deliberate act; life is not meaningless, but infused with purpose; humanity is not incidental, but set apart. In that sense, it does exactly what a divine explanation should do. It communicates truth in a way we can understand, while reminding us of how small we are, and how the full reality of creation is forever beyond our reach.
God and Science
When we look at the creation story, it is tempting to set it against science as if the two are competing accounts. But I do not believe they are rivals. Science describes how things unfold — the mechanics, processes, and timelines. Faith describes why things exist — the meaning, authorship, and purpose. They address different questions. If you mistake one for the other, you end up with a false conflict.
The scientific picture of origins is vast: the big bang, cosmic expansion, the birth of stars and galaxies, the formation of planets, and the appearance of life. Some would add evolution to that list, others dispute it or qualify it, but whether it is fully correct, partly correct, or flawed altogether does not matter to the larger point. Even if every process science describes is accurate, it still does not explain the deeper question of authorship. Science gives us mechanisms, but it does not — and cannot — explain why there is something rather than nothing, or why the universe is intelligible and ordered at all.
This is where faith, in its many forms, has always spoken. Christianity affirms creation as the work of God. Judaism begins its Scriptures with the same conviction. Islam speaks of Allah as al-Khaliq, “The Creator,” who brings the world into being by command. Hindu tradition tells of creation and dissolution within cycles sustained by divine will. Indigenous religions often describe the world as born from a great spirit, a sacred union, or a living earth. The images and language differ, but the message is consistent: existence is not arbitrary, but purposeful.
These stories do describe cosmology and biology — but not in the way science does. They are not technical accounts of physical or biological processes. Instead, they use imagery and narrative to frame creation in terms of order, meaning, and purpose. Their aim is not to map the mechanics of the universe, but to declare that there is an author, that creation is intentional, and that humanity has a place within it.
That is why I see science and faith not as adversaries, but as parallels. One speaks to processes; the other to purpose. One seeks to describe what can be measured; the other to reveal what can only be given. One asks how; the other asks why. And both perspectives are needed, because an answer to one without the other is incomplete.
If creation is not just a story, but reality, what evidence do we actually see of its author?
Evidence of God
If science and faith are not rivals but parallels, then the question becomes: where, if anywhere, do we see evidence of God in the world around us? I do not mean “evidence” in the sense of laboratory proof or repeatable experiment, because by definition God is beyond the boundaries of the systems we can measure. Rather, I mean the kind of evidence that points, like a signpost, toward something greater than itself. Creation, in its very existence, bears such testimony.
To me, this evidence is both external and internal. It is external in the sense that the universe itself — its immensity, order, and balance — speaks of more than chance. It is internal in that we ourselves carry qualities that cannot be reduced to instinct or biology alone: our self-awareness, our creativity, our moral sense, and our longing for meaning. Taken together, creation outside us and creation within us both seem to echo the reality of something greater — not proof in the scientific sense, but testimony nonetheless.
Creation as Testimony
The most basic evidence, to me, is creation itself. The fact that anything exists at all is extraordinary. The universe did not need to be here, yet it is — vast, ordered, and filled with life. When we look at the stars, the balance of ecosystems, or even the intricacy of a single cell, we are not looking at random noise. We are looking at a coherent reality that operates with astonishing regularity and complexity.
This order is not limited to the grand scales of galaxies or the smallest particles of matter. It stretches across every level of existence: gravitational forces hold solar systems together, chemical reactions sustain life, and biological systems work with precision far beyond our design. Taken as a whole, creation has the character of something intelligible — something that can be studied, understood, and marveled at. That intelligibility itself is remarkable.
For me, this coherence is a kind of testimony. It does not prove God’s existence in the way a solved equation proves a mathematical theorem. But it does bear the marks of purpose. It suggests that the universe is not an accident, but the expression of something greater — a reality that underlies and explains the one we inhabit. In that sense, creation itself is its own witness.
The Improbability of Chance
A common argument against the need for a Creator is the claim that given enough time, anything can and will happen. Life, in this view, is simply the improbable outcome of countless random events stretched over billions of years. But when examined closely, this proposition does not hold.
First, probability does not work that way. Time does not guarantee outcomes. Flipping a coin a trillion times does not ensure that it will one day land balanced on its edge. Highly improbable outcomes remain improbable, no matter how long you wait. Time increases opportunity, but it does not erase mathematical limits.
Second, science itself acknowledges that time is not indefinite. The universe, according to current cosmology, had a beginning — the big bang — and it is not eternal in the future either. With the second law of thermodynamics, the universe trends toward increasing disorder. Stars will burn out, energy will dissipate, and usable time will eventually run out. Far from infinite time, what we actually have is a window: finite in the past, finite in the future.
Those who defend the “chance plus time” argument usually acknowledge these limits, but then point to the undeniable fact that life did emerge. The reasoning goes something like this: no matter how unlikely the odds, it happened, because here we are. And on one level, I agree — it could very well be true that life developed exactly as described by naturalistic processes, through billions of years of evolution and adaptation. But to me, that outcome does not weaken the case for a Creator. It strengthens it.
Because the real question is not whether improbable things can happen. It is why the improbable happened here, in this universe, with such extraordinary precision and balance that life not only exists but thrives. If the odds are astronomically small, the fact that they played out successfully is itself remarkable. And that, I believe, points not to blind chance but to intention. The math may work out not despite a Creator, but because of one.
Qualities of God in the Creation
If God is the source of everything, then it makes sense that creation would reflect His qualities. Just as a work of art reveals something of its artist, the universe bears marks of the One who brought it into being. What we observe in creation parallels the very attributes that God must have in order to be God.
Its immensity reflects His infinitude. The sheer scale of galaxies and cosmic structures, stretching across billions of light-years, mirrors a being beyond all boundaries of size. Its age speaks to His eternity. From the birth and death of stars to the long history of Earth itself, time on a cosmic scale hints at something that transcends beginnings and endings.
Its order reflects His intelligence. The finely balanced systems of nature — from planetary orbits to ecosystems, from chemical bonds to biological processes — are interwoven with precision. What we call “laws of physics” are not higher realities binding Him, but consistent patterns that, if He exists, would be the expression of His rationality.
Its coherence reflects His freedom from those very laws. The fact that the universe can be studied, understood, and expressed in the language of mathematics suggests that it has been structured according to a logic greater than ourselves. For us, these laws are absolute. For Him, they would be constructs.
But creation reveals even more than scale, age, order, and coherence. It also reveals beauty. Sunsets and mountain ranges, coral reefs and star fields — none of these are strictly necessary for survival. They speak instead of an excess, a flourish, an artistry that seems to suggest delight in creation itself.
