I've always had a problem with organized religion because I believe man is fallible. If man tries to interpret God's message to the masses, he will invariably get it wrong. No meat on fridays, being kosher, praying 5 times a day at a specific time, do you really think God would require such things? I say no. Also, how can an elected man be "closest to God?" Of course I mean the Roman Catholic pope. If man is fallible and you increase the influence of man on a godly position, wouldn't that corrupt the position? Of course it would.
Then you have "social justice" preachers telling us our salvation is bound to the person next to us, that we are our brothers' keepers, and it is up to us to make sure everyone gets saved or else no one will. This really turned me off to religion and I began to believe if there was a God, he wouldn't allow this to happen, therefore there was no God.
A decade after I started to believe there was no God, my own actions reflected my belief. I had become someone I would now distance myself from. Then a few miracles happened in my life.
A close friend of mine gave me some perspective on one of my own failings by allowing me to witness how the actions of someone else affected her. Even then I was no where near the man I am today but I credit her with giving me a little sight into who I could become and who I wanted to be.
After working in a low paying, yet fun job for a while I had another glimpse into what kind of person I shouldn't be. A coworker that had become a friend of mine got arrested for domestic abuse. His actions were very regrettable and I'm not sure how things turned out, but that situation gave me some further perspective.
A few years later I started to study string theory as a hobby; so I'm a little strange, it was an interesting theory. Everything in the universe could be explained by vibrations of higher dimensions. As you know, sound is a vibration. I started to think about it and a fantastic and beautiful image popped in to my mind.
If the universe were a theater and you used string theory to explain how the theater came to be, the singer is the one creating the theater. Then I thought, if the one singing is God, with his song, he is creating the walls, floor, ceiling, seats, spectators, lights, everything. And every change in pitch, every emotional overture shapes and changes not only the walls and floor and ceiling, but also those who are listening and even those who aren't. This means God has a role in our lives and our lives have a role in him.
So this mental exercise may be a little unorthodox, it may be a little crazy, but it got me the answer I was looking to find. God does exist and he does play a role in everyday life. Not only that, but what we do has an impact on God as well.
