Does Everyone Have a God?

               In today’s society, we are used to getting answers to any question almost instantaneously. We google any question that comes up in conversations, and use the internet to verify anything we hear. Curiosity captivates us to seek out answers to the questions that remain unexplained. One such question is the origin of the universe. For many with religious beliefs the answer is a divine being known as God. Some people believe that God either doesn’t exist, or has nothing to do with the creation, or continuance of the universe. These people, weather atheist or agnostic, believe that evolution and natural selection caused the universe to begin, and that it continued to evolve into what it is today.

               For those who believe in God, which are generically labeled as theists, the universe was started, and is continually affected by God. Some believe God started the evolutionary process by causing the big bang or whatever initially began evolution, while others believe that God created the universe in 6 days, in the relatively recent pass, about six to ten thousand years ago. All theists believe that a divine being had something to do with the origins of the universe.

Those who don’t believe in a deity, almost exclusively believe that evolution is solely responsible for the beginning and progression of the universe. Most would argue they value science above religious superstition, and speculative theories about a divine creator. Atheists would argue that God simply doesn’t exist, where agnostics would say they don’t believe in God because of a lack of evidence. They say His existence is possible, but not provable or necessary.

The most vocal entities in the debate are atheists, and young earth creationists, because they represent the greatest opposites in the conversation. Young earth creationists take the creation account found in Genesis literally and believe the entire universe was created in 6, 24 hour days. Atheists argue that evolution proves that the earth is far older than 6,000 years, citing the age of the earth at around 4 billion years.

When it comes to the initial stages of origin, the big bang or the six creation days, neither side has much evidence so they resort to pointing out the problems with the other’s belief. Creationists say it is ridiculous to think something could come from nothing, or that life could come from nonlife. Atheists argue that light from the stars couldn’t reach us in only 6 thousand years, and that carbon dating proves the earth is over millions of years old.

Those in the middle mostly accept evolution and only disagree on whether or not God was involved in initiating it. Some believe in God, some don’t, and some simply don’t care. For most in the middle the debate is a waste of time.

The word God has a different meaning to almost every religion, and even more general meanings to others. When getting into specifics anyone with differing religious views will disagree to what, or Who God is. Christians would say one thing, Mormons another, and Muslims yet another. For this reason we must remain somewhat generic in our definition of God.

God is defined by most dictionaries as, the creator, divine, eternal, worshiped as having power over nature, and being able to affect anything and everything. In general the word god, refers to something, or someone that has always existed, will always exist, and is responsible for the beginning and continuation of the universe.

I would argue that everyone has a God, obviously the different religious groups all have their gods, but what kind of god could atheists have? The only thing they credit for the creation of the universe is evolution and time. The underlying belief in evolution without a divine being starting it is summed up by this quote by George Wald, a devout atheist, “Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.”

An atheist’s god is time. It has always existed, will continue forever, affects everything, and in the evolutionist’s mind, is responsible for the existence of the universe. In order for evolution to be possible mathematically, it must be given an unimaginable amount of time, because as George Wald explains, time caused all the laws of probability, and even impossibility to be irrelevant.

Christians, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Agnostics, and Atheists all have one thing in common, because no matter what you believe, something has to have always existed, affected everything, and caused the origin of the universe, that person or thing, is your God.