The question dear friends is not “Who is God?”, but rather WHY ARE WE HERE? 14 billion years to get here and we live for what 70 years? What’s the point? No one will be alive on this planet at some point in the future (frankly I give it maybe 100 years more on the outside!). So then the Universe continues (we think) for several more trillion years, a cold lifeless dark nothing. Gee, glad we came! There are atomic particles that decay in a millionth of a second. We live maybe a few years. The stinking Universe is apparently endless and exists for trillions! So we exist why???????????????? Not a single one of us will be remembered a 1,000 years from now, a blink in time!
What you mean “we” white man?
70 or so years hear on earth, then the eternal afterlife. Works for me. Thank you Father!
“Not a single one of us will be remembered a 1,000 years from now, a blink in time!”
No, disagree, God knows us each by name, and Jesus told us that the very hairs upon our heads are numbered.
God will remember us.
The Kabbalists have an interesting take on things. They say that the universe began when God asked a question, to the effect of, “Is there anything that is not God?”
To answer this question, God needed the equivalent of a mirror, to see if there was anything else. But a mirror needs perspective. So to achieve this, God created an area of contraction, where there was just nothingness, an absence of God. And into the middle of this nothingness, God sent a rather complicated “lightning bolt”, that created or deposited a single, self-replicating particle.
This particle would continue to duplicate itself, and iterations of itself would join to form more complex patterns of organization, until they became what we call the universe. And when the universe is “complete”, it functions as a mirror, reflecting the image of God. And answering God’s question.
And just after that moment, it loses its purpose and the universe again becomes part of God, ceasing to exist as such.
So no matter what people do, they are continuing to increase the complexity of the universe. But they do so in ways far beyond our comprehension, wielding immense but mostly unseen powers. So much so that we need guidance to avoid doing certain things that will mostly foul ourselves up.
And thus the covenants between man and God. Less commands than warnings, like a mother who tells her child not to touch a hot stove. The mother will not punish the child if they disobey, but they will be inherently punished by their disobedience, by being burned.
The one thing that did, or perhaps still does piss God off is for men to get pretensions that they are themselves gods. For some reason, this causes something incredibly bad to happen, enough for divine intervention. Maybe.
Other than that, people are for the most part free agents, in any direction we choose to proceed.
Thinking globally, as a species we will exist longer. Still, a flash in the pan when compared to the existence of the Universe. Maybe the importance is us as a species versus individually?
As a species, we are supposed to procreate, be born, live, procreate, and die over and over again.
Seems like a pointless existence.
However, we are unique. We are able to look beyond the immediate physical world and are able to see a higher level order — God.
I believe that God took an interest in us when we began to believe that He existed and He has helped us to write a “guide book” of rules that are designed to help us manage our animalistic side. It is the animalistic side that has the potential to destroy us.
That is the very question that should lead you to God. There are many clues to His existence if you wish to examine. Has the universe been here forever? No. Physics and laws of thermodynamics tell us emphatically no. The universe had to be created. and it was. By Gods Word. His Word has power and it is this power that created you and I. Einsteins Relativity Theory explains the relationship between energy and mass. They are interchangeable under the right conditions. Do not despair over your meager mayfly life span. God promises more and better. Much better.
As of now, there is no scientific explanation as to how an organism capable of self-replication arose from inorganic chemicals. Amino acids can be created inorganically, but the building blocks of life are not life any more than a pile of bricks are a house.
If there is no natural explanation for life, then the answer is that a supernatural (above nature) force created life for a reason.
To my intense satisfaction,
The cosmos tells me that there is a God, immensely intelligent, powerful, and fond of order;
The Bible tells me WHO He is;
He came to Earth 2011 years ago to afford us a personal introduction to God;
He knocks on the door of people’s hearts and lives, desiring to be let in for a personal relationship;
He said that He is coming to Earth again;
I believe Him.
I always turn to Lucretius, Book 3, for comfort, or at least amusement. cf. 3.830, “Therefore death is nothing to us ...” amidst many interesting, and indeed compelling arguments for the mortality of the soul.