To God or not to God... That is the question

Some of you may remember Grant’s little announcement on Sunday about the United Church’s counter to the Atheist ad campaign. The Freethought Association of Canada has issued ads that state: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The United Church’s counter to that ad just turns the first statement around: “There's probably a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

I was reading through The Star and found an article relating to this debate. After sharing the two points of view, the author shares her opinion of this issue. What she takes exception to is the part where it says that we should all “stop worrying and enjoy life.” She makes a good point in that, as Christians, we can’t stop worrying about things like poverty or the environment; however, I believe that she has misunderstood the intended meaning of the United Church’s counter-campaign.

I believe that the United Church’s stance is as follows (but would welcome other opinions):

1) Why should we worry that there is a God? God’s existence is not a scary thing! God represents things like love, compassion, forgiveness, salvation, and hope for the future. Different people may view God in different ways, but he need not be viewed as (and to keep with the uncertain nature of these two statements, probably isn’t) the brutal smiter of sinners!

2) We should stop worrying about trivial things. We should stop worrying that we could be doing things better when we are already doing our best. We should do our best to be good stewards to one another and to our environment, however since God gives us hope we can have faith to believe that we are capable of protecting our environment and helping our brothers and sisters around the world.

More information can be found at The Wondercafe. Actually, you can go there to vote for what you believe to be the more correct phrase.... On Sunday Grant said, "Right now the athiests are winning!!" However, we're now up by 4%! Go United Church!!