It also reveals symmetry and elegance. From the repeating spirals of galaxies and seashells to the mathematical regularities of crystals and atomic structures, creation is filled with patterns that resonate with harmony. These patterns are not only functional but also strikingly beautiful, as though beauty itself were woven into the fabric of reality.
And finally, creation reveals freedom. The universe is not static or mechanical but dynamic, filled with growth, change, and unfolding possibilities. Stars form and collapse, species adapt and flourish, human beings create and destroy. Creation is not locked in a rigid cycle but seems to breathe with openness and potential. If God is its source, then this freedom reflects His willingness to endow creation with movement, variation, and genuine expression.
In this way, creation does more than testify that a Creator exists. It seems to mirror His very properties. The more we examine it — its vastness and age, its order and coherence, its beauty, symmetry, and freedom — the more it reveals qualities that align with the God we reasoned about earlier: infinite, eternal, intelligent, and beyond the system He made.
Humanity in His Image
We are not merely creatures who share traits with the animals — we are among them. We eat, breathe, struggle, and die as they do. We are bound by the same laws of biology, vulnerable to the same needs and limits. And yet, for all those similarities, we also stand apart. There is something in us that cannot be reduced to instinct or biology alone. It is what many traditions have called being made “in the image of God.”
This does not mean that we physically resemble God, or that we possess His qualities in full. Rather, it points to the unique aspects of human existence that distinguish us even while we remain fully part of the natural order. Like animals, we pursue survival — food, shelter, reproduction. But unlike them, we possess self-awareness of a different kind: we reflect on our past, imagine our future, and wrestle with questions of meaning. We are moral creatures, judging right and wrong not simply in terms of instinct but in terms of justice, mercy, and truth.
We are also creative in ways that exceed function. Animals may build nests, hives, or burrows, but humans produce art, music, literature, architecture, and technology — not merely to live, but to express imagination, spirit, and beauty. We long for transcendence, reaching beyond the material, asking questions of origin, purpose, and destiny. That longing sets us apart, even as it binds us more deeply into the mystery of creation.
And then there are qualities such as compassion, empathy, truth, and liberty. These, too, exist to some degree among other species. Primates show cooperation, elephants display grief, dolphins demonstrate forms of empathy, and many animals exhibit loyalty or care for their young. But in humanity these qualities are magnified, deepened, and carried into the moral and spiritual realm. Some argue that this continuity with animals means we are not truly set apart. I see it differently. To me, these echoes are further testimony of a Creator — reflections of the same theme expressed in different works of art. In animals we see hints and shadows; in humanity we see the fuller image.
It is true that some would argue these qualities are evolutionary necessities after all — shaped by the demands of social living, reinforced through cooperation, and passed down because they increased survival. There is some merit to this explanation, but to me it falls short. Evolutionary advantage can explain why cooperation is useful, but not why humans pursue truth even when it costs them. It can explain why compassion strengthens a community, but not why people sacrifice for strangers they will never meet, or give their lives for principles that bring them no personal gain. It can explain why social groups enforce rules, but not why humans across every culture yearn for liberty, even at great risk. These qualities often defy the logic of survival, and yet they endure.
That, to me, suggests they are not accidents of biology, but marks of something higher. Just as creation reflects God’s immensity, order, beauty, and freedom, humanity reflects His moral awareness, His compassion, His longing for truth, and His commitment to liberty.
We are among the animals, yet apart from them. Not infinite, eternal, or all-knowing — but uniquely capable of recognizing such categories and yearning for their source. To say we are made in His image is to say that within us lies a testimony of His existence, written not only in the stars or seas, but in our very nature.
That Image as Testament
If humanity bears the image of God, then it follows that this image would not simply shape how we live but also how we search. And indeed, across every culture and every age, humanity has sought after God. The expressions differ — temples and totems, scriptures and songs, prayers and sacrifices — but the impulse itself is universal. People everywhere, in every era, have looked beyond themselves and asked the same questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What happens when we die?
Some argue that religion is nothing more than a human invention, a coping mechanism to ease our fear of mortality. In this view, belief in God is simply the mind’s attempt to deny the inevitability of death. There is a certain plausibility to this, because it is true that human beings are uniquely aware of their finiteness, and the fear of death is powerful. But even if that is part of the story, it does not explain it all. For why would such a longing exist in the first place? Why would human beings, alone among the animals, be burdened with a relentless need for meaning, transcendence, and eternity?
To me, the universality of this longing is itself a kind of evidence. Just as hunger points to the reality of food and thirst to the reality of water, our yearning for God points to the reality of His existence. If it were nothing more than denial, one might expect it to fade as knowledge increased or as survival strategies shifted. Yet it has not. Across centuries and cultures, in times of hardship and in times of plenty, in isolation and in flourishing civilizations, the human impulse toward the divine has remained.
The image within us is not silent. It calls us beyond ourselves, testifying that we were made for more than instinct and survival. Even if some of its expressions are distorted by fear, culture, or control, the longing itself persists. In that persistence I see not illusion, but testimony: the echo of the God in whose likeness we were made.
What Religions Get Right… and Wrong
If humanity carries the image of God within us, then it is no surprise that every culture has reached for Him in some way. Religion is the record of those attempts — the stories, rituals, and moral codes through which people have tried to understand the divine and order their lives accordingly. And in many respects, these traditions get important things right. Across cultures and centuries, we see recurring themes of love, compassion, justice, mercy, and reverence. These are not arbitrary inventions but reflections of what has been woven into us.
Yet religion also shows the marks of our flaws. Just as we are capable of reflecting God’s image, we are also prone to distort it. Greed, envy, pride, and the lust for power creep into our institutions and shape our doctrines. What begins as an expression of the divine often becomes a system of control, division, and judgment. In seeking certainty, we reduce the infinite into rules we can manage, and in doing so, we create barriers between ourselves and others.
This tension — the thread of truth and the stain of distortion — runs through every faith. To see it clearly is not to dismiss religion, but to recognize both its value and its limitations. Religion points us toward God, but it also reveals how easily we twist what we have been given.
Common Threads
Despite their differences, religions across the world share certain themes that resonate deeply with what I believe reflects the image of God within us. Compassion, empathy, love, justice, truth, liberty, humility, forgiveness, gratitude, stewardship, reverence, self-control, and hope appear again and again — clothed in different languages and traditions but carrying the same essence.
