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What will you ask Spirit?

Does God Exist?

This is a follow up to previous post titled: Believing in a Loving and Benevolent God When Life Sucks. Barry P. read that post and passed along the following anecdote about believing in God. I found it thought provoking and worth sharing. I hope you enjoy it.

The Young Man & The Barber

A young man, while getting a haircut and his beard trimmed, was deep in conversation with his barber. The conversation turned to the subject of God and the barber proclaimed, “I don’t believe God exists.”

“What makes you so sure,” asked the young man?

The barber walked to the window and replied, “All you have to do is look out in the street to realize God doesn’t exist. If God existed, there wouldn’t be any sickness, or pain, or suffering. I can’t imagine a God that would allow these things.”

The young man was about to disagree with the barber when he had a feeling he should hold back. He was surprised by this feeling, but decided to follow his intuition. He tactfully changed the subject of the conversation, but kept thinking about the barber’s comment about God.

As the young man was leaving the barbershop, he noticed through the window a man on the street who had very long, unkempt hair and a long, unkempt beard. This gave the young man an idea.

He turned to the man who just trimmed his hair and beard and proclaimed, “Barbers don’t exist.”

“Are you crazy,” asked the barber? “You just paid me to cut your hair and trim your beard.” I’m living proof that barber’s exist.

The young man replied, “Look out in the street. Do you see that man with long messy hair and a long straggly beard? If barber’s exist, there wouldn’t be anyone who looked like that. I can’t imagine barbers would allow something like this.”

And the young man turned and left.

July 15, 2010 Posted by | God, Questions & Answers | , , , | Leave a Comment

Believing in a Loving and Benevolent God When Life Sucks

This post is a response to a question for The Council from Chris, who wants to know how she can believe a loving and benevolent God exists when her life feels like evidence of the opposite. Chris asks how she can learn to believe and know she is heard and is important when she’s unable to perceive the presence of a loving and benevolent God in her life.

What Is God Like?

Among people who acknowledge the existence of God or a higher power (92% of Americans according to a university survey) beliefs tend to vary about what God is. According to this survey, beliefs in what God is like tend to fall into the following four types: Authoritarian (31%), Benevolent (25%), Critical (16%), and Distant (23%).

Where is God?

Whether we think of God in one or more (or none) of these four ways, we often think of God as being “out there” somewhere—like in heaven or throughout the Universe—rather than inside of us. But The Council advises all of us that it’s important to find God within ourselves—in our own consciousness. This can be a difficult concept to grasp if we’re accustomed to thinking of God as outside of us and we’re used to looking for evidence of God’s existence out in the world.

This is an introduction to this post. Click here to read the full post→

May 19, 2010 Posted by | God, Questions & Answers | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

   

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