Everybody has questions. But, not everybody has the answers. This guy has his own answers, though he doesn’t seem to know it yet. Partial quote from an email I received a few years ago… 

      “What reason is there to believe IN him? Murder, rape, theft,
lies, etc. etc… If God does exist, where is He? What does he do for the
good will of Humanity? When Christians rally to places of unrest to help, or
when they raise charities for the poor, ill, etc, I don’t see God. I see a
banner. A rally cry. (If God does exist, he’s only in peoples heads, an
imaginary friend, if you will)… ‘People need help in New Orleans! Let’ do
it! God will help us on this Crusade! The Bible teaches us to help one another!
Let’s do it because our religion tells us to!’…You rally to help people,
because your religion asks it of you. What about that seems wrong? The fact that
you need to be told to help others, but that’s besides the point. The point is
you USE God to help people. (There is nothing wrong with helping people, but
why not use humanity as your banner.) You make him into the sword and
shield to fight pain, and inhumanity. My argument against this is why not
look IN yourself for strength, instead of looking OUT somewhere else for it?
Why do you need to look somewhere else for strength?” 

He ended with a list of several different questions, and a polite thanks. So, I’ve chosen 4 to talk about specifically here, in addition to the underlined ones from the actual letter. 

1. Is it wrong to look within for help, rather than look to God?
2. Is it right to think I control my future, and fate has nothing to do with it?
5. How is “faith” an argument to fact?
8. Should Christianity be a believe, or idea?

Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

      Yes, he knows why we can’t lift humanity as our banner. The reason for that is tied in very closely with Question 8 and with his list of human woes at the top of the letter, “Murder, rape, theft, lies, etc. etc.” In every conflict, men follow a banner that stands for something they believe in, an idea as he put it. In war, American soldiers live and die for our flag raised over a bloody field littered with the corpses of their fallen comrades. Oh, but that idea in their heads is backed by faith, belief in the little girl that may run into Daddy’s arms, if they make it home outside of a body bag. They believe in the
ideas of their country. That belief is not founded on mere ideas because they didn’t read the ideas from a book somewhere, but have had real life experiences with America, baby girls, terrorism, hatred, love, and peace. They are willing to go through hell to secure the heaven they left at home. 
      Can we trust in humanity with a list of characteristics like the ones named in the letter? Can you trust a murderer, a rapist, a thief, a liar? All your heroes will die. Jesus Christ is the living God, the one true God of the Universe is the Spirit living inside of Jesus. Christianity should be more than
an idea. It must be a believe, a belief based on hard empirical evidence of personal experiences. 
Hebrews 11:1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
     This means simply that faith is substance, what Science calls "matter." Faith is what we can actually feel with our senses of hope. Faith happens inside our minds and our hearts. Faith produces reactions in our emotions. So, faith is substance.
      I remember a rock song titled, “Give me Something to Believe In,” from the early 90’s, by a group called aptly, Poison. 

Well I see him on the Tv Preachin' bout the promise land
He tells me to believe in Jesus
And steals the money from my hand
Some say he was a good man
But Lord I think he sinned, yeah

Twenty-two years of mental tears
Cries a suicidal Vietnam vet
Who fought a losing war on a foreign shore
To find his country didn't want him back
Their bullets took his best friend in Saigon
Our lawyers took his wife, his kids, no regrets
In a time I don't remember In a war he can't forget
He cries "Forgive me for what I've done there
Cause I never meant the things I did" 

Chorus:
And give me something to believe in
If there's a Lord above
And give me something to believe in
Oh, Lord arise

Our best friend died a lonely man
In some Palm Springs hotel room
I got the call last Christmas Eve
And they told me the news
I tried all night not to break down and cry
As the tears rolled down my face
I felt so cold and empty
Like a lost soul out of place
And the mirror, mirror on the wall 
Sees my smile it fades again

Chorus

Sometimes I wish to God I didn't know now
The things I didn't know then
Road you gotta take me home

I drive by the homeless sleepin on a cold dark street
Like bodies in and open grave
Underneath the broken old neon sign
That used to read JESUS SAVES
A mile away live the rick folk
And I see how they're living it up
While the poor they eat from hand to mouth
The rich is drinkin' from a golden cup
And it just makes me wonder
Why so many lose, so few win

Chorus

You take the high road
And I'll take the low road
Sometime I wish I didn't know now
The things I didn't know then
And give me something to believe in 