In Christianity, love is placed at the center: to love God, to love neighbor, even to love one’s enemies. Forgiveness is lifted as a divine requirement, echoed in the prayer to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Judaism insists on justice and responsibility, pairing reverence for God with care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Islam binds believers to generosity through zakat (charity), humility through daily prayer, and gratitude through continual remembrance of God. Hinduism and Buddhism elevate compassion for all living beings, self-control over desire, and hope in the possibility of transformation. Indigenous traditions highlight stewardship of creation, respect for ancestors, and reverence for the sacredness of the world. Even Confucian thought, though not theistic in the same sense, elevates honor, humility, and duty as essential to a life well-lived.
The vocabulary changes, but the melody is the same: live beyond yourself. Care for others. Act with justice. Forgive wrongs. Show gratitude. Exercise self-control. Revere what is sacred. Steward the world entrusted to you. Hold onto hope. Seek truth.
These are not merely pragmatic strategies for survival. They are ideals that call us beyond instinct and self-interest. They ask us to restrain appetites, to sacrifice for others, to live by principles that may cost us dearly, and to pursue a higher good than comfort or power. They defy mere utility and point toward something greater.
What is striking is not only that these values persist across cultures, but that they emerge independently. Civilizations separated by oceans and centuries arrived at the same core truths. That convergence suggests they are not arbitrary human inventions, but reflections of something deeper — the image of God within us. They are like beams of light refracted through different prisms, varied in color but flowing from the same source. The Animal and the Moral – Instincts like competitiveness or desire aren’t evil; what makes us unique is the added moral compass, the “knowledge of good and evil.”
Unavoidable Distortions
If religions across cultures reveal common threads of truth, they also reveal something else: the marks of our imperfections. Whenever divine ideals are filtered through human hands, they pick up the stains of our flaws — pride, greed, envy, fear, and the lust for power. The result is that alongside the wisdom of compassion and justice, we also see exclusion, oppression, division, and control.
One of the most common distortions is our tendency to reduce a living moral compass into rigid sets of rules. A compass requires humility and constant discernment. It calls for us to weigh each choice with love, justice, and mercy in mind. Rules, by contrast, are easy. They flatten morality into categories of permitted and forbidden, creating clarity but also inviting judgment. With rules, we can measure ourselves against others and feel superior, or divide into factions and denominations over disagreements. What was meant to be a shared pursuit of God becomes a contest of rule-keeping.
The Bible itself illustrates this danger. When Israel demanded a king, it was not because God had failed them but because the people wanted visible structure and control. They traded trust in God for the clarity of an earthly hierarchy, and in doing so, subjected themselves to the corruptions of human power. Later, Jesus confronted the same tendency in the religious leaders of His day. The Sabbath, a gift of rest and renewal, had been turned into a burden of regulations. When asked whether it was lawful to help an ox fallen into a ditch on the Sabbath, the obvious answer revealed the folly: law had been twisted against compassion. The point of the Sabbath was not rules, but life. Yet rules had eclipsed the truth they were meant to serve.
This moral laziness is also what lies behind the endless splintering of Christian denominations. A denomination is often defined by its canon — its particular list of doctrines, practices, and rules. But lists invite dispute. One group elevates certain rules above others; another group disagrees; soon a split occurs, and the cycle repeats. Each group, having codified its own set of rules, begins to judge outsiders by them, often with the claim that theirs is the only “true” way. And this is not unique to Christianity. Most religions carry within them the conviction that their way is the only way. The result is the same everywhere: walls are built, lines are drawn, and those outside the group are condemned, not because they lack compassion or justice, but because they do not follow the same list.
History also shows how corruption weaves itself into religion when rules and institutions are leveraged for power. Translation choices, for instance, have sometimes been shaped by political or cultural agendas. King James’s insistence that “Passover” be rendered as “Easter” is just one example of how language can be bent to support tradition and authority rather than clarity of meaning. Similarly, the absorption of pagan holidays and rituals into Christian practice shows how religions adapt — sometimes to ease cultural transitions, sometimes to expand influence. Christmas trees, Easter eggs, and even the dating of major festivals bear traces of older traditions, folded into new religious frameworks. What begins as worship often becomes entangled with convenience, politics, or the desire for control.
And beyond cultural accommodations, the abuses of institutional religion are undeniable. The Crusades, for example, were not launched in a vacuum. They came in response to centuries of Islamic conquest across the Middle East, North Africa, and into parts of Europe, where Christian lands were seized and populations subjugated. But rather than respond with restraint or measured defense, the Church turned faith into justification for its own campaigns of conquest and slaughter. What might have begun as a defense of Christian territory became an engine of bloodshed, greed, and domination. The sale of indulgences reduced forgiveness to a financial transaction, enriching the Church while exploiting the faithful. The Inquisition, meant to defend orthodoxy, inflicted torture and death on countless people in the name of purity. And later, the inception of the Anglican Church revealed how little religion was immune from political distortion: what began as Henry VIII’s personal desire for annulment became a national schism, birthing a church not out of conviction but out of royal will.
Nor are such distortions confined to Christianity. In Islam, the Qur’an repeatedly emphasizes mercy and compassion, yet in practice the concept of jihad has often been twisted into violence. While many interpret it as an internal spiritual struggle for righteousness, radical groups continue to use it to justify terrorism and the execution of non-believers. This is not ancient history — it is a present reality, visible in ongoing conflicts and acts of violence across the world today. Hinduism, with its profound vision of divine unity, hardened into the caste system, which continues to oppress entire communities in India despite reforms and denials. Buddhism, founded on the pursuit of peace and liberation from suffering, has in modern Myanmar and Sri Lanka been entangled with nationalist movements that incite violence against minorities. Judaism, too, has seen laws intended for justice and reverence turned into rigid divisions that mark insiders from outsiders. Even indigenous traditions, while often rooted in harmony with nature, have been co-opted by tribal or political powers, where rituals became tools of exclusion as much as expressions of reverence.
The point is not that these religions are false, but that their truths are vulnerable to corruption when filtered through human weakness. The same pattern appears everywhere: what begins as compassion becomes coercion; what begins as reverence becomes rigidity; what begins as community becomes division; what begins as truth becomes a tool of control.
Religion in practice, then, is both beautiful and broken. It carries echoes of God’s image, but it also bears the imprint of our laziness and pride. To recognize this is not to dismiss religion, but to see it clearly: as humanity’s imperfect attempt to embody divine truths, always vulnerable to distortion when we trade the compass of God’s image for the lists, exclusivity, and power struggles of our own making.
Corruption of Religious Texts
If religion in practice is vulnerable to distortion, so too are the texts on which religions rely. Many believers treat their sacred writings as flawless, unchanging, and directly dictated by God. But history tells a different story: sacred texts are the products of human transmission, compilation, and preservation — processes that inevitably involve choices, omissions, and, at times, corruption.
