Illogical Atheism

Here begins a series of posts, mostly taken from my letter to the columnist/author at theobjectivestandard.com. 

Remember that movie, "Brewster's Millions?"  Briefly, Richard Prior is surprised to find he's heir to $100,000,000.  In a video, his formerly unknown grandfather lays out the rules of a game he must play to get his inheritance.  To get the $100 million, he must first spend $10 million in a few weeks, account for every penny and have nothing to show for it when it's over.  There is also a "wimp clause" where he can walk away with $1 million and save himself the trouble of playing the game.  It's a great movie and it's pretty funny to watch as he runs into all sorts of unexpected problems spending all of that money.  It's not easy for him.

This illustrates an important part of my logical (apart from spiritual) basis for my belief in God.  Imagine your dad sent you away from him before you were born.  He left you a map to find your way back to him, along with bits of advice and small treasures along the way.  If you make it back to him; if you find him, his untold, unimaginable (all that he has) wealth will be yours.  You can communicate with him via email, but his answers are often vague, untimely and seemingly undesirable.  He just keeps asking you to trust him.  You try following some of his advice and directions and find they indeed lead you to where he said they would.  The path along which the map leads you isn't easy and it's easy to get lost but you find that another study of the map gets you back on course, if a challenging course.  Along the way, you're led to unexpected places, through unexpected areas, to experience unexpected things.  But so far, things seem to work out ok for you at the end of even the darkest times and you find you're happier the more you follow his advice.  Sometimes it's great.  Sometimes you just want to give up.  But you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you're not dead, yet.  Though sometimes you have to check your pulse just to make sure.

That's our relationship with God, our Father in heaven.  His directions and advice are often unique.  We have the choice to follow them or not.  If we logically, rationally look at the results we experience as we follow him, we'll see he's a good dad, he tells the truth, he can be trusted.  Often it seems the hardest thing to do, but it works out for our best.  And what if it really does lead us to heaven?  Bonus!