Don Khuth Chronicles

I no longer believe in the presence of a higher being. I used to think that maybe, just maybe there is a slight possibility of someone higher up but after the lost of my friend, I don’t believe that there’s anyone up there anymore. I know a lot of people who believe in God and I don’t have a problem with any of that. They’re free to believe in any religion that they want. Some of them are good and they stick to their own religion and they don’t force it on me to convert. But slowly, I’m starting to think that religion is a herd of blind sheep following an invisible Sheppard.

I don’t want to offend anyone by saying what I believe in but I’m just expressing my opinion. It’s an opinion that seems to get stronger and stronger with every negative event that occurs. Some might think that I’m only saying this because I’m angered by the loss of my friend. If that is the case, then yes, I believe what I believe in because he was taken away at such a young age. He was a young and talented guy whose life was just beginning. He lost his life before it even started. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. Your parents are supposed to see you grow into an adult and live the life that they dreamed you’d live. I believe it’s wrong for a parent to bury their child. It shouldn’t be that way.

There are a lot of things that I don’t approve of in a God driven world. There’s too much evil in this world to believe that it is control by a good creator. A lot of bad things happen to good people all the time. Why are there innocent people dying because greedy people want their share of the riches? You spend your whole life doing good things and hope that karma returns the favour but in the end you find out that there’s no such thing as “what goes around comes around.” You can do all the good things that you want but you won’t get rewarded for your kind deed. You can do all the evil things you want and you don’t have to worry about spending the rest of your after life in damnation.

I just don’t understand how people can believe in something with blind faith. There’s a book that lists a set of rules for you to follow and if you follow them, you will be rewarded when you die. Wouldn’t avoiding death so you can spend more time with your family be award? No. If God wants you in Heaven, then you’re going. It’s his will and “thy will be done.” It’s all part of his divine plan and he has created for is. I fail to understand the purpose of giving us free will when he’s already got a plan for us. How are we to have free will when God already has something planned for us? It’s not free will if we’re doing something that someone planned us to do. Something just doesn’t sound right.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

If I don’t see it then it’s hard to believe it that it’s there. If there’s a substance that doesn’t make itself known, how am I supposed to believe that there’s something there. If someone one lets out a fart, I don’t see it but I can smell it. If I can smell it, I can probably take a guess as to where it came from. With God, you can’t see him, feel him, touch him but he’s supposedly there. Some people say that they feel that he’s everywhere but they have nothing to back that up. They just have faith and believe that it’s there.

Sometimes, it’s comforting to know that there might be a God. When you’re sitting in the dark all by yourself and you start to get scared, it’s nice to know that you’re not actually alone. God is watching over you to make sure that you’re safe. As it is, there are too many people that believe in God’s existence so I cannot deny the fact that he’s not real. I may sound like I’m a fool who’s closing the door on the possibility that there is a God but in the end, all I’m looking for is a reason to believe. I don’t want to be rewarded for believing. I just want to know, that’s all.

I am not sure if I completely doubt the existence of god becase the idea that a god doesn’t exist is a bit of a mind boggler. I don’t think it is possible that life began from nothing but I don’t believe that life started the way that the Bible said either. I think that there may be a possibility that a higher being exists but just not the one from the different religions. There’s so much evil going on in this world right now that people are starting to doubt god. If god was all good and all powerful then why is there evil in this world? A question like this that makes me ponder but I am not one to answer those questions. All I can do is speculate.

With Awana ending for me, I went back to being a regular kid. The thought of church barely lingered in my mind. I had a part time job delivering newspaper around my neighbourhood and that kept me busy for a while. But the church people didn’t give up on me. They came by to my house and asked if I wanted to attend another church service. This one was for teens and it was held every Friday night. It was called Powerhouse.

In a way, Powerhouse did a good job at keeping kids off the street during the evening. Instead of running around the streets at night, we would gather in the gym of Philpott Memorial Church to play games. These games were even better than the Awana games and it was a bit more competitive. We would play for about two and a half hours and then spend the last 30 minutes in bible study. These bible studies were a bit different from the Awana sessions.

We would get into little groups of five or so and each group would get a counselor. These counselors were people who were relatively close to our age group. They told us about their lives and why they followed Jesus and we would listen. I really wasn’t into this whole bible thing but I listened anyways. I don’t remember any of their stories though but I do remember that these guys were cool.

Again, I only attended because of the games and the fun. I had such a good time that I eventually started asking some of my friends to attend. After they started going, things got a lot more competitive and a lot more fun. We all got to know each other but it wasn’t like Awana. The people that I talked to during Powerhouse, I barely talk to in school. It was as if there was a different atmosphere there.