The Christian Bible is a striking example. It was not compiled during the lifetime of Jesus, nor even in the generation immediately following. The canon as we know it today took shape more than three centuries later, under the influence of Constantine and the councils he convened. By then, a wide range of writings circulated among Christian communities — gospels, letters, apocalypses, and other accounts. Some were included in the canon; others were suppressed, discouraged, or even destroyed. The result is not a single, uninterrupted stream of divine dictation, but a collection shaped by human decisions about what to preserve and what to discard.
Even beyond the question of which books were included, translation and transmission introduced further complexities. The King James Bible’s choice to render Pesach (Passover) as “Easter” reflects not divine instruction but cultural influence and political authority. Such decisions, made by translators and compilers, continue to shape how believers understand their faith today.
And this problem is not unique to Christianity. The Qur’an, though preserved with remarkable consistency, was standardized under Caliph Uthman, with variant recitations eliminated to establish a uniform text. Judaism’s scriptures were layered by centuries of oral tradition before being written, with commentary and codification continuing long after. Hindu and Buddhist canons span centuries of redaction and editing, producing multiple versions and interpretations across cultures. In every tradition, texts pass through human hands, and human hands leave their mark.
The point is not that these writings are worthless — far from it. They carry profound truths. But to treat them as flawless records is to ignore the very human processes that produced them. We cannot even agree on all the details of George Washington’s life, though he lived only a few centuries ago in an age of printing presses, written archives, and contemporary journalism. Depending on the source, Washington is portrayed as the nearly flawless “father of the nation,” a pragmatic but reluctant president, or even a shrewd politician maneuvering for power. Some emphasize his bravery at Valley Forge, while others highlight his failures in earlier military campaigns. One account praises his moral leadership; another critiques his role as a slaveholder. Each portrayal selects, emphasizes, or downplays facts to create a narrative that serves a larger purpose.
If the life of Washington — preserved in documents, letters, and eyewitness accounts — can be shaped so differently in just a few centuries, how much more likely is it that stories passed down for generations before being written, and then compiled centuries later, would bear the marks of similar reshaping? Oral tradition, translation, theological disputes, and political power all leave their fingerprints. To assume otherwise is to ignore what history shows us about human nature and storytelling.
And beyond history, I believe it would also be inconsistent with how God operates. In every other aspect of life, He has left room for imperfection, for free will to shape outcomes, for truth to be mingled with human error. Why would scripture be the single exception? The same freedom that allows love to exist also allows distortion to creep in. But far from nullifying its value, this struggle may actually refine it. Imperfection does not erase truth — it forces us to search for it, to wrestle with it, to own it. And in that way, I believe the presence of human flaws in sacred texts purifies as much as it taints.
Free Will
The distortions of religion, and of human life itself, are not accidents. They exist because we are free. A God who created us in His image could not simply design us as automatons, preprogrammed to obey. That would have produced only empty imitation, a hollow echo rather than a true likeness. For love to exist at all, it must be chosen. For compassion or mercy to be real, they must come from freedom, not from programming. To create beings “in His image” therefore required giving them the capacity to reject Him — because only then could their turning toward what is good carry any meaning.
This is the paradox of freedom. It gives rise to all that is noble in human life, but it also makes possible everything destructive. Love can exist only if hate is also possible. Forgiveness has meaning only if bitterness is an option. Mercy is real only if cruelty could be chosen instead. Generosity matters only in the face of selfishness. It is not simply a matter of contrast, as though good and evil were equal opposites on a scale. It is a matter of definition. Just as light has no meaning without the possibility of darkness — and darkness itself is only the absence of light — so too goodness cannot be understood or practiced without the real possibility of its absence.
The structure of creation itself reflects this. Heat is tangible, while cold is nothing more than the absence of heat. In the same way, evil is not a rival force equal to good, but the absence or distortion of it. God, in granting free will, made space for this absence. He allowed rejection to be possible, because only then could acceptance be genuine.
A being of infinite power and intelligence would not reduce creation to a mechanical performance, endlessly repeating the same programmed gestures. That would be vanity, not greatness, for it would produce nothing of meaning. Instead, what makes humanity significant is precisely the risk of freedom. Free will makes betrayal possible, but it is also what makes love, compassion, mercy, and sacrifice possible. Without freedom, these virtues would not merely lose their value — they would never exist at all.
Suffering and the Mystery of God
If free will is real, then so are its consequences. And that leads to the hardest question many people ask: why would God allow massacres, wars, atrocities, and other horrors to unfold? If He is powerful enough to stop them, why doesn’t He?
I do not believe God manipulates every event like a puppeteer, setting one in motion and halting another. That would contradict the very freedom He gave us. To grant genuine choice and then revoke it whenever the outcome is painful would not be freedom at all. The capacity to love, forgive, or show compassion requires the capacity to hate, oppress, or destroy. If choice is real, then its consequences must also be real — and sometimes those consequences are terrible.
From our perspective, these events feel enormous. We measure them against our short lives, our fragile communities, and our sense of justice. But on the scale of God, who sees eternity, the death of even many lives at once does not carry the same finality it does for us. Every life ends. That is not the question. Whether it ends by age, by illness, or by violence, the end of a single life is not the defining point of existence. What matters is not the timing or the manner of death, but the reality of life itself and what it means in relation to the One who created it.
To what degree God influences events, I do not know. Perhaps He intervenes at times, perhaps not. Perhaps He allows outcomes to unfold without interference, or perhaps He shapes them in ways we cannot perceive. Why He allows one thing and not another is a mystery beyond me. But what I do know is this: it is extraordinary that He would even care. On His scale, we are less than gnats, yet we are marked with the conviction — whether one calls it hope, faith, or presumption — that He does care. And I believe that conviction is not illusion. It is written into us, part of the imprint of His image. For just as we care for one another, just as we ache when we see suffering, just as we long for justice and compassion, so too I believe those qualities in us are reflections of the same qualities in Him.
This is the mystery of God. We cannot explain it fully, and it is presumptuous to think we could. But we can see enough to say that our freedom is real, its consequences are real, and our longing for compassion and justice is not our invention. It is His image within us, reminding us that even in a world where suffering exists, so too does the God who made us capable of caring about it.
The Power — and Mystery — of Prayer
Prayer is often where we wrestle with suffering.
If God is as immense as reason suggests — infinite in size, eternal in age, absolute in knowledge, and beyond the laws of creation — then the obvious question follows: does such a God hear prayer? And if He hears, does He answer?
