Who or what is God to you?

Were you raised in Catholic household? Perhaps Christian? Methodist? Muslim? Since birth, has your family imposed some sort of belief in this Almighty and Holy being known by only three letters simply as God and/or perhaps a book called the Bible? Where do you come in? Do you continue on this path of something you have been taught as you have grown up just because you're used to it? Are your opinions based on what you grew up with, belief, faith, or just a fear of there being nothing after you die?

I was baptized Catholic (How many of you knew this?). I was raised somewhat Catholic, I suppose, with God present. His name was there. We did the cross "Father, Son, Holy Spirit" thing. I prayed. We didn't go to church often, but I prayed. As I got older, my mother started going to a Christian church, and so did I. For me, waking up on Sunday morning to go to church was more of a chore than something I found satisfying. I guess the only reason I liked going to that particular church was because I was of the age where I was with all the other children, and they had board games and video games for us to play. This message of God, these words from the Bible, all of it seemed foreign and uninteresting to me. I never really cared, and it never really made sense. So starting early, I pretty much abandoned organized religion, or any form of religion, really. This "Bible" book is a great work of creative writing to me, but nothing more. It holds nothing of truth or relevance to my world (but I respect whatever relevance it holds in yours).

There was another piece of the puzzle though, and it's name was God. Instead of giving another autobiographical anecdote about why, I'll just jump straight to the point and say that for years, I've believed in THEE God. The same God everyone talks about. Creator of the Universe, the Earth, Life. Everything. Ruler of Heaven. The Big Guy. The Lord. Our Father. God. Only in the past couple of years, really, have I dissected this entire concept of "God" and examined it piece by piece to figure out what he/she/it means to me, and I've yet to figure it out. Now, first and foremost, I do not need anyone to "save" me, that's all religion speaking. Secondly, as stated before, I do not care for your "bible" or what's written in it, so forget the book. I went through my phases of "I don't believe in God, per se, but I do believe in some kind of Higher Being." Agnostic, they call it. Well, apparently, agnostic means "without knowledge", which I highly resent. If I am to make a decision on what I believe, it is going to be not only with knowledge, but a lot of thought and myself is going to go into this decision. So, at that point, I decided, "well...just forget it for now." Then, not so long ago, I decided that I am going to believe or I'm not going to believe, and I decided that I was going to believe. Atheists, they call them. I would have to continue to lie to myself if I said I didn't believe in any sort of God, but rather, in nothing. Who am I to claim that he doesn't exist? Then again, who are you to claim that he does? So there goes that. Let's go back to square one and figure it out. I've always thought that one's idea of who or what "God" is was a personal one, but I haven't figured out how to define it for myself. I assumed the role of Atheist and it kind of stuck, and people still assume that's where I am at, but honestly, that was short lived. Then yesterday, in fact only hours ago, I read the script to a play/short film a good friend of mine had just finished writing a couple days ago.

It is simply entitled God. It is short, but bountiful. It is an examination of one of countless theories about what happens after we pass on from this Earth. It follows a man, whose name we do not know and do not find out, after he has died at a relatively young age. He is in what he thinks is Heaven, waiting to see God, which he does soon thereafter. He has his conversations with God, raises questions, and his temper, about why things that have happened during his life, and now his death, have happened. Conversations are had with questions answered and explanations given. Then, the play ends with a monologue from God. It is more so the context of the dialogue than the actual premise that I related to very much so. It outed some of the thoughts I've had in my head about the subject and has caused me to examine these thoughts more closely. I still haven't decided what I believe or what God is to me, but I know eventually I will. Either way, we all die eventually, don't we?