My Religous Beliefs
My religious views don't seem to fit well with mainstream religions. To a degree I think that mainstream religions miss the true nature of God because what God is is so incredibly encompassing that God simply is not comprehendable by man in God's totality. I will readily admit that I don't understand what God is, but I have some ideas of what God is not, and I know that something I would call God exists.
I am actively seeking God in my life, but I am not willing to allow someone else to jam their belief system down my throat. I have found this to be a real difficulty because on the one hand, I do want to serve the purpose God has intended for my life, but on the other hand, people who, while trying to be helpful, have tried to force their belief systems upon me and I've felt them to be totally wrong and so have been unwilling to accept them.
I was raised in the Christian faith but not any specific denomination. I was forced to go to Sunday school in my youth, occasionally to attend regular church services, and to participate in a program called CYC (Christian Youth Club or some such).
The church I went to Sunday school at, I don't even remember the denomination but the denomination wasn't important to my parents it was just a function of it being physically close, a three block walk from our home. I had really mixed feelings about this church because on the one hand, the people there impressed me as sincere and caring, but on the other they impressed me as being clueless and dogmatic.
Also, when church services were not in progress, and classes were not in progress, the doors of this church would still be open, and I would sometimes go in and just sit quietly and ask questions of God, and I really did feel the presence of God there.
Later some turds took fire extinguishers and vandalized the church and after that they locked it up, still I felt like God were present on the grounds, and even when I no longer attended, I would often go to the grounds when I felt I needed to talk to God.
I would ask questions of the religious figures there regarding aspects of the Bible that I did not understand and it rapidly became clear to me they didn't understand either. But what was most disturbing was their attitude that it wasn't important to understand it, only to accept it.
I'm a person who really wants to understand things, and demands logical consistency exists otherwise I can't feel that I do understand. After a while I, became frustrated and then started becoming disruptive and did things like stick paper clips in the microphone jacks under the pews so it would make a loud buzzing sound during the church services.
While they never flat-out kicked me out, a point was reached where my parents no longer forced me to attend the church or CYC.
A friend of mine at the time, went to another Church on 92nd and 15th NE. I don't remember the denomination but I went with a couple times and I felt very good about this church. They seemed to be genuine seekers of the truth. I didn't go to church services there but I did go to Bible study, the interesting thing about Bible study there was that they didn't limit religious inquiry to only the Bible nor did they force their interpretations upon us. And, if asked a question they didn't have an answer for they were willing to say they didn't know, but never suggested just accepting it.
That church did not survive financially, eventually it disbanded and the building (church) was sold and became a commercial establishment of some sort.
That was pretty much the end of any formal religious training, although really that church it wasn't so much training as it was exploration and I liked that.
I believe God exists in everything and works through physical laws that were established when everything was first set in motion, which may have been forever. This is pretty inconsistent with aspects of Christian theology which places God as a kind of supreme super-human being "out there" somewhere and actively tweaks things directly. In my view God is in me, in you, in every living thing, in every inanimate thing, every bit of matter, and directs the evolution of the universe, but God directs that evolution through the laws established in the beginning.
In this way, my religious views are not inconsistent with evolution. On the contrary, I believe God works to evolve the universe through evolutionary processes. However, and here is where scientists would not be comfortable with my beliefs, I do not believe that random events are truly random. I believe that statistically, they appear random, but in fact every single occurrence is not random but exquisitely choreographed.
In other words, take the half-life or radium for example. Radium has a half-life if 8600 years approximately, that means that if you take a one gram sample of radium today, lock it away in a vault for 8600 years, and then open the vault now we'll have half a gram of radium. If we lock it up for another 8600 years and then check, only a quarter gram will be left.
We can predict statistically absolutely how much of the radium sample will decay, we can not predict specifically which radium atoms will undergo decay. Scientists say it is random, I say it is not.
Quantum mechanics deals with probabilities. In the classic Newtonian view, an electron orbits an atoms nucleus as a planet orbits the sun. But in quantum mechanics, actually there are clouds of electrons in shells and these electrons have a finite probably at being in any one place at a given time. We can not say exactly where the electron will be at any given time.
Specific quantum events though can determine evolutionary outcome. A radium atom might decay, causing the spontaneous mutation of a gene in a germ cell, which later grows into an individual with new genetic traits that turn out to bestow an advantage and that being then propagates widely. Perhaps such a decay was responsible for the genetic alteration that happened between us and the apes that delayed our brain development allowing our brains to be molded by our environment to a much greater degree.