I cannot claim certainty. There are times in my own life when I have prayed and felt no response. There are other times when the outcome has been so precisely what I asked for that it seemed impossible to call it coincidence. Perhaps that is folly, and perhaps it is real. The God I have described would certainly be capable of hearing prayer and answering it. But capability is not the same as necessity. Why would He, who sees all of time as a single moment, who holds galaxies as grains of sand, pause to respond to the plea of one creature whose life is no longer than a breath?
And yet, I cannot escape the sense that He has.
Part of the mystery is in what we pray for. So many prayers, if we are honest, are little more than self-interest dressed in religious language. We ask for success in work, for money, for health, for victory in a game — for things that in the scale of eternity seem almost laughably small. If prayer is meant as an interaction with a being of infinite scope, these requests fall far short of the mark. It is like standing at the edge of the ocean and asking it to fill a thimble.
Yet even across different traditions, there is a striking similarity in the structure of prayer. In Christianity, the Lord’s Prayer begins not with requests but with recognition: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” In Judaism, blessings (berakhot) traditionally open with acknowledgment of God as the source of all good. In Islam, prayer begins with the takbir — “Allahu akbar,” God is greater — followed by praise and gratitude before petition. Hindu and Buddhist mantras likewise open with reverence and thanksgiving, seeking alignment with the divine order before seeking aid. In every case, the form reflects the same progression: acknowledgment of God, recognition of blessings, thanksgiving for existence — and only then request.
For me, there have been two times in my life when I prayed with more urgency and intensity than at any other moment. Years ago, my father suffered a stroke. When I saw him in the hospital, he was conscious but incapable of coherent communication or independent action. That night, I prayed desperately that he would be spared — not simply because I wanted him to live, but because I needed him. I still depended on him to help shape me into the person I intended to become. The next day, he recovered fully. The signs of the stroke vanished, and he regained complete functionality.
A few years ago, my brother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Again, I prayed with the same urgency, pleading for him to be healed. My prayer was not about material gain or trivial desire, but about needing him — needing his grounding presence in my life. Not long after, we learned of a new medical procedure that led to almost complete remission of his cancer.
Were these outcomes the result of my prayers? Some would scoff and say certainly not. I will admit I cannot be absolutely sure. But I believe they were. And I also know I was not the only one praying in either case. Perhaps my voice was simply added to others, and together they made a difference. I cannot explain it with certainty. What I can say is that these were the two moments in my life when prayer felt anything but empty, and when the results were so profound that they cannot be easily dismissed.
Perhaps prayer changes us more than it changes God. Perhaps it is a way of aligning ourselves with the compass He has already set in place. Or perhaps He does, at times, intervene in ways we cannot fathom, answering in His way and on His scale. What strikes me most is not whether every prayer is answered in the way I hope, but that the possibility exists at all. That the God who crafted the universe could also bend near to hear the words of a creature like me is, in itself, astonishing. If He does, then prayer is not merely wishful thinking. It is a mystery — one more reflection of His image in us, and one more reminder that while we are smaller than we can imagine, we are also, somehow, seen.
Afterlife
If God is infinite in size, eternal in age, absolute in knowledge, and beyond the laws of creation, then the question naturally follows: what does that mean for us, who bear His imprint? If humanity carries an existential quality — what many traditions call the soul — then it may not be confined to the limits of our physical bodies. Our bodies decay, our time runs out, but something within us could persist. And if that is true, then death is not the end of who we are.
It is easy to say this is nothing more than fear — that people imagine heaven, hell, or reincarnation simply because they cannot accept the finality of death. And there is some truth in that: the fear of mortality is powerful, and it shapes much of how we live and think. But the question itself does not arise out of fear alone. It arises because we carry within us a sense of eternity, a longing that points beyond survival. We do not simply dread death; we wonder about what might follow it. And that wonder, I believe, is not accidental.
With that in mind, I want to explore how different traditions describe what lies beyond this life — heavens and hells, rewards and punishments, and the qualifications they set for entering one or the other.
Coping with Mortality
It is often argued that belief in an afterlife is nothing more than a response to fear. Death is universal, and so is the dread of it. On this view, heaven and hell, paradise and reincarnation, are simply stories we tell ourselves to soften the finality of mortality or to impose order through promises of reward and threats of punishment. There is no denying that fear shapes how we think about death. But I do not believe fear explains the whole story.
If God exists as I have described Him — infinite in size, eternal in age, absolute in knowledge, and beyond the laws of creation — then the longing for something beyond death makes sense not as denial but as design. It is part of what it means to bear His image. God is eternal. If He created us in His image, then it is consistent to believe that some echo of eternity would be imprinted within us as well. To endow us with intelligence, creativity, compassion, and moral awareness but then to leave us entirely fleeting — to flare briefly and vanish forever — would be out of step with the God we have reasoned about so far.
Our physical lives are brief. Even if we lived a thousand years, that span would still be no more than a wisp when set against eternity. And yet, we feel within ourselves a pull toward more — a restlessness with the idea that our entire existence should be compressed into so small a frame. That restlessness, I believe, is not a mistake or a psychological trick. It is consistent with the character of God: eternal Himself, He created beings who carry within them at least a reflection of that eternity.
In this light, belief in an afterlife is not best explained as a coping mechanism. It is more consistent to see it as the natural extension of what God has already placed in us. Just as the image of God explains our longing for justice, truth, and compassion — qualities that stretch beyond mere survival — so too it explains our yearning for continuity beyond death. If God’s imprint in us is real, then it would be surprising if we did not carry a sense that existence is more than temporary.
Fear may influence how we picture what comes after — whether as paradise or punishment, union or return — but the deeper reality is this: our longing for life beyond death aligns with the God who made us. He is eternal, and it is consistent with His nature to have made us with a share, however partial, in that same quality
Heaven and Hell
If human beings carry within them an echo of eternity, it is no surprise that nearly every tradition has pictured destinations beyond this life. Often these visions take the form of two contrasting realities: one of reward, fulfillment, or union, and another of punishment, loss, or separation. The language differs, the images shift, but the pattern is strikingly consistent.
In Christianity, heaven is described as life in the presence of God, where death, sorrow, and pain are no more. Hell, by contrast, is often depicted as separation from God — a place of torment, judgment, or destruction. Islam describes paradise as a garden of delight and closeness to Allah, while hell is a place of fire and regret for those who reject Him. Judaism, though more varied in its teachings, includes Sheol as a shadowy realm of the dead, alongside later visions of Olam Ha-Ba (“the world to come”), where righteousness is vindicated and evil judged.
