IS THERE REALLY A GOD?

Is there really a God?

I must give some credit to the fact that I’m still here, to those who practice religion. Because there was a time in my life. When I reached what they call rock bottom. On that particular day, I was contemplating suicide. I was dead broke living in the streets or sometimes in homeless shelters. I had spent 10 years avoiding life by staying intoxicated on various illegal drugs. I was completely separated from my true friends and family members. Of course this was my choice, because of my embarrassment of what I had become.

Religion has been a controversial subject for centuries. It has long been one of the top three conversations that people tend to avoid or simply considered taboo in polite social gatherings. I think the other top two are politics and race relations. There are so many different denominations and definitions people believe in as a source for their higher power. There are so many. It’s almost innumerable. Each person believing that their higher power, or God is more powerful than anyone else’s. There is no wonder there are so many problems in eastern countries. There are far too many people out there willing to persecute or even kill anyone that does not believe the way they do.

I live in the United States, where supposedly we have the freedom of choice of religion and religious practices. Where free speech is a privilege. Up until you reach the point where someone decides not to like what you’re saying and silences you.

When I read the newspapers and watch television news, I see all the disrespect, hatred, and total anarchy that surrounds us all. I feel the controversy that is created because of the way a person may choose to live or believe. Not only surrounding issues of who has the most powerful God. I see the people look down on others because they have large bank accounts, or belong to a certain religious group, or simply live in a fantasy world they have created for themselves. They seem to live in a plastic bubble that protects them from the rest of the world.

I see the people who use their Christian mores and go to foreign countries to adopt the starving children and make themselves look like great humanitarians in the name of their God. Those same people who have more money in their bank accounts and five generations of their future family could ever spend yet have no regard for the people who are starving to death right under their feet in their own country.

I see the people who kill one another over love, money, property or power. I see the people who hate one another because of the color of their skin or their sexual practices or just for being alive. With all this chaos going on. I cannot help but wonder, is there really a God? A powerful being capable of controlling the universe, who supposedly loves us, yet allows all this tragedy to be going on under his or her supervision.

It is said that people who have achieved higher levels of education, have a much greater difficulty in believing in spiritual things. I myself I read the Bible several times. There are many things in there that are a good basis to adapt as a moral code to live by. However, as for many of the miracles, the immaculate conception, and the returning from the dead to save us all. I’m not buying any of that.

Certainly, this God can see the world is on a path of self-destruction and has done nothing to intervene in over 2000 years. In my personal experience with Christianity. I was privileged to be able to see both the good and bad sides of this concept. I have seen the true believers and the fakers who were just going through the motions. At a time when I was living on the bad side of life. I had reached the point where I was contemplating suicide. I was moments away from completing my decision to jump off the Broadway Street Bridge down into the railroad yard below, when a Christian lady who happen to be the pastor of a new upstart Christian Church, drove up in a van with her daughter and called for me to come with her.

This woman was relatively new to America from South Korea. She spoke with a broken accent that I could barely understand. She had to call me several times before I understood what she wanted. She wanted me to come with her to her church. I was so involved with my plan of self-destruction, I was ignoring her. Apparently her Spirit of God or whatever, compelled her to be persistent. She and her daughter got out of the van and came over and begged me to reconsider whatever I was planning. I was homeless, stinking and dressed in rags, and this woman and her daughter convinced me to come with her to her home.

The two women cleaning up, gave me clean clothes to wear and asked me to become caretaker of the new upstart church. So I moved into the basement of the Church and got a close-up view of this version of Christianity. In retrospect I realize now they have a different motive for me in their project. Not just to keep the church clean and guarded. At first they were performing many good works, feeding the homeless, disturbing used clothing, and going to the streets for street evangelism. I had the opportunity to witness the inner circle of this church. As I was not only the caretaker, but had become the pastor’s chauffeur and was privy to many of the inner workings of a church that common parishioners never see.

They continued their good works for awhile, until they became associated with one of the largest churches in the area. I always wondered how they paid the mortgage and kept the lights on with the dismal amount of money, they collected from homeless people. Then slowly I realized that several of the elders of the church were undercover millionaires and very quickly the church grew. They bought a huge complex, far out in a rural area, separate from the rest of the world.

All of a sudden the street evangelism stopped, the feeding of the homeless was stopped. The church began catering primarily to people of means and large incomes. The main focus was on people who are elderly, and about to die. So they could convince them to leave all their worldly goods to the church. The pastor became richer and richer and bought a million-dollar mansion in the suburbs. All of a sudden I was just someone they could use an example of someone who was saved from the streets and returned to the fold of God.

At one time I overheard the conversation between the pastor and her husband. They’re laughing about the great success and a wonderful life style they had created for themselves. Using the word of God. A great scam. I finally woke up and realized I was just a pawn in their great plan. I decided that if this great God, that allows you to use his or her name to gain great riches from people who are facing their demise and failed to intervene. I want no part of your God, or your church.

There are a couple of other incidents that damage my faith in God and in women. Primarily because of the incident that occurred with the pastor’s good friend who I became romantically involved with, who failed to tell me she was already married, but I’ll leave that discussion for another article.

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Rodney D. Richardson