Gospel 1: God

Is there a God?

The computer I wrote this on didn't just spring into existence, it was made. The parts it’s made of didn't just pop into existence either, they were constructed from raw materials, and the raw materials came from the earth. So where did the earth come from? Space dust? Sounds reasonable, but where did that come from? The ‘Big Bang’? Well, what made the bang? If something blows up in my house I don't just sit there thinking "not to worry, I expect that was nothing". There would obviously be a cause, I would expect that one of my possessions had blown up. I would want to know what it was.

The problem is that if a big explosion was the start of the physical universe, then there can't have been a physical cause of the bang, or else the bang wasn't the start. And anyway, you'd then have the problem of what caused the thing that caused the bang. Thinking that way doesn't help. The only thing that makes any sense is that there must have been a power outside of the universe, not restricted by the limits of space and time that we are, which was capable of creating the physical universe. It also follows that this powerful force must be intelligent. When you hear a song, or watch a film, read a book or eat a pizza, it's obvious that an intelligent designer was involved. Even if the song is a terrible one, the fact that it exists shows that a person decided to create it. So it would be common sense to assume that purely because the universe exists, an intelligent being was behind it, ie. God.

So, if God does exist, and has the power to create the whole universe, it would be wise to find out as much about him as possible. There are many reasons to want to understand more about the ultimate reality of all existence, but for starters it would be good to know how to not get on the wrong side of him. Presumably such a powerful being must also have the power to 'uncreate' us, or even to make our whole existence completely miserable, if he ever decided that would be a good idea.

Who is God?

There are many religions claiming to be the way to know God, and almost all of them teach us how to act in a way that enables us to encounter him. It's always matter of doing right, being moral, basically following the rules. Then you hope that what you did was enough. Hopefully the good will outweigh the bad, or maybe he'll overlook the bad stuff if he sees enough good in you. But if you've even tried to even keep the rules that you expect other people to keep, like don't lie, don't cheat, don't be rude, you'll know that being good just doing come naturally to anyone. This route of earning God's acceptance seems like very shaky ground.

There is one religion that teaches something else. Not that we try to find God, but that he came to find us. Jesus came into the world claiming to be God. The bible says he taught with amazing authority, and even when he was only 12 years old he astonished the Jews with his knowledge of the bible. It also says that he performed miracles, healing the sick, raising the dead, and feeding 5000 men with a little boy's packed lunch. He certainly turned the Jewish world on it's head. He was killed by a combination of the Roman empire and the Jewish authorities, both of whom he upset by claiming to be in charge. In those days there was no end of people claiming to be the 'messiah', the chosen one God had sent to bring the Jewish nation back to it's glory days. All those men met a similar end to Jesus. So why have we never heard of any of them, but we have heard of Jesus? And now the followers of Jesus far outnumber the followers of the traditional Jewish faith, and Christianity has far outlasted the mighty Roman empire.

One reason why Jesus has stuck around is because his followers claim that after he had been dead for three days, he came back to life, and then rose up to heaven. That does sound crazy, but if it was true it would be good evidence that Jesus really was God. One thing that convinces me is that his disciples, who were his closest friends and followers, almost all died for saying that he had risen from the dead. They would have known whether he had risen or not, they are the ones who made it up if it wasn't true. It certainly wasn't a hallucination, because they all saw the same thing.

The disciples didn't die nicely, and if they knew the whole thing was a lie they would surely have admitted it to save themselves. They didn't all die together, so it wasn't a case of working each other up into a frenzy. Some people even wonder why they didn't just pretend it was a lie so they wouldn't be killed, even if they knew it was true. The answer to that, I think, is that something about Jesus must have affected these men. They believed that they would have a much better life after death, so death was not a very big deal to them.

Another thing that convinces me is that if he hadn't really risen from the dead, the Jewish authorities would have just gone to get the body and shown it to everyone to kill off Christianity before it even started. He wasn't in the tomb. Some people say his body must have been stolen by his followers. But the tomb was under armed Roman guard, with a massive stone blocking the way. Besides which, if they did steal the body, we’re back to the same problem that the disciples wouldn't all die for something they knew was false. Some people even say that Jesus wasn't actually dead but only fainted, then after 3 days he regained consciousness. He was beaten and whipped, he had spikes pushed into his head, and was nailed through his hands and feet to a wooden cross where he hung for hours. To breathe on a cross would have been agonising, because he had to lift himself up on the nails just to get air into his lungs, his whole bodyweight for every breath. Hours later, the soldiers tested to see if he was dead by pushing a spear into his heart, and blood and water came out separately. That means he was dead.

So I think it's convincing. There are other proofs, and to be honest just reading the stories of Jesus' life in the bible is convincing. Most of the stories in the four gospels come from the disciples themselves, and they make themselves look so incredibly stupid most of the time that you think it must be true. If they had made it up, why would they make themselves look so dumb?