Other cultures offer similar contrasts. The ancient Egyptians imagined the Field of Reeds, a perfected version of earthly life, for those who passed judgment when their hearts were weighed against the feather of Ma’at. Those who failed were devoured by Ammit, their existence erased. The Greeks spoke of Elysium, a realm of rest and honor, and Tartarus, a place of punishment for the wicked. Norse mythology promised Valhalla, a hall of glory for the brave slain in battle, while others faced a cold and joyless existence in Hel. Many pagan traditions envisioned an underworld where the dead resided, sometimes divided into realms of blessing or suffering depending on the life lived.
What all these traditions have in common is the conviction that death is not the end, and that the way we live carries weight beyond the grave. But beyond that common thread, I have to admit: I do not know what the reality is, and I do not believe anyone does. These traditions may contain glimpses of truth inspired by God and expressed through the language and imagination of their time. Or they may be entirely human constructions, shaped by fear, hope, or the desire for control. Either way, their persistence shows that humanity has always sensed there is more to life than what we see.
What seems most consistent to me, when I consider the nature of God and the imprint of His image, is this: heaven and hell are not so much about geography as about orientation. The positive qualities we have already discussed — love, compassion, truth, mercy, justice — reflect the nature of God. To embrace them is to align with Him, to live in the current of His image. Their opposites are not independent forces; they are absences, distortions, voids. Hate is not a thing in itself, but the absence of love. Cruelty is the absence of compassion. Falsehood is the absence of truth.
If our existential quality — our soul — is real, then I can imagine its experience shaped by this same dynamic. To embrace what reflects God is to move toward Him. To reject those things is to turn away, to drift into the absence of God. And that absence, I suspect, would not need flames or torment to be unbearable. It would be torment enough to exist without the very qualities that give life meaning. That is what I mean when I speak of a shift to the void. Heaven and hell, in this light, may be less about places we are sent and more about the reality we choose: the presence of God, or the absence of Him.
Reward and Punishment
If nearly every tradition envisions a life beyond this one, most also describe criteria for where one ends up. Heaven, paradise, or bliss are pictured as rewards; hell, punishment, or dissolution as consequences. But what qualifies a person for one or the other varies widely.
In Christianity, traditions often teach that salvation depends on faith in God, with good works seen as evidence of that faith. Others emphasize obedience, sacraments, or perseverance in holiness. Islam teaches that both belief and deeds matter — the Qur’an speaks of scales on which each person’s actions are weighed, with paradise reserved for those whose faith is genuine and whose lives reflect it. Judaism, less focused on the afterlife, ties reward and punishment to obedience of Torah, yet later teachings also speak of divine judgment in “the world to come.” Hinduism and Buddhism emphasize karma, where actions in this life shape the conditions of the next — reward and punishment not as final destinations, but as cycles of consequence until liberation is attained. Norse belief offered Valhalla to the brave slain in battle, a kind of reward for courage and loyalty, while the cowardly or dishonorable faced cold obscurity in Hel. Ancient Egyptians imagined a literal judgment: a heart weighed against a feather, light enough to pass on, heavy with guilt to be consumed.
Across these traditions, the specifics differ, but the underlying principle is the same: how we live matters. Our choices in this life echo into whatever comes after. Sometimes the standard is framed as faith, sometimes as obedience, sometimes as courage, sometimes as balance. But always, there is the conviction that this life is not meaningless — that it carries consequences beyond itself.
For my part, I do not pretend to know the exact mechanism. I cannot say with certainty what “qualifies” a soul for one destiny or another. But what seems most consistent with God’s nature, and with the image imprinted on us, is that reward and punishment flow directly from our orientation toward Him. To love, to act with compassion, to seek truth, to choose mercy, to uphold justice — these are reflections of His image, and in choosing them we draw nearer to Him. To hate, to exploit, to deceive, to oppress, to harden ourselves against love — these are refusals of His image, and in rejecting them we turn away from Him.
If God is as vast as I believe, then He does not need to impose arbitrary punishments or dispense arbitrary rewards. The consequences are inherent. To align with His image is to live in light; to reject it is to exist in shadow. To embrace His qualities is to move toward life; to spurn them is to drift toward absence. In that sense, heaven and hell are not simply verdicts handed down, but the natural outworking of choices made in the presence of eternity.
Belief and Orientation
One of the most debated questions in religion is what it means to “believe.” Too often, belief has been reduced to assent: repeating the right words, affirming the right creed, or joining the right community. Entire traditions have built systems of inclusion and exclusion around this kind of definition — turning belief into a litmus test of belonging. Say the right thing, join the right group, and you are in; fail to do so, and you are out.
I do not think this was ever the true intent. I believe the underlying theme was never about mechanical assent, but about orientation. To “believe in God” is not to pass a doctrinal exam. It is to align yourself with what reflects His image: love, truth, compassion, mercy, justice, and freedom. Belief, in this sense, is not arbitrary or abstract. It is directional. It is about the trajectory of a life — whether it leans toward God’s qualities or away from them.
Much of the insistence that belief must be reduced to formula, in my view, comes from human influence. Over centuries, religious institutions found power in being gatekeepers: defining who is “in” and who is “out,” who is saved and who is condemned. By framing belief as intellectual assent or ritual compliance, they could control access, enforce conformity, and consolidate authority. But I think this misses the point.
For me, belief is not a litmus test but a fact of orientation. If you lean toward hate, cruelty, falsehood, and oppression, you are moving toward the void — away from God. If you choose love, truth, mercy, compassion, and justice, you are moving toward Him. To say “I believe in God” in this sense is not to recite a formula but to live in a way that reflects His imprint within us.
This perspective also makes sense of the parallels across religions. Islam binds faith to acts of mercy and justice. Hinduism and Buddhism speak of dharma or the noble path as alignment with what is true and good. Judaism ties belief to covenant faithfulness — loving God and neighbor. Indigenous traditions often frame belief as reverence and right living in relation to the world. These are not identical teachings, but they share the same underlying theme: belief is not mere acknowledgment but orientation toward the good.
What I believe, then, is that “belief in God” is not about choosing the correct brand of religion, nor about words uttered under pressure of tradition. It is about the direction of one’s life. Orientation is the measure, not allegiance to an institution. To live toward God’s image is belief; to live against it is unbelief. The rest, I suspect, is largely human invention, constructed as systems of control rather than reflections of what belief was meant to be.
Christian Roots
Some may look at the perspective I have laid out and ask whether it puts me in conflict with my Christian roots. After all, Christianity as it is often practiced tends to emphasize belief in a specific way: assent to creeds, participation in sacraments, loyalty to a denomination, or adherence to doctrine. By those standards, what I have described may seem too broad, too inclusive, or too unwilling to draw hard lines.