What I am saying here is that I think "God" is the force that decides what atom decayed, and not just at random but to direct evolution along a specific path, evolution of the entire universe.
This is inconsistent with many Christian tenants. On the other hand, I do believe Jesus was a real person who had a real connection with God that is shared with very few people through history. The son of God thing, salvation, and all of that, well I can't feel comfortable with the literal interpretation, that is, of a son as in a biological son. God is forever, timeless, and has no need to reproduce. Further, the product of the mating of a God and a human would be only half-God at best. But I don't believe it was intended to be taken literally in the sense of biology.
I believe, the story of Genesis, of original sin, what that is telling us is that we have separated ourselves from God, God didn't command that we hide from him, we chose to do so. I believe this is intended to be a metaphor for a real phenomena. I believe we are all part of the all that is, and the all that is, is God. All that is is more encompassing than just the material all that is, the material all that it is, in my view is God's creation but it is not separate from God anymore than our thoughts are separate from us.
When we "sin", and I think "sin" is anything that harms other life forms even though we know we are bringing harm to those life forms, whether those life forms be animals or other people or beings from another galaxy, we feel embarrassed. We do not want others to know the terrible thing we did. This embarrassment is what the metaphor of the embarrassment Adam and Eve felt when they realized they were naked in God's eyes. Adam and Eve dawned fig leaves to cover themselves hiding themselves from God's view, or at least attempting to do so. I think this is metaphoric for how we have cut ourselves off from the all that is. We've formed a psychic barrier so that others can't read our mind and know what we have done, and in so doing cut off our ability to access infinite knowledge and love.
Here is where I think Jesus fits in. The Bible says Jesus was without sin, so this made it possible for him to accept the punishments for our sin. I have some issues with this. I believe because Jesus was without sin, Jesus did not create a barrier between himself and all that is. He was part of all that is directly connected, and I think that is what the son of God idea is really trying to express. Further, if we ask for forgiveness, all of those whom we've harmed, and can be honest and confess our sins, then the need for that barrier no longer exists for us either.
I don't believe this barrier is an absolute, that is that it's either there or not, I believe it's there in degrees. I believe very few humans manage to make it through life entirely sinless or be completely open and forgiving and asking of forgiveness of those they've harmed, but some come much closer than others and they in turn have more access to all that is, the knowledge, the love, and the positive power that is accessible. And when I say power I mean something quite different than the kind of power one might achieve through financial success of military conquest, I mean real power to help others.
But the exact role of Jesus, this is an area that I feel not completely comfortable with, I do believe there is something to the salvation but it's not exactly as portrayed, the portrayal is metaphorical.
I believe that, when it says God made man in his image, we aren't talking about God dolls, we're talking about God's vision. God envisioned us and we were. Prior to space, time, and the universe as we know it, there was no air to propagate sound, so when the Bible says, In the beginning there was the word and the word is God, what that means is God's thoughts. We are, I believe, not made "in" the image of God, we "are" the image of God, God thought us into existence.
All of that said; those familiar with the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium understand that for evolution to move forward, static comfortable conditions do not accomplish it because organisms evolve to fill all available niches in those conditions and then evolution slows to a crawl because creatures evolved for those conditions are so adapted to them that any spontaneous mutation that occurs only creates less fit individuals.
I believe the same is true of spiritual development and evolution, and punctuations in our spiritual equilibrium must and do happen from time to time to move our spiritual evolution forward. Further, I believe we are approaching such a punctuation.
Most religious texts have some end of the world scenario in them, or at least end of the world as we know it. I do believe the end of the world as we know it is approaching although I don't think it's necessary a bad thing.
It will be a bad thing if we fight the changes we know are necessary. The change that is necessary is that we must love everyone and everything and be willing to act upon that love. Ultimately, for those who survive I believe it will mean a return to Eden, but how many of us survive depends upon our ability to make this change and act upon it, and if we resist then we're going to be dragged through hell on the way getting there.
Either way, the process is going to be extremely weird and massive changes will be involved, but if we go the good route, we will dance with nature while these changes take place, it will be a pleasant, exhilarating, loving experience. On the other hand, if we take the bad approach, continue to fight with each other, disrespect and disregard other life forms on our planet, fight nature, then we're going to take a trip through hell and not all of us will make it out.
