My thoughts on God to an agnostic.

My friend asked me my thoughts about God and why, if he exists, does he let bad things happen:

George,
Actually the irony in your question is that for the first time in several months after taking “a break from church", I did go to church yesterday. and funny enough they talked a bit about your question in one of the classes.

It's a bit lengthy but here goes:
The discussion was on why bad things happen to us and whether or not those trials are from "God" or from the will of others around us or our own free will to make decision. The consensus in the discussion was that God doesn't need to tempt or try us because we encounter enough hardship from our own doing and the doings of others around us. There was an idea that I liked about how he sometimes thinks this world, our experience is (and I forget how he explained it so I’ll give it my twist) that this life is more like a test, a break from “reality” to see how we would act if deprived from our memories and the reality we knew. To see if we would be good or evil. To see how we would treat each other etc. If this were the case, then God wouldn't interfere because this life was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And along the lines of this description is where I had already found my beliefs. That even if Christ was a fake, even if God doesn’t exist, the ideal he taught, about loving one another, loving your neighbor, treating others as you would want to be treated is an ideal that I want in my life. There is a scripture that describes Charity as the pure love of Christ. So I decided to believe in the ideal of Christ rather than the philosophically debatable existence of God and his Son coming to this earth to pay the debt of our sins.

There was another point someone made about “the refiners fire” or something along those lines. I can’t recall the exact parable but it describes that we are silver in need of refining and God is the Silversmith who puts us into the “fire of affliction” to refine us. The comment was made about how a woman went to a silversmith and asked him about refining silver to get a better understanding of this parable. The silversmith described the refining process in that the silver needs to be in the hottest part of the flame for it to work. Then the woman asked how do you know when the refining is complete, and he explained that when silver is fully refined you can see the reflection of your image in it. There were a few more details that I can’t recall but I only added it because it is another perspective that might help you understand your question. And because I have learned that understanding things from as many perspectives as possible helps me make better decisions.

I personally think it would be foolish not to believe in God. And I use the term “God” loosely. Because the argument of who’s God or doctrine is right is just plain silly. The argument over such trivial things is like two children arguing over who’s imaginary friend is right. Although I can’t deny that be it very small the chances of the earth forming all on its own and life sprouting up from nothing are possible. Very small, but possible. Humans have been known to have lived on earth for roughly a couple hundred thousand years. Scientists have found human remains and carbon dated them to about this age. However the earth itself has been carbon dated back to about 4.5 billion years. We as humans have been here for about the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. And it’s difficult to say that the earth wasn’t made of different asteroids or material that came together or were brought together and that some of the earths “older” rocks that have been carbon dated are from those materials.

Either way I acknowledge the two possibilities, one that God made this earth and universe for whatever reason. Or two that the earth just happened by coincidence and that there is nothing after we die. I personally chose the first for two reasons.

1) I don’t want to believe that there is nothing after death, that I won’t exist in any shape or form.
And
2) I think it’s too much of a coincidence that the earth in it’s perfect distance from the sun set in a perfect rotation and spinning on it’s axis giving us water, seasons and atmosphere and magnetosphere that provides protection from the suns radiation and mitigates the extreme temperatures that would otherwise be from day to night. All these things are too fragile from a universal type perspective to have ‘just happened’. I believe the earth and its order were set into motion, gathered or made by “God”.  I can’t define Him, I can’t describe Him or set Him in a box and say look everybody, its God! He might be a spaghetti monster for all I know. But I want to believe that God exists. I can’t say that he cares about us individually or collectively. I want to believe that He cares about me individually and has feelings for me. But I can’t claim anything more than what I want to believe. What I chose to believe.

I hope my thoughts help you decide for yourself what you chose to believe.

Amended Nov 2017:
I eventually resolved that there are two wildly different segments of the church. That of the doctrine and that of the culture. I've found the doctrine to be quite sound. The culture however is riddled with flaws. I despise the culture and it's judgmentalism. The church is run by men, men are flawed. And as such they have, do and will make mistakes.

God however is a very different thing to me. The fact that the Earth is in the perfect position to provide the perfect temperatures necessary to maintain human life. Perfection so much so, that the simple tilting of the axis of the planet towards and away from the Sun causes the seasons and temperatures to vary as greatly as they do. The fact that the sun and moon appear similar in size. In my mind, it is not a coincidence, it was designed that way. 

The perfection of the orbit. The magnetic poles that deflect harmful solar radiation. The spin of the planet causing day and night. Wildly varied life. Even down to the mild type of star our little planet rotates around. And the many things that science has yet to discover are vast and play a significant role in our very opportunity and existence. 

To me, it's all designed at far too intricately, delicate and detailed a level to be mere happenstance. It is my belief that there is indeed a master creator and it is through the physics and the time stamp of evolution that the great Creator made these things. And even if it ends up that the church isn't true and if furthermore, that God doesn't exist, that there is indeed nothing after this life. I want to live my life believing that there is indeed something after we pass from this mortal existence.