But I do not see my views as a rejection of Christianity. I see them as a continuation of what first drew me to faith in the first place. My Christian upbringing gave me the language of love, compassion, mercy, and truth. It taught me reverence for God and gratitude for life. It introduced me to the idea that humanity bears His image and that our lives carry moral weight. Those are not ideas I have abandoned — they are ideas I still affirm deeply. What has changed is not the foundation, but my willingness to recognize that those truths are bigger than any one denomination or creed.
The parable of the ox in the ditch illustrates this perfectly. When Jesus challenged the Pharisees about whether it was lawful to rescue an ox that had fallen on the Sabbath, He was pointing to something far deeper than a debate over rules. The Sabbath was meant to bring life and restoration, not to bind people with burdens. Compassion mattered more than regulation. That story, to me, is not a minor episode but a profound statement: if our interpretation of God’s will leads us to ignore mercy, then we have misunderstood Him.
Paul’s teaching about eating meat offered to idols points in the same direction. He does not reduce it to a rigid rule of “yes” or “no.” Instead, he says the act itself is not what matters most, but whether it builds up or tears down. If eating causes another to stumble, then refrain; if it does not, then it is permissible. The guiding principle is not the letter of a law, but whether love and conscience are upheld. Again, the compass is mercy and compassion, not a checklist.
And Christianity is not alone in this insight. Buddhism tells of the Bodhisattva, who postpones his own enlightenment out of compassion for others still suffering. Hindu dharma stresses that true righteousness is measured not by ritual correctness but by whether actions uphold truth and justice. In Islam, the Prophet is remembered for saying, “Remove a harmful thing from the road — it is charity.” Judaism itself reminds us that caring for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger takes precedence over ritual observance. Again and again, the world’s great traditions remind us that compassion outweighs legalism, that mercy is greater than sacrifice.
So while I may no longer align myself with a single denomination, I do not think that places me in conflict with my Christian heritage. Instead, I think it is precisely because of that heritage that I have learned to seek the deeper truths beneath the boundaries. The ox in the ditch, Paul’s teaching on conscience, and similar lessons across other faiths remind me that when rules collide with compassion, the choice is clear. And that principle — echoed in many traditions — gives me confidence that my path is not a rejection of Christianity, but an effort to live out its truest intent: to seek God’s image in love, mercy, truth, and justice.
Redemption
Because God gave us freedom, imperfection is inevitable. Love, mercy, compassion, and truth have meaning only because their opposites are possible. To be created with free will is to be capable of both alignment with God’s image and rejection of it. That freedom is the glory of humanity, but it is also our flaw, because it ensures we will fall short.
This imperfection is not merely moral; it is existential. If God is eternal, and if He has imprinted within us something of Himself — a soul, an existential quality — then there is a natural gap between His eternity and our frailty. We are finite creatures bearing a spark of the infinite. That spark testifies to His image, but it also magnifies the distance between what He is and what we are. We glimpse the light, but we stumble in the shadows. Our orientation matters, but none of us lives in perfect alignment. Even a small gap, when measured against eternity, becomes an infinite one.
That is why reconciliation is necessary. Left to ourselves, we cannot bridge the distance between God’s eternity and our imperfection. Religions across the world have recognized this in different ways. Hinduism and Buddhism describe cycles of reincarnation, where the soul struggles through lifetimes to overcome ignorance and misalignment until liberation is achieved. Islam speaks of Allah’s mercy as greater than His judgment, offering reconciliation through compassion. Judaism looks to covenant faithfulness and God’s forgiveness. Norse traditions imagined the valor of warriors carrying them into Valhalla, while Egyptian belief tied the afterlife to the weighing of the heart against truth. All of these, in their own way, acknowledge the same gap and propose a path across it.
Christianity, the tradition in which I was rooted, frames reconciliation through Jesus. His life and teaching make explicit what reason already suggests: we cannot bridge the gap by ourselves. When He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” I believe He was pointing to the truth that reconciliation requires God’s act, not ours. What He offered was not another set of rules, but an example — a life lived in full orientation to love, truth, mercy, and justice. His death and resurrection stand as signs that God’s purposes endure beyond suffering and death, and that reconciliation is possible even when we cannot see how.
At the same time, I wrestle with questions about the existential quality within us — what we call the soul. If it is truly of God, eternal in essence, then it seems difficult to imagine that new souls are generated for every birth or that one brief lifetime is the only chance to live meaningfully. This is where aspects of reincarnation resonate with me. Not because I believe we can ultimately perfect ourselves through repeated lives — I believe the gap would remain — but because cycles of self-improvement seem more consistent with the idea of an eternal quality than the alternative of one fleeting life as our only opportunity.
I cannot claim certainty. It may be no more than my own wishful thinking, a way of making sense of mysteries I cannot resolve. What I do know is that the soul’s nature, if it is truly of God, must reach beyond the narrow limits of a single lifetime. Whether that unfolds as cycles of growth, or in some other way we cannot yet conceive, I believe that whatever progress we make still leaves us short. And in the end, reconciliation cannot come from our improvement alone, but only from God.
For me, redemption in Christ means this: I strive, imperfectly, to follow the example He gave. I admit that I fall short, and I resist the temptation to judge others for falling short as well. I trust that God, who knows the gap we cannot cross, will provide the reconciliation that I cannot achieve. That, to me, is grace — not earned, not controlled, but given.
Some will argue that belief in Christ, in the narrow sense of affirming a doctrine or a historical claim, is the absolute criterion for salvation. I do not share that view. To me, that is a construct introduced by people after the fact. In the earliest Christian communities, Jesus’ teaching and example were central, but the emphasis on “belief as formula” grew later, shaped by theological disputes and institutional needs. Paul’s writings on faith were amplified by later thinkers like Augustine, Luther, and Calvin into systems where belief alone became the defining boundary. Church councils codified orthodoxy into creeds, unifying doctrine but also narrowing it — turning mystery into dogma. In the medieval church, orthodoxy was enforced with power: inquisitions, heresy trials, even executions. And in more recent centuries, some traditions reduced salvation to a single transaction: say the words, affirm the creed, and you are in.
To me, this trajectory looks less like the work of God and more like the work of people seeking control, certainty, and uniformity. It strikes me as inconsistent with the God I have described — infinite, eternal, and beyond comprehension — to hinge the destiny of souls on whether they can affirm the precise occurrence of events thousands of years ago or recite the right formula. That trivializes both God and the human soul.