God has given me dreams and visions of both paths. We want to choose the positive one, really we do! The negative one is ugly beyond belief. But even the positive path will be strange beyond belief.
I am actively seeking God in my life, but I am not willing to allow someone else to jam their belief system down my throat. I have found this to be a real difficulty because on the one hand, I do want to serve the purpose God has intended for my life, but on the other hand, people who, while trying to be helpful, have tried to force their belief systems upon me and I've felt them to be totally wrong and so have been unwilling to accept them.
I was raised in the Christian faith but not any specific denomination. I was forced to go to Sunday school in my youth, occasionally to attend regular church services, and to participate in a program called CYC (Christian Youth Club or some such).
The church I went to Sunday school at, I don't even remember the denomination but the denomination wasn't important to my parents it was just a function of it being physically close, a three block walk from our home. I had really mixed feelings about this church because on the one hand, the people there impressed me as sincere and caring, but on the other they impressed me as being clueless and dogmatic.
Also, when church services were not in progress, and classes were not in progress, the doors of this church would still be open, and I would sometimes go in and just sit quietly and ask questions of God, and I really did feel the presence of God there.
Later some turds took fire extinguishers and vandalized the church and after that they locked it up, still I felt like God were present on the grounds, and even when I no longer attended, I would often go to the grounds when I felt I needed to talk to God.
I would ask questions of the religious figures there regarding aspects of the Bible that I did not understand and it rapidly became clear to me they didn't understand either. But what was most disturbing was their attitude that it wasn't important to understand it, only to accept it.
I'm a person who really wants to understand things, and demands logical consistency exists otherwise I can't feel that I do understand. After a while I, became frustrated and then started becoming disruptive and did things like stick paper clips in the microphone jacks under the pews so it would make a loud buzzing sound during the church services.
While they never flat-out kicked me out, a point was reached where my parents no longer forced me to attend the church or CYC.
A friend of mine at the time, went to another Church on 92nd and 15th NE. I don't remember the denomination but I went with a couple times and I felt very good about this church. They seemed to be genuine seekers of the truth. I didn't go to church services there but I did go to Bible study, the interesting thing about Bible study there was that they didn't limit religious inquiry to only the Bible nor did they force their interpretations upon us. And, if asked a question they didn't have an answer for they were willing to say they didn't know, but never suggested just accepting it.
That church did not survive financially, eventually it disbanded and the building (church) was sold and became a commercial establishment of some sort.
That was pretty much the end of any formal religious training, although really that church it wasn't so much training as it was exploration and I liked that.
I believe God exists in everything and works through physical laws that were established when everything was first set in motion, which may have been forever. This is pretty inconsistent with aspects of Christian theology which places God as a kind of supreme super-human being "out there" somewhere and actively tweaks things directly. In my view God is in me, in you, in every living thing, in every inanimate thing, every bit of matter, and directs the evolution of the universe, but God directs that evolution through the laws established in the beginning.
In this way, my religious views are not inconsistent with evolution. On the contrary, I believe God works to evolve the universe through evolutionary processes. However, and here is where scientists would not be comfortable with my beliefs, I do not believe that random events are truly random. I believe that statistically, they appear random, but in fact every single occurrence is not random but exquisitely choreographed.
In other words, take the half-life or radium for example. Radium has a half-life if 8600 years approximately, that means that if you take a one gram sample of radium today, lock it away in a vault for 8600 years, and then open the vault now we'll have half a gram of radium. If we lock it up for another 8600 years and then check, only a quarter gram will be left.
We can predict statistically absolutely how much of the radium sample will decay, we can not predict specifically which radium atoms will undergo decay. Scientists say it is random, I say it is not.
Quantum mechanics deals with probabilities. In the classic Newtonian view, an electron orbits an atoms nucleus as a planet orbits the sun. But in quantum mechanics, actually there are clouds of electrons in shells and these electrons have a finite probably at being in any one place at a given time. We can not say exactly where the electron will be at any given time.
Specific quantum events though can determine evolutionary outcome. A radium atom might decay, causing the spontaneous mutation of a gene in a germ cell, which later grows into an individual with new genetic traits that turn out to bestow an advantage and that being then propagates widely. Perhaps such a decay was responsible for the genetic alteration that happened between us and the apes that delayed our brain development allowing our brains to be molded by our environment to a much greater degree.
What I am saying here is that I think "God" is the force that decides what atom decayed, and not just at random but to direct evolution along a specific path, evolution of the entire universe.
