Thursday, April 15, 2010

So I wrote a paper for English Class I thought I would share it.

Now try to bear with me. I found this very difficult and very frustrating to write. So you have a background on why I wrote this... I was told when writing this paper to choose a subject that I was passionate about and something that was arguable. Now I am not sure I made the best case for my argument but I tried I guess. So here it is... read and enjoy I hope.

PS I got extra credit if I included the word zombie somewhere in the paper...


Jacob Andrews

He is real

Some people think that there is no God because if there was a God he would not let them suffer through life. Some think that there is no God because there is no way to see him so he must not exist. Some do not want to believe because they do not want to be involved with organized religion or do not want to follow God's Commandments. Others on this earth have never even heard of God so they believe in other things. God cannot be physically proven until after death. However, the existence of God is real because there is not enough evidence to prove that he does not exist, and the natural order of the universe and life on earth point to a deliberate creator. In addition, all truth can be proven through the Holy Ghost.

Many Scientists have made a claim that God cannot exist because the earth is much older than what is stated in the bible. Also many say that through evolution all life came to be. Professor Richard Dawkins said in an interview with Time magazine "If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in." God cannot be physically proven until after death. There is no physical evidence that God exists anywhere. Atheist believers say that it is impossible to prove the existence of something that never existed. They also say if God is real, why will he not show Himself to the world now?

One of many reasons people do not believe in His existence is: One cannot believe which cannot be seen. This can be argued because there are many things on the earth which cannot be seen but yet are indeed real. For instance if a person were to look at an apple, one could not see that there are cells, molecules and atoms. Yet we all know that they are there. We know this because we have scientists that have researched and have discovered for themselves that they exist. Some could actually go and do the work for themselves and see and believe. Science states that there is no evidence that God exists or ever existed. So should we believe that if something cannot be proven with scientific evidence then it must not exist?

This was proven wrong with the discovery of black holes. Scientists once believed that there was no such thing as a black hole. Since that time scientist now believe in the existence of black holes because of modern advances in science. So just because there is no scientific evidence found yet, does not mean that God cannot exist. I think that science should continue its efforts to explore the world and space, I believe that one day the more scientific evidence they find, the greater the chance of them finding evidence of a divine creator.

There are people in this world who spend an enormous amount of time trying to prove that God does not exist by science. "The ultimate point is that science does not deal with belief; it deals with things that you can prove. And since we can't prove or disprove the existence of God, the question of whether or not a person believes in God doesn't (or at the very least shouldn't) have anything to do with scientific reasoning." (Rothstein) Thus we see that God may never be proven by science.

Another example that shows that God cannot be physically proven until after death is... Some people feel that if they see a sign from heaven they will believe. If anyone were to believe this is true, they would be sorely mistaken. The world we live in today is full of illusion and deception. In fact there are people who make a living at doing it. Imagine a world where “seeing is believing”. If that world truly existed, we would have men that could fly with the power of their mind. We would have alien creatures blowing up The White House. The streets would be littered with mindless zombies. Yet we know that the news and media often twist the truth and make illusions to have things appear to be something they are not. Even still if a sign was given to us to believe (which many have already) most would still not believe it anyhow. We can read an account of the followers of Moses in the Old Testament. As Moses lifted a serpent of brass upon a pole and told them to look and be healed although many did not. (Num. 21: 9) They did not look because they felt that it would not heal them. So if a sign or manifestation was given to all of us, there still would be non believers. Thus there must be something else that will prove God's existence.

God is real is because the natural order to the universe and life on earth point to a deliberate creator. There are many arguments about the natural order to the universe. Science explains this by the laws of gravity; everything that has mass is continually falling toward another object that has more mass. The speed of an object can allow for it to travel faster than the gravitational pull toward the object with more mass creating what is called an orbit. This pattern is common in space and everything in it appears to have one. When we observe space we can see that there is a seemingly infinite number and complexity of our universe. In our solar system we have planets that move in harmony around our sun. Earth is at the perfect distance from our sun. If it was too far away we would all freeze, if it were any closer we would burn. There are many other factor in the solar system that if they were not just right, we would perish.

Take into account just the human body, Dr. Francis Collins said to PBS “Where did that come from? I reject the idea that that is an evolutionary consequence, because that moral law sometimes tells us that the right thing to do is very self-destructive. If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who cares about the guy who's drowning? He's one of the weaker ones, let him go. It's your DNA that needs to survive. And yet that's not what's written within me.” The more we study the human body, the more we find out we know even less than we thought we did. Almost every new discover creates two more questions. The human brain is remarkable and DNA is so complex. Now just because something is complex and is hard to understand does not mean that it must be God. You would be fooling yourself. And is often an Atheist believer’s opinion on believers of God. They assume that someone who believes is God is naive and is not willing to open there eyes to scientific explanation. I am completely open for science to explain things which can be understood with our mortal minds. However, I believe in purpose of creation and not just random happenstance.