The doctrine of “belief” in this narrow sense misses the point. The point, as I see it, is orientation: whether we align ourselves toward the qualities that reflect God’s image — love, truth, compassion, justice, and mercy — or turn away into their absence. In that sense, I do not reject Christ; I see Him as the example of what alignment looks like. But I believe the insistence on belief as a litmus test was added by people, not required by God.
What I Believe
Up to this point, I have been exploring possibilities, reasoning about what God would have to be if He exists, and considering how religion and science attempt to explain the world around us. But beyond argument and reflection, there remains the question of what I myself believe to be true.
I believe that creation itself is the strongest testimony for a Creator. The universe, with its immensity, beauty, and order, does not appear accidental. Whether life unfolded through processes we call evolution, through sudden events of unimaginable power, or by mechanisms still beyond our grasp, I believe it bears the imprint of design. The very fact that we can study creation, find patterns in it, and glimpse its meaning is, to me, evidence that it s not chaos but authored.
I believe that humanity carries a distinct imprint — something that sets us apart even while we remain part of the natural order. Compassion, empathy, truth-seeking, creativity, and freedom are not merely evolutionary conveniences. They are reflections of something higher, marks of an image impressed upon us. Other creatures may show glimpses of these qualities, but in us they converge into a moral and spiritual awareness that is unique. In this way, I believe humanity reflects God’s image.
I believe that our imperfection is real and unavoidable. Because God gave us freedom, we inevitably fall short of perfect alignment. Even the best of us are inconsistent, and even the smallest gap becomes infinite when measured against eternity. That is why reconciliation is necessary. And I believe that reconciliation is God’s work, not ours.
I believe that Jesus revealed this truth in His life and teaching. When He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” I do not take that as a demand for blind assent to a creed, but as the declaration that reconciliation cannot be achieved by human effort. He lived in perfect alignment with love, truth, mercy, and justice, and in doing so showed what God’s image looks like when fully expressed. His life was not about rules but about orientation, and His death and resurrection testify that God’s purposes endure beyond suffering and death.
I also recognize that the facts about Jesus may not be as clear as tradition insists. It is possible that some elements of His story were elevated or added later, just as later traditions elevated certain figures into “saints.” In the earliest Christian communities, all believers were called saints, but over time the Catholic Church transformed the term, reserving it for select individuals and often blending their veneration with practices drawn from pre-Christian traditions. In much the same way, it is possible that stories about Jesus were expanded or mythologized to magnify His stature. Even His divinity, as proclaimed in creeds centuries after His life, may reflect layers of human interpretation as much as historical reality.
This is not unique to Christianity. Other religions show similar patterns: the Buddha, who was a historical teacher, became adorned with layers of supernatural stories in later traditions; Hinduism elevated Rama and Krishna into divine incarnations with epics filled with miraculous accounts; Muhammad, though seen as a prophet, came to be surrounded by traditions that expanded his image beyond what the Qur’an itself records. In each case, a central figure was honored, remembered, and magnified — sometimes faithfully, sometimes distorted — as followers sought to anchor their faith in someone tangible.
Part of me believes Jesus was divine, part of me wants to believe it, and part of me has doubts. But in the end, I have come to see that this is not the most important point. The beauty of Christ’s life is that the example still works. His orientation toward love, truth, compassion, mercy, and justice remains a template for alignment with God whether or not every claim about Him is historically or metaphysically precise. And more than a template, His life is also an explanation: a living demonstration of humanity’s need for reconciliation. By embodying perfect alignment, He exposes the gap between what we are and what God is — and in doing so, shows that reconciliation must come from God, not from us.
I believe that the insistence on “belief” as a litmus test was added by people, not required by God. To reduce salvation to verbal assent — checking boxes on a list of doctrines or affirming the historical accuracy of certain events — trivializes both God and the human soul. What matters is not reciting formulas, but orientation: whether we turn toward the qualities that reflect God’s image, or away into their absence. In this sense, I do not reject belief in Christ; I reject the idea that belief is nothing more than words. True belief, as I understand it, is alignment — living, however imperfectly, in the direction He set.
I believe that our souls — our existential quality — extend beyond the short span of our earthly lives. Whether that takes the form of cycles of growth, as some traditions suggest, or unfolds in ways we cannot yet conceive, I do not know. But I believe it is consistent with God’s eternal nature that something of Himself in us would also endure. However long that journey, I believe reconciliation remains beyond our reach and depends on Him.
I believe God does not require adherence to a single denomination, ritual, or creed. He existed long before religions, and He does not depend on them. Their value lies in helping us, not binding Him. The essence of faith is not mechanical obedience, but reflection: striving to mirror, however imperfectly, the higher truths imprinted within us — compassion, truth, justice, freedom, mercy, and love.
This is the position I have grown into. In the past, I judged others for their differences, assuming their errors were greater than mine. But through reflection, I came to see that judgment itself was the greater error. Now I believe God is larger than our divisions, and that what matters is not which boundary lines we defend, but whether our lives reflect the qualities that point back to Him.
I do not claim certainty. I hold my beliefs with humility, aware of my own limitations. But I believe creation testifies to a Creator. I believe humanity bears His imprint. I believe our longing for meaning and eternity is itself evidence of His presence. And above all, I believe the essence of faith is alignment — orienting ourselves toward love, truth, compassion, mercy, and justice, however imperfectly. Reconciliation, though beyond our power, is possible through Him, and that gift is what I believe to be the grace of God. While I may never fully grasp how it works, I believe that to live aligned with those higher truths is to live as He intended.
Conclusion
When I step back from all of this — from the vastness of creation, from the mystery of our existence, from the patterns of religion and the imperfections of humanity — what remains for me is simple. I believe there is a God. I believe He is greater than we can comprehend, and that everything that exists owes its being to Him. I believe humanity carries His imprint, not in perfection, but in possibility — the possibility of aligning ourselves with the qualities that reflect Him: love, truth, compassion, mercy, justice, freedom.
I do not pretend to have all the answers. I do not know exactly what happens after death. I do not know the full truth about heaven and hell, or how reconciliation will ultimately unfold. I hold doubts about many things that others claim with certainty. But I am convinced of this: the longing within us for meaning, the testimony of creation itself, and the higher qualities that call us beyond instinct all point to something real. They point to Him.
I believe what matters is not adherence to every rule or membership in the right group, but orientation — the effort to align ourselves with the qualities that reflect Him: love, truth, compassion, mercy, justice, freedom. I believe His judgment will not rest on dogma, tradition, or superficial compliance, but on truth itself — a truth we cannot manipulate or distort, a truth seen as it really is, from the vantage of a God who is infinite, eternal, and beyond the limits that bind us.
Brad's Perspective 
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