The people that ran Powerhouse were great. They were the best counselors that I’ve ever met. They were the one that made bible study fun. Sometimes, I found myself eagerly waiting for bible study time. They didn’t just preach from the bible, they told stories from it and put it in a way that kept teenagers interested. If they had a point to make, they made sure to say it in a level that we understood. The bible isn’t hard to understand but you have to make sure that you put it into perspective so kids will understand it. I don’t think kids want to hear about a group of people walking around the dessert for forty days and forty nights, that’s boring. Hearing about Moses parting the Red Sea, now that was cool!

Eventually my time with Powerhouse came to an end because now I was moving on to high school. Powerhouse was made for kids in middle school and I was done with middle school. They asked me to attend for a bit longer so I did but it wasn’t the same. There was a bit of a break during the summer because people were going on vacation and stuff. But when it started up again in September, it was different. The counselors weren’t the same anymore. Some of them barely remembered who I was. Eventually, I stopped going. I didn’t keep in touch with the counselors though. If I see them around town and recognize them, I would wave and have a short little conversation with them but that’s about all.

Before leaving, they gave me a bible, the King James Version of the New Testaments. This particular bible was written so it made it easier for kids to learn it. On one page were the verses and on the other page was a paraphrased version of the verses. I remember that I was eager to read it because I’ve never read the bible before. I started with Genesis but I don’t remember finishing it. I read about how god created the earth and the heaven, man and women, plants and animals. But I think I stopped reading after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. In later chapter, they had children and their children had children and so on and so forth. That’s as far as I got.

After this second attempt at gaining the faith, I still didn’t have much. The counselors would tell me that I would need to accept Jesus into my heart if I wanted to go to heaven. But that got me thinking. Why not just accept god into your heart instead? They told me that if I prayed to god, I would get an answer. I tried praying but I never received any response. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that because my prayers weren’t answer, god didn’t exist. It was a conclusion that I came to on my own. I am not trying to persuade anyone else to think the same. Everyone has the freedom to believe what they want, be it right or wrong.

I think that the world is divided by religion. Supposedly, there is only one god and yet there are so many religions out there. I am one who does not believe in the existence of a god. There are too many questions about god that are unanswered. I am a man of logic and my logic cannot reason with the belief that god exists. It takes faith to believe in god and I’ve lost it.

Growing up, my family used to attend church every Sunday. I am not quite sure how we got starting with church because I don’t think that my parents were Christians. I liked attending church because I got the chance to play with toys. I didn’t have any interest in getting to know a high being.

We didn’t attend church for long though. After we moved into my current house, we stopped going to the Sunday services. Until one day, I was approached by a girl who attended the church down the street. She told me that there was this thing that goes on every Tuesday night where the kids would get to play games. That’s was all I needed to hear to get me to attend this weekly gather. It was known as Awana and it was held every Tuesday night at the Philpott Memorial church.

They had a van that came and picked me up, even though I lived a few blocks from the church. The van would go around the neighbourhood and pick up a few more kids before heading back to the church. When we got there, we had to register so they can put us in the right groups. Because of my age, I was entered into the Pioneers. My brother was entered into a younger group but I don’t remember what they were called.

Every night, we would all meet in the gym and compete against each other by playing games. These games were fun! I remember the best game that I enjoyed playing were the 3 legged races. My friend and I would always get teamed up together because we were good. The object of the game was to run in a circle and make one complete lap. Once you get back to your starting point, you would have to run into the center and grab a pin. Each pin was given a point so you would have to make sure you grabbed the highest scoring pin. We would play a few rounds and a few other games and the team with the most points would get Awana bucks at the end of the night. You can use those Awana bucks to buy things from the store.

Another way to earn Awana bucks is to memorize verse from the bible and recite them. The first verse I had to recite back was the Pioneer’s motto, Titus 2:11-12 which says, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”

Every night I would recite back one verse because I wanted to get more Awana bucks. I had no idea what each verse meant. All it meant to me, at the time was that I would be able to buy a pencil once I had saved up enough money. I don’t think I can remember any other verses that I recited back then. The prizes was what kept me going. I started attending it often enough that I eventually bought the Awana uniform. One girl in my class saw me in my uniform one night. I thought she was going to tell everyone in my class about it and in turn, they would make fun of me but instead, she just said that I looked cute in a uniform. I guess ever since I was little, I was wearing some kind of uniform.

