A God I Can Get Behind

Lately I've stumbled a lot of short stories about the meaning of life, God's true purpose, and what lies beyond death. They're very short and not all that deep, so I encourage everybody to check my favorites out: "Meeting God", "Talking to God" and "I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility."

I like the first two stories because of their emphasis on growth. I feel like religion all too often makes life feel stagnant. These are your rules, this is what you have to do and can't do to get in to heaven. You live your pious, and, for some people, boring life and then you spend an eternity with God. The end is the purpose. These stories, however, propose that the journey is the purpose. Our whole reason for being is to learn and grow.

"Meeting God" goes so far as to presume that humanity is one and literally interprets that harm to one person is harm to all. Which is a good argument for why we should not hurt each other.

"Talking to God" uses a stronger emphasis on evolution, saying it's our species that must learn. It's possible to create technology and not kill ourselves, we just have to hope that we can. It means we have to trust each other and learn to live with each other. We cannot use the technology for harm, but we still need to have the capability to do so. It was a great spin on technology and scientific advancements and the both negative and positives outcomes. Technology is always going to have bad along with good with new discoveries and inventions, but in order to progress as a society we need to learn to live with them.

"I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility" is much different from the first two. More scifi than ontological. But it did pose an interesting perspective on what our lives really may be.

I think stories like these are enjoyable, they give me an idea of God that I could get behind. There's a real purpose, and God, as an intellectual, is more relatable. He doesn't interfere in all the stupid aspects of our lives or stop bad things from happening because those parts are what make us who we are. It makes sense that it wouldn't be right for God to interfere with that. Our lives are not a means to an end, the whole purpose is the journey itself. It's a logical God. I totally support that.