Tharan

As most travelers, wise or not, will tell you, the journey most always belittles the destination.

 

I believe, in simple terms, the universe expands from an explosion then contracts back to explosion again. Over an incomprehensible time period. Over and over again. It could be, we're witnessing the first, it could be the zillionth.

Where the stuff came from and when it started is a mystery no one will ever know.

Unless there is some God who is responsible for it all and lets you in on the knowledge when your soul sees Him in death.

So, if there is a God, the one you're lucky enough to believe in, thus getting into Heaven, you'll know. If not, you'll never know anything other than what you believe on earth. It's also a fact most don't know the reality of much of anything on this planet. But most humans know more of what's real than any other life form to have ever lived on this planet. Maybe.

Evolution is an absolute fact, whether you want to believe there's a deity with its hand in it or not. To start with a articular explosion, the first one, or an ongoing thing.

 

Forgive me if this is somewhat stream-of-consciousness, I don't often try and explain my faith. I do appreciate yours though, please believe that above all.

First off, I do not necessarily agree with you about sense of self and abstract reasoning being accidents of evolution. You get to a certain point and stop because there's no longer a reason to go further. And in fact, our big noggins are a reason NOT to go further, yet we did. I think there are also layers to our consciousness of which we are unaware. And it would not surprise me in the least to find that a very real part of us exists after our bodies are used up. And I believe that there is something more than us, part of us, and at the same time apart from us, and I choose to call that God.

Throughout human history there have been religions of one sort or another. Why are we wired for that? What advantage does it give us over the next tribe? Maybe it makes us fight harder? Have more kids? I dunno, but we have that in us. Is every prophet/psychic/voodoochile a crazy person or are a very rare few of us able to tap into layers of consciousness that most people cannot? Is time really linear there? Hell if I know.

A point I do want to make is simple. I do believe in Archaeological Jesus. And I believe that he claimed to be the son of God and that he performed miracles. That does not mean I believe that God is a tall grey-bearded guy who sits on a throne while every Christian in our history kneels at his feet and worships him for all eternity. I believe that Jesus could have been anything, but he had a better connection to what I call God than anyone and told us how to behave. If you think about the Bible, you know that the Jews received instructions on how to behave from Moses. That's what religion really boils down to, instructions on how to live. Moses said "Do this" and then Jesus came and said, "No, do this instead" and then some guy named Mohammad said to follow God but also said some stuff about Jesus that was translated wrong so now we have Islam too, but I digress.

So anyway, suffice to say that faith is hard. And the best thing about it is, if you really have it you don't find yourself needing to figure anything out. But sometimes you want to anyway, and you see an article like that. That makes you want some perspective on it, so you can consider it within your framework of beliefs. So I appreciate your honest response.

 

I agree with all that, CJ. I believe Jesus walked the earth and try to have faith in the Trinity. But even that evolves.

My statements before are from the scientific side of my brain with emotion and faith aside. There's evidence that evolution happened and is happening today still. Life goes on, changing- which is the definition of evolution. Evolution and religion are not diametrically opposed to one another unless you stick to a rigid literal Biblical structure. If there is God and he only simply made the first bang, He actually is responsible for making you and me on a natural, physical, chemical and biological level over the millennia.

Faith in God is a hard thing. I believe that at the very least, something had to create something from nothing. I try to have faith it is God and that we have a soul that lives on after we're done here.

I do not believe there is any deity that micromanages anything we know of. But I'm not preaching one way or another. That's why we have freewill. To believe deep down as we can, based upon everything we know.

It's terrible that men try to use religion to control others. And that turns people off to it and tests one's faith so.

 

No micromanagement, agreed. But there's influence, and that could come from a deity or from a collective soul or from some kind of psychic energy about which we know nothing. The older I get the more I know what I don't know.

 

I believe some prayers get answered. It could be collective energy or something like that.

I hope to find out one day.

 

I like this take on religion from Brian Greene, the famous string theorist. Whether the stories of the various forms of God are actually "true" or not, what is undeniable is the positive effect it has on some people. That feeling can seem absolute when you are inside it. Unfortunately, that feeling of absoluteness (and purity) can be perverted and turn murderous when humility is removed from the equation. These historical travesties are the ammunition the political atheist left uses against religious people. But that potential outcome, which may end up just being statistical anomalies or the growing pains of a developing conscious system, does not itself invalidate the reality of the positive that religion gives to many people on a daily basis.

 

God let's you believe in your own way and doesn't judge. That's why he is great and the rest of humankind isn't.

 

God doesn't judge? I'm assuming you are Christian, right? Because that is wrong in terms of the Christian tradition. Jeffery Dahmer probably grew up in a Christian household/environment and I'll bet his ass got judged. And if it didn't, then what's the point of being "good"?