      This song caught my attention every time I heard it on the radio, even though I wasn’t in the church at the time, didn’t have a relationship with God. Those verses I underlined were the ones I remembered over the years. They stick with their ironic pictures of homeless people sleeping under a Jesus saves sign. It sounds as if the singer believes Christianity is as broken as that old neon
sign with missing letters. 
      That has not been my experience with God. In my experience, Christianity is as vibrant, real, and alive as Jesus Himself. He is no imaginary friend. Prayers really get answered. My God answers prayers. My God is a real Friend. My God is a living Savior. Jesus really saves lives. And, Jesus does love us. 
      The suffering around us is part of the woes of human failure, certainly a fallen race, every one of us. None of us are heroic in and of ourselves. It is only when we step outside of ourselves that we can reach out to the rest of humanity, to point them upward to God, who is above humanity, our Banner…Jehovah Nissi means “The Lord is our banner” in Hebrew. 
      That brings me to the question about doing good for humanity because our religion tells us to. Religion is a label for belief. What we are really talking about here is belief. I believe I should help my fellow man. He obviously believes we should help our fellow man, from the letter. So, is that his
religion telling him to believe? If not, where did he get that idea? And, it is a really good idea, as far as ideas go. But, ideas are not based on real substance like beliefs are, now are they? 
      I believe I should help my fellow man, because something in my heart aches to see my fellow man suffering, laying homeless in the street. I’m sure God put that compassion in our hearts toward mankind. But, apparently, there are still homeless people everywhere. Mankind is not very good at helping himself or each other. What we really need is a God. A heroic, savior-type God who can lift
us up above our fallen selves. 
      Is this Hero-God imaginary? Not from the perspective of the drunks I have known who were saved and now support their families. Not from the hard empirical evidence of homeless single Moms who were pulled out of the pits of despair by their faith in Jesus Christ. There is no strength inside me or you. We are weak and we will all die. Somebody will sort through all our possessions
one day, and divide them among our friends. We won’t have anything to say about that, outside what we wrote in our “will.” We will be dead. Our body will lie in a grave. But, our soul is the part of us that will never die. It will live on somewhere. We will need a Savior, a heroic God to deliver us when we have no strength to deliver ourself. If you are looking for strength, look up. 
Luke 21:28  And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and
lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near. 
      It is not wrong to look within, just so turtle-like. Man is not meant to be a turtle, always looking out for number one. Man is meant to be an eagle, and to soar on the winds of adversity. Dream, aspire, look up for a higher power, not within our measly hides. 
      Fate is a lie. We are in charge of our future. The decisions that we make affect not only ourselves, but those around us. We must decide carefully, based on facts and evidence of the unseen. There is more than meets our eyes. 
      He asked where God is, if He is real. That’s the easiest question of all. Why, He is right here inside my heart. I believe in Him. And, He is there in front of your eyes. Where do you think that breath you are breathing comes from? Some primordial amoeba soup? I know you can’t cook bread by accident.
Somebody has got to do the cooking or we will all starve. If you’ve ever held a newborn baby that came from your body, you marveled that this being, who was prior non-existent, and a product of your flesh, could indeed now be real and fact, when before he was a mere idea, a hope. Faith is as real as a child.

2 Timothy 4:13  The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when you come,
bring with you, and the books, but especially the parchments. 
     I find it a delight to see large churches and cathedrals around the world. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what it is I enjoy about seeing these buildings. We saw a beautiful curch while touring Savannah this past weekend. St. John's Episcopal Church is nestled under giant oak trees like those draped with Spanish Moss seen on Bay Street. More than the building itself, (since the walls, steeple, and doors seem almost small compared to the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church down the street on East Harris)  it is ultimately a sense of something "spiritual" or something ethereal being present among the cover of those trees that draws me.

     The church I would most like to see is Ulm Cathedral in Germany. It is the biggest in the world and has 13 bells. But, it looks like a storybook fairytale castle. There is so much to be said for organized religion, for and against. Personally, I like to study the buildings, books, and artifacts of Christianity. I know people who seem to be disillusioned about organized religion as a whole, and I understand their reasons. But, I see religion in all its trappings as man's reach for God.... a visual sign of how men have attempted to reach to heaven.

     Those last words are meant rather ironically, since God is reaching to man already, even before man reaches upward to heaven. Man reaches for various reasons, beginning with Cain and Abel, continuing through the Tower of Babel, and right down to our last trip to church, rolled up to the altar in a casket.
2 Timothy 4:13  The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when you come, 
bring with you, and the books, but especially the parchments. 
     So, you want to go to heaven? How are you getting there? In what ways are you reaching? Looking at the passage from the Bible I posted at the beginning, I see an old man, as death is approaching, sitting in a cold, dark prison. He asked of few things from Timothy, only an old coat to keep warm, a stack of books from his personal library, and some dear parchment/ papers he had written. (They may have been blank parchments on which he intended to write, but more likely were letters he had received in a time without email or cell phones...his only method of correspondence.) Imagine your Father writing you asking you to send some things he needs in his final days. This was Timothy's mentor, a Father Figure in his life. I feel so sad for Paul here. He was cold in prison. He needed a cloak. But, more than that, he just wanted his books and papers. God bless Paul! He wouldn't have despised the books and buildings of religion. No, he was busy building churches, and writing the books of our cannon. He took delight in the things of God. Now that he has reached paradise, God has given him the desires of his heart.
Psalms 37:4  Delight yourself also in the LORD; and he shall give you the
desires of your heart.
     I find this verse ironic because man tends to clasp whatever his fingers reach for. Men who long to build a church for God usually do so, in the same way that men who long for a pint or a joint usually find those wherever they are looking. We usually reach the desires of our heart, don't we? But, if we are desiring the things of God, we have to look beyond the things of God, to God Himself. If we take delight in Him, He will give us Him, what we wanted all along.