BY TONEY ATKINS
A disturbing new poll, released in June 2012, indicates a growing trend among young adults and teenagers to believe that God does not exist – that there is no Higher Power in the Universe.
Dan Merica, of Cable News Network (CNN), reported: ”The percentage of Americans 30 and younger who harbor some doubts about God’s existence appears to be growing quickly, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. While most young Americans, 68%, told Pew they never doubt God’s existence, that’s a 15-point drop in just five years.”
The CNN report continued: “In 2007, 83% of American millennials said they never doubted God’s existence.”
However. CNN, reporting on the poll, said: “More young people are expressing doubts about God now than at any time since Pew started asking the question a decade ago. Thirty-one percent disagreed with the statement ‘I never doubt the existence of God,’ double the number who disagreed with it in 2007.”
“There is no God,” a young man in his 20s, told me in an interview. “I’m living in hard times. I have nothing. I look around and see hypocrisy, hatred and violence. I have prayed time and time again, but my prayers are not answered. The Bible says to ask and you will receive. I’ve received nothing, no answers, no nothing” He did not explain exactly for what he was praying.
“Prove to me that there is a God,” he challenged.
“Prove to me that there isn’t a God,” I responded.
I explained that I see a Creator in the intricacies of creation, the marvel of how our bodies just happen to be made with all its parts designed to keep us, along with all the creatures of nature, alive and functioning, with each part doing what it is supposed to do. We have a brain with the capacity for intelligence to see the world but also to have faith in what our eyes can’t see.
I am far from being an authority on physiology or spirituality, and my argument failed to convince the young man. “Show me real proof and I might believe,” he said.
Admittedly, I went through a long period of doubting the existence of God until I was in my 20s. I was not a church-goer in my childhood and adolescent years, but I was brought up in a moral if not a Christian home.
When I was in my third year of college, a pretty girl, for whom I had carried quite a torch, invited me to her fundamentalist church for our first date.
I was impressed by the heartfelt singing of old-time upbeat spiritual songs. I saw beautiful expressions on the faces of many in the congregation as they worshipped. I heard testimonies of what several individuals said that God and His earthly son, Jesus, had done in their lives. They all appeared to be normal, down-home folks who happened to have something special in their lives. The pastor taught from the New Testament of the Holy Bible in a way that I could understand, and I began to grasp in a new way the message that Jesus delivered to His followers.
I was greeted with genuine friendliness when I was introduced to several members of the congregation as Jo and I were leaving the church building after the service.
Admittedly, lust was my ulterior motive for going to the church in the first place, but I found that the young lady's outer beauty extended to the inside. Her pretty face carried a gorgeous smile, and her sense of humor hadn’t changed over the years. But there was something different, something more special about her.
Attending the church services over the next few weeks became an established part of our friendship, and I found that I looked forward to being in that building where ordinary, down-to-earth people believed in a God unseen, but Who still seemed somehow mysteriously alive and present in and for the members of the congregation.
In my spare time, I began reading the teachings of Jesus in the first four books of the New Testament. His message of peace, love and hope had meaning for me that I was only just beginning to comprehend.
I bought a copy of the Rev. Billy Graham’s book, “World Aflame,” and read parts of it at night during breaks from studying my college courses. I was becoming more and more aware of an emptiness inside and something dramatically missing from my life, and the words in the book were food for thought and for my aching soul.
On a particularly depressing day in late winter, I was inexplicably anxious and upset. I skipped a night class and drove to the Civil War national park a few miles from home. I climbed to the top of a stone tower and gazed around the park under cloudy, dreary skies. I had never felt so alone.
I wanted to stop at the home of the pastor of the church I had been attending, but cars outside his house indicated that he had company, possibly the minister who was to begin a revival the following night.
At home, I lay on my bed. Instead of studying, I continued to read the Rev. Graham’s book. I would like to say what passage struck a major chord within me, but I really don’t remember. For the first time in my life, I knelt at my bedside and sincerely prayed, asking God and Jesus to forgive me of my wrongdoings and to come into my life and change it.
A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders.
The first sign that something was different came moments after I turned off my light. There was a loud clap of thunder in the distance. Previously, I would have gone into panic mode. I had been terrified of storms for several years after a windstorm uprooted a tree within a few yards of where I had been standing. An unnatural, all-encompassing fear would have me walking the floor in terror until any storm thereafter would pass.
On this night, however, I went straight to sleep without fear and awoke the next morning full of peace and joy. I remember singing all the way to the college campus. I was happy.
Many other events would occur in the following years that convinced me that a Higher Power was at work in my life.
I became active in the church for several years, and there were wonderful times. I would like to say that as times changed, I lived a perfect Christian life, but that would be an outright lie. However, my belief in God remained intact and I knew that He (or She) answered my prayers, although not necessarily how I wanted, but always in ways that were best for me.
That faith is the only answer I have as to reasons I survived almost being killed several times, as well as overcoming health, financial and other problems.
Our minds are complicated. Our bodies are complicated. The world and the people populating it are complicated. The Universe is complicated.
I love the Internet, which continually baffles me with its complexity and remarkable ability to provide all kinds of information into my home computer, on some folks’ cellular telephones and even onto television sets.
But the Internet, which can spread facts and knowledge, is not always a good thing. Many people with evil intentions infect it, not only with destructive viruses, but with destructive misinformation. People rarely converse with each other face-to-face these days. They email or text. Instead of spreading love and positive hope through the Internet, many spread vitriolic lies and hatred, and a lot of times, the Internet can be terrifying in its relative anonymity.
For some people, the Internet has become a god. They worship it for hours on end as life goes on around them. They miss out on the simple human pleasures that we used to enjoy as recently as a generation ago. Values have changed dramatically, and not always for the best. Truth is put to the test more than ever before. The Internet and its offspring can infect and affect the human mind.
Despite all the good it can accomplish and the convenience that it has added to our lives, the Internet has hardened our hearts, diminished our humanity.
More and more, there are wars and rumors of wars around the world. Dictators slaughter their own people in fear of losing power over them. Politicians lie and make promises, but rarely explain how these promises will be carried out to the benefit of the populace. People maim and kill others, often without apparent reason. Where marriage was once "till death do us part," it has become more like a boyfriend-girlfriend existence, breaking up when things go wrong and going on to other relationships, leaving the children to suffer because of their parents' actions. Too many adults commit criminal sexual acts on under-age boys and girls, not caring about the consequences of their unspeakable actions. Too many people are content to live their lives in ignorance of the truth instead of living in reality.
God's fault? Hardly. He gave us the ability to choose between right and wrong, good and bad.
I truly feel a sadness for those people who say they no longer believe in God. They don’t know all that they are missing in good times and bad -- all that is life.
God is not just inside a church building. He is inside the people who fill those buildings, no matter what their denomination may be. He is inside all of us, waiting to be recognized and acknowledged so that His Spirit can awaken us. He waits for us to treat others with respect, love and decency in a movement that, if spread, could make this planet a much better place to live.
A world without God? How empty that would be. How sad.
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