This is the first in a series of postings called, “Controversies”, which examine various sectors of my current beliefs, opening them up for the comments and criticisms of my readers. For a more explanation, please view The Introduction.

It is my partially-justified observation and understanding that there is likely some sort of being that exists that can be defined as “god” or at least some proximity thereof. I have come to this conclusion through a long series of examinations of my life, experiences, visions, examinations, and gut-feelings. These mostly center around experiences for which I have no other plausible or even slightly implausible explanation to account for it, given my knowledge of cause-and-effect and general scientific principles.

That being said, I cannot be said to be 100% sure of this (nor of anything, really) and it is entirely possible that my experiences and observations are explained by knowledge hitherto-unknown to myself or to modern science. There is much room left to explore in the quantum mechanics realm and the behavior of very tiny particles and how they interact and affect us on a macro level is yet uncharted.

So, in this matter, I might be called agnostic; I cannot prove the existence of God and am open to the idea that it might not exist at all. However, based on observations of things around me, particularly the intricate workings of humans, their connections, bondings, coincidences that seem directed, and so forth, I currently believe in a being called God. For now, I am semi-comfortable with this determination.

Based on this as a foundation, these are the logical conclusions I have come to about God and its existence. I base these on what properties God must have if it is to perform in a manner that fits my experiences and observations:

I believe that this being is the creator of the current reality we all experience. Exactly how or why this god created it, I do not know. I believe God (as labeled) is a non-gendered, higher- or pan-dimensional being whose basic essence resides outside of our world of perceptions. I believe that God is possibly omni-present but only in a higher-dimensional matrix; in other words, to us it might be omni-present simply because of the nature of our four dimensions. If we existed in a higher dimension, we may find God to be non-omni-present at that level.

I believe that God is likely omniscient to our reality, based on the above omni-present property. I do not believe that God is necessarily contradictory in this sense – the age old question of, “Could God create a rock that even it couldn’t lift?” is only answerable in a dimension where rocks make sense. The answer is, therefore, “no”, because there is no rock that God cannot lift, as long as that rock is created within our reality.

I believe that God’s involvement in this reality is neither all invasive nor all negligent. Reality is what it is per its nature and, much like a clockmaker, God can choose to involve itself in whatever it chooses — whether to intervene or let reality play itself out per the design. God’s involvement or lack thereof is simply a function of the caretaker of the machine of reality, much as a gardener cares for flowers. The flowers will grow and produce by themselves; God just tweaks or trims the bushes occasionally.

Some of my thoughts of God follow the concepts of process theology. In this theology, God is not omniscient in terms of knowing what will happen, but knowing what can happen. God only knows the infinite possibilities available to each and every situation at any one point in time and can manipulate those possibilities to render one or the other more likely to occur. However, it does not have the ability to state the future insomuch as the future has not occurred yet. That being said, God’s perception of reality and the infinite possibilities and the current conditions and tendencies almost certainly enable it to guess the action about to happen. This allows for free will without compromising the omniscience of God.

Some of the specifics I’m not entirely sold on yet, however. Process theology goes on to render the actions of the world directly affecting God itself and I am not sure that fits into my belief system, simply because I’m unsure of God’s involvement in this reality to the extent that it is a direct part of the rendering of God itself. It would seem to me that an omni-SUFFIX being wouldn’t necessarily allow its creation(s) to affect it, but I could be wrong about that.

In general, for some reason, God makes itself the keeper of us and this reality, although we are not necessarily the primary concentration of God nor its entire prerogative. Thus, I do not believe that all other aspects of this reality are forfeit to the might of humanity simply because we are God’s “chosen” species; instead, the entire system is inter-related and acts as a system together and we happen to be a very integral and controlling part thereof.

We exist both at the whim and the ignorance of God; we are neither all-important nor insignificant. And I think that makes me feel pretty comfortable right now.

I am going to start a new run of entries on this blog centering around my personal beliefs, what they are, how I justify them, and why they matter to my life.

This blog was founded on the principle that writing is good for me and philosophy is better. I am purposely putting my belief set out there for people to look at, pick apart, criticize, comment on, and generally fiddle with. I believe that, by doing this, is is properly airing my ideas to the wind and allowing myself to better develop how I understand and view the world.

Because I consider no belief of mine to be sacred or untouchable, I will be presenting a wide array of beliefs in these upcoming entries and I encourage you not to shy away from making any commentary about them. Go ahead and decimate my justifications with quick-witted logic; make me think, make me defend, make me sidestep, I don’t care.

I promise to respond to every single comment.

I only ask one thing: that you respect the principles of good philosophic engagement by respecting myself as a person, yourself as a person, and the audience as people. Comments that are incendiary, racist, abusive, or otherwise unproductive to the discussion will be removed — if you want to flamethrow, there are other places for that. Here we strive to be mature, thoughtful, and reflective.

I also encourage you to contact me at any point and request a treatise on a particular belief or viewpoint; I’m happy to take requests to weigh in on this or that — just let me know your amusements.

Each posting will be spaced out at least 2 days in between to allow for folks to comment and catch up. If the discussions are particularly interesting, I may delay that further. It all depends on the traffic.

I think that this will prove to be an interesting exercise both for myself and my readers. I wish you all well and much success as we all learn more about ourselves together.