Eventually, I stopped attending Awana because I had gotten too old for it. It was for elementary school kids and I had passed that stage of my life. I miss those days. If there was one thing that the Awana club taught me, it was team work. I got to know the guys in my club and we became good friends. During the games, we would all work together and cheered each other on. It didn’t matter what our backgrounds or our nationalities. The one thing that mattered was that we were Pioneers.

I was reading the Dilbert blog, by Scott Adams today and the most recent entry seemed to have gotten a few readers pretty mad. Well, I think there isn’t a day where an entry doesn’t fire anyone up. Today’s entry is about talking to God. Adams wanted to know what God sounded like so he asked the readers, who have spoken to God, to give a description of what God’s voice sounds like.

Some of the comments that were left were funny. One reader left a comment stating that God speaks with him via email. That would make sense since we are in the technological age where billions of emails are sent everyday. In the movie, “Bruce Almighty” Jim Carey got to be God and he replied to everyone’s prayers via email. I’m sure that, God being as powerful as he is, probably has the best computer in the universe. Who knows, He’s probably running Windows XP. Not the Home, Media or Professional edition but the Special Higher Being edition.

Then there were the comments that weren’t so funny. There was one comment where the reader called Adams “an arrogant prick.” Another read said that Adams will “be burned at the stake.” I think what Adams is trying to do here is start a discussion. Some of the discussions he brings up are things that most people don’t talk about because it’s crossing the line. Religion seems to be the focal point lately and some people are afraid to mention religion in fear of stirring up trouble.

Some people were saying that when they hear the voice of God in their head, they know it’s God and not their conscience. First of all, nobody knows what God sounds like so how can they possibly know it’s God that is talking to them. Secondly, if I started hearing voices in my heard that isn’t mine, I would start to get worried. “You talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.” That’s a quote from “House.”

I’m not big on this whole religious thing but I don’t think God speaks to us. Come on, this is God. He is a higher being with supernatural powers. Why would he want to talk with us? We’re just some small insignificant speck of dust in this vast universe. If you want to speak with God, see if you can speak with the Queen of England first. She was appointed to the throne by God so if you can get a minute of her time, then you’re one step closer to getting a chance to speak with God. That’s if you can find him.

I hate to argue against what most people may believe, but under the circumstance, I would have to argue that this is true. Day by day, after unexplainable events keep happening, I’m starting to believe even more that there is no God. I highly doubt that there is anything anyone can say to make me think otherwise. I don’t know which God you believe in but that God does no exist.

Today, I got off work fifteen minutes early to catch the last bus to Hamilton. After what happened last time, I didn’t want to miss the bus again. I’m tired of waiting for the bus every time. Tonight, me and a group of commuters waited forty-five minutes for a bus that was scheduled to arrive at 9:00pm. The one day I leave very early to catch the bus is the day that the bus decides to run late. The day that I get off work a few minutes late, is the day that the bus arrives early. What the hell is going on?

To me, the events of this world are way too chaotic and too random to believe that there is a God who controls all this. Nothing makes sense anymore and the things that do make sense are way too complex to comprehend. To understand the existent of God, people read the Bible or the Quran. What makes those books any different from the books that are publishes by any other author? Because the Bible was written by a prophet? Can that be proven? Why did God choose to speak with that guy and not anyone else?

If some guy walked around today, dressed up like Jesus and said he’s the next Messiah, I think people will think he’s crazy! I would! If I was around during the time that Jesus walked this Earth, I’d say he’s crazy too. I cannot understand the amount of faith some people have on a piece of literature. That’s all it is. It’s basically a history book of events that happened in the past, events that aren’t proven. If those events are proven, I haven’t heard about any proof. There are too many contradictions for it to make any sense.

For anyone who has faith in their religion, they can believe what they want but leave me out of it. I was approached by two guys dressed up in a suit and tie, asking me if I’ve recently read the Bible. The Bible isn’t something I’m interested in. The Mormons gave me a little flyer that would allow me to receive a free Bible. Eventually, the flyer ended up in the trash only a few seconds later. I don’t have time to deal with messengers. If God wants to talk to me, he knows where to find me. I’m not going to waste my time looking for him because he can never be found.

I don’t think any of the religious beliefs are true, even the spiritual beliefs for that matter. I guess I’m a materialist when it comes to issues like this. I believe in things that exist physically, things that I can detect with my five senses. In order to detect the presence of a higher being, you’re going to need some other sense. We’ll call that sense, faith. I don’t have any faith in God. I have faith in my family, my friends and people I meet, people who are actually real not some deity that lives in the sky.