This is inconsistent with many Christian tenants. On the other hand, I do believe Jesus was a real person who had a real connection with God that is shared with very few people through history. The son of God thing, salvation, and all of that, well I can't feel comfortable with the literal interpretation, that is, of a son as in a biological son. God is forever, timeless, and has no need to reproduce. Further, the product of the mating of a God and a human would be only half-God at best. But I don't believe it was intended to be taken literally in the sense of biology.
I believe, the story of Genesis, of original sin, what that is telling us is that we have separated ourselves from God, God didn't command that we hide from him, we chose to do so. I believe this is intended to be a metaphor for a real phenomena. I believe we are all part of the all that is, and the all that is, is God. All that is is more encompassing than just the material all that is, the material all that it is, in my view is God's creation but it is not separate from God anymore than our thoughts are separate from us.
When we "sin", and I think "sin" is anything that harms other life forms even though we know we are bringing harm to those life forms, whether those life forms be animals or other people or beings from another galaxy, we feel embarrassed. We do not want others to know the terrible thing we did. This embarrassment is what the metaphor of the embarrassment Adam and Eve felt when they realized they were naked in God's eyes. Adam and Eve dawned fig leaves to cover themselves hiding themselves from God's view, or at least attempting to do so. I think this is metaphoric for how we have cut ourselves off from the all that is. We've formed a psychic barrier so that others can't read our mind and know what we have done, and in so doing cut off our ability to access infinite knowledge and love.
Here is where I think Jesus fits in. The Bible says Jesus was without sin, so this made it possible for him to accept the punishments for our sin. I have some issues with this. I believe because Jesus was without sin, Jesus did not create a barrier between himself and all that is. He was part of all that is directly connected, and I think that is what the son of God idea is really trying to express. Further, if we ask for forgiveness, all of those whom we've harmed, and can be honest and confess our sins, then the need for that barrier no longer exists for us either.
I don't believe this barrier is an absolute, that is that it's either there or not, I believe it's there in degrees. I believe very few humans manage to make it through life entirely sinless or be completely open and forgiving and asking of forgiveness of those they've harmed, but some come much closer than others and they in turn have more access to all that is, the knowledge, the love, and the positive power that is accessible. And when I say power I mean something quite different than the kind of power one might achieve through financial success of military conquest, I mean real power to help others.
But the exact role of Jesus, this is an area that I feel not completely comfortable with, I do believe there is something to the salvation but it's not exactly as portrayed, the portrayal is metaphorical.
I believe that, when it says God made man in his image, we aren't talking about God dolls, we're talking about God's vision. God envisioned us and we were. Prior to space, time, and the universe as we know it, there was no air to propagate sound, so when the Bible says, In the beginning there was the word and the word is God, what that means is God's thoughts. We are, I believe, not made "in" the image of God, we "are" the image of God, God thought us into existence.
All of that said; those familiar with the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium understand that for evolution to move forward, static comfortable conditions do not accomplish it because organisms evolve to fill all available niches in those conditions and then evolution slows to a crawl because creatures evolved for those conditions are so adapted to them that any spontaneous mutation that occurs only creates less fit individuals.
I believe the same is true of spiritual development and evolution, and punctuations in our spiritual equilibrium must and do happen from time to time to move our spiritual evolution forward. Further, I believe we are approaching such a punctuation.
Most religious texts have some end of the world scenario in them, or at least end of the world as we know it. I do believe the end of the world as we know it is approaching although I don't think it's necessary a bad thing.
It will be a bad thing if we fight the changes we know are necessary. The change that is necessary is that we must love everyone and everything and be willing to act upon that love. Ultimately, for those who survive I believe it will mean a return to Eden, but how many of us survive depends upon our ability to make this change and act upon it, and if we resist then we're going to be dragged through hell on the way getting there.
Either way, the process is going to be extremely weird and massive changes will be involved, but if we go the good route, we will dance with nature while these changes take place, it will be a pleasant, exhilarating, loving experience. On the other hand, if we take the bad approach, continue to fight with each other, disrespect and disregard other life forms on our planet, fight nature, then we're going to take a trip through hell and not all of us will make it out.
God has given me dreams and visions of both paths. We want to choose the positive one, really we do! The negative one is ugly beyond belief. But even the positive path will be strange beyond belief.
posted by Nanook at 2:32 AM
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