Imagine the possibility of random matter floating around forming into a solar system, then forming into earth, which then formed into life, which formed into human life and then became your best friend who just got done telling you a funny story. How would matter traveling at undetermined speeds away from the center of the universe just happen to come up with something like that? I think that it would have the same probability as a printing press exploding and somehow forming Webster's Dictionary. I have one question then. Who would turn the pages to allow the ink on each page?

Believers of God must rely on the testimonies of others who have seen him, talked with him and have been in his presence. These people wrote down what they saw, heard and felt. These people were also able to tell their stories which were also written. The one downfall to these accounts is that they can be proven inaccurate due to the multiple hands and many translations of the written stories that had to happen for us to read them today. This is why there is a third element to God. The spirit of God is unlike anything anyone could imagine. The Spirit of God is also known as: The Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost is the proof that God exists. By the power of the Holy Ghost one can feel the presence of God. How can this be better than seeing? It is better because it can give a personal witness to the truth. The Holy Ghost has the ability to speak to a person's mind, has he or she feel certain emotions and can help to discern truth from that which is false.

In my personal life I was once someone who could be considered an atheist. I had many times in my life where my family would say that there is a God, yet I did not believe. I had spent many years of my life saying that Jesus Christ may have been a good person, but he was no God. I also found myself believing that there might be a God but he does not care about me. It was not until the death of my aunt did I even consider an afterlife.

While I was twenty years old my Father passed away from colon cancer. Then after a year and a half my Mother died from pneumonia. What seemed as the worst time in my life, I feel now that my belief was starting to blossom. Although I still did not really believe in a God I had hope that I would see them again. Unfortunately death was to become a regular pattern in my life. My cousin who was my best friend growing up lost his life to diabetes at the young age of twenty seven. At this time my Wife and I decide that we should plan for the unexpected and get funeral plans for ourselves. Still a nonbeliever I had hope for something more.

A few years later I had found religion and came to know that God is real and did care for me as much as I had thought. I found that the Holy Ghost was able to testify that in my heart through feeling and intense spiritual understanding. This is hard to explain to someone who has not felt this in their life. What I know is that I once did not believe, when I allowed myself the chance to believe understanding from the Holy Ghost explained in my mind that it was real.

The reason I know that this was the Holy Ghost is, I lived a life where I did not allow him to speak with me. Once I allowed him in my life I was allowed truth to enter my mind as I was taught the things concerning God.

Soon I was in a stage in my life where I felt I was on top of the world. I had a great job, a nice home and a wife who loved me. My wife was pregnant with our first child and we were going to have a baby boy. Suddenly my life would again change forever and on June 22, 2009. My wife and son passed away due to a large blood clot trapped in her lungs. Now one might say that God would not allow such tragedy to happen to someone so young, or someone who believes in him. Despite the pain that I have felt during this time in my life I feel that my life is more in tune the spirit than ever. I have been given reassurance in an afterlife and a divine message that God is in control.

Now, one does not have to go through what I have to feel or to know that he is real. We cannot prove that he exists until death. And we know that there is not enough evidence to prove that he does not exist. Yet there are many facets of life that show us that He created us. And finally through the Holy Ghost it can be proven to each of us individually. We know that; “seeing is not believing”, we know this because of the ability we all have to deceive. Deception is everywhere we turn and it causes us to doubt almost everything. We can rely on the Holy Ghost to help us see the truth in everything. How can one say that He is not real if they are not willing to ask?

Works Cited
Collins, Francis. Nation Public Radio. 29 March 2007. April 2010 .
Dawkins, Richard. Time Magazine. 5 November 2006. April 2010 .
Foundation, WGBH Educational. The Question of God. 2004. April 2010 .
"Numbers." The Old Testament. n.d. 21:9.
Rothstein, Dave. Ask an Astronomer at Cornell University. September 2001. 4 April 2001 .

5 comments:

Bobi said...

Well done. Thanks for sharing.

Amelia said...

Great piece of writing, Jake! The best paragraph is your analogy of the printing press exploding and creating the dictionary. Loved that! And I love that you were willing to share something so personal in your class. You'll get a good grade for sure! Most of all I loved your testimony that He is real!

Misty and Jake said...

Thanks Amy,
I wish I could say that I thought of that myself. I heard it somewhere but I could not find the source. But it is a good analogy.

Thanks to both of you in reading the stories of my life. Thank you for being such good friends and helping me through this educational time in my life.

Natalie said...

I must say - the final line is my favorite! (yes I DID read the whole thing - but the last line was the perfect end). WELL DONE!

Unknown said...

I hope you got an A and extra credit on top of that! (Love your professor's sense of humor!)

When I feel my faith being rocked I meditate on how it is scientifically impossible to create something out of absolutely nothing. There has to be a purpose with a creator at the helm.