Introduction to Rusty's God Blog

The first thing you might want to know is whether or not I believe in God. It's a silly question to ask someone unless you have lots of time to listen to any kind of real answer. A simple "yes" or "no" won't do. Imagine I say "yes." Now you have to wonder "Which God?" What you're really asking is "Do you believe what I believe concerning God?"

A better question is "What are your thoughts on God?" This question doesn't imply that I should necessarily believe in anything, which is good because the idea of believing in something is also a little silly if what you're really wanting to know is concrete facts.

But we can all agree that God at least exists as a concept (whether he exists in any other way or not), and the concept is about the best any of us have, so that's all we can really talk about. So that's what I'm going to talk about.

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Here's a concrete fact: God -- as something beyond a mere concept -- either exists or he doesn't. No amount of believing or not believing will change this. Just as you won't disappear if people don't know about you or believe you exist. Here's another fact. If God only exists as a concept, then believing and not believing in him are crucial to his survival. Tinkerbell will die if you don't clap for her.

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What is this blog going to be? Why did I create it? I created it because I wanted to talk about God and my thoughts on him. I felt a strong desire to. I'm a guy who grew up surrounded by God and I live in a country obsessed with him in a particular way and I see him when I read and teach literature. So I want to talk about those things too. In short: God is everywhere in my life and I needed a place to write about him and my relation to him, in a place that's a cross between a diary and a public forum... a blog. Rusty's God Blog. Hi, I'm Rusty.

If you are reading this, leave me comments. Give me suggestions for things to talk about or ask me questions. What do you want to know? In my posts, I will attempt to pick a subject and stay focused on that one thing, rather than rambling or freewriting. At the end of each post, I plan on making a short list of future God-based subjects, so if you like any of those, let me know and I'll get to it more quickly. [Addendum (5/30/09): I now keep that list over there on the right.]

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If you think I'm dodging the seemingly simple question "Do you believe in God?" then all I can say is keep reading. I continue to insist that there is no simple answer, but if you read enough posts, maybe you'll figure out what you want to know. (If I said "yes" or "no" now, you may end up not believing me if you keep reading.) If you don't need the answer to that question, then you're a good person to keep reading too.

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This post was meant to be a brief intro to what this blog is all about. Here are potential future post subjects: general and specific conceptions of God, my earliest experiences with God and church, William Blake, The Trickster Cycle and other mythology, America and politics and God, Atheism.