Some of you may be wondering why I’m blaming all this on God. I’m not blaming it on God, more like blaming it on the inexistent of God. The reason behind that is because things happen and they happen for a reason. When that reason is unknown, it’s God’s doing, right? No, when the reason is unknown, it’s not God’s doing because he doesn’t exist. If I don’t get any present for Christmas, it doesn’t mean that Santa doesn’t exist, it just means that I didn’t get any presents. As you grow up, you eventually found out that there was no Santa. So, as I’m growing up, I’m starting to see things from a different perspective and this is my point of view.

This issue with religion has always boggled my mind. The answers to the questions that I have, doesn’t satisfy my curiosity. Why do things happen for a reason? Why can’t things happen for no reason at all? If something good or bad happens, it happened because it’s God’s doing? Why can’t it happen because it happened? If there is a God, he gave you life so you can live it the way you want to. You don’t have to go to church every Sunday and pray to him. If he’s God, he knows what you’re thinking without you having to be in church. It seems like church is one big scam to get money. Why else would they be passing the collection plate around? What exactly are you paying for when you give them money? Is it to pay the preacher for preaching what you’ve already read in the bible? I don’t think so. That would be a waste of money. I would suggest you save some of that money and spend the rest of it on your family and friends. You’re not going to be able to take it with you when you’re gone. Save some here and there. As for the rest of the money, use it to live your life.

In this day and age where religion is starting to become something big, I still find it hard to believe in it. I just don’t have the faith that most people have in their Gods. And I’ve said it before. I’ve never seen God, I’ve never met God and until I do meet he/she/it I won’t believe in the existence of one.

It seems that nowadays, in order for something to be true, we need hard evidence. We live in a scientific world where there is an explanation for just about everything. I am more of a man of science than I am a man of faith. Science has given me proof to the things I believe in today. The Bible, well, it’s not doing such a good job.

The debate between Creation and Evolution is a very old debate that probably started centuries before I was born. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the last to talk about this but I don’t believe anything in the Bible to be true. I haven’t read the whole book, because I found it a bit boring around the beginning. But from what I’ve read, it sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. Pardon my English.

For anyone who hasn’t read the Bible, allow me to briefly tell you the parts that I’ve read. The first book of the bible is the book of Genesis and it explains how God created the universe in six days and took a break on the seventh day. Of course, God did this once upon a time. Then God created a man which he named Adam. Adam is placed in the Garden of Eden to play with all the animals. But one day, Adam gets lonely and doesn’t want to play with the animals anymore. So he asks God to make him a mate so God took one of his rib and made a woman which Adam named Eve because she is the mother of all living.

So, Adam and Eve are in a very beautiful place called the Garden of Eden with a bunch of animals there and some plants. God placed a tree in the garden and told Adam and Eve that they can’t eat from that tree or they will die. They obeyed God until a talking snake came around and convinced Adam and Eve that they will not die if they eat from that tree because God won’t find out that they touched it, he’s not around, how would know, right? So they eat the fruit from the tree and suddenly realized that they’re naked, so they hid from each other.

One day, God comes down to the garden looking for Adam and Eve. So he calls for Adam, but Adam didn’t answer. Finally a voice is heard and it’s Adam, he’s hiding because he’s naked, and he didn’t want God to see him naked. So he asked why Adam was hiding and blah blah blah, they get kicked out of the garden of Eden for disobeying God and blah blah blah.

What part of that story seems fiction to you? First, Eve is the name that Adam gives his wife because she is the mother of all that is living. Well, I don’t think she’s the mother of the animals because God made them before he made her. Then, he’s got that tree that no one can touch. Why put a tree, that grows fruits, in a garden, if no one can eat from it. Why didn’t God plant that in his backyard or something? That would have made more sense. I’m not gonna plan tomatoes in my neighbour’s backyard and tell him that he can’t eat it when it grows.

Then there’s this snake, not just any ordinary snake. Jesus Christ, this one talks! Oh wait, Jesus wasn’t born yet. So this snake talks to Eve and tells her that it’s okay to eat from this tree. Who in the world would understand what a snake is saying? It’s just going “ssssss.” Somehow that translate to, “it’s okay to eat from this tree.” That’s just crazy. Well, if you’re running around naked in the garden with a bunch of animals, who happens to be your best friends, maybe talking to a snake is that bad.

So because they disobeyed God, they get kicked out of the Garden. A God who is supposed to be merciful, kicked out two people because they ate a fruit. Whose fault would that be? It doesn’t seem like Adam and Eve should be responsible. Eh, wasn’t God the one that made the animals, including that snake? Hmmm…