Thoughts on Religion
2005.01.03–Alfred, Ohio. What can I say. It never dawned on me that there was anything more than what we see and experience until I was about five or six and my parents dressed me up and took me to a Church. They were getting me prepared to attend a parochial school and started to explain to me what religion was all about. That was fine and good until I thought about the forever part. It frightened me. Truth be told, it still troubles me now and then.
Fast forward to today and my thoughts on the topic are hopefully a little more mature. In a nutshell, religions seems to me to be primarily concerned about explaining and making sense of our existence. Any way you slice it, that we (and the universe) exist, is pretty bizarre. Our question of existence is inextricably intertwined with the question “Why?”. I think that our minds are incapable of any rational explanation of our existence and so we use religion to fill in the gaps of our understanding. It takes a variety of forms but usually is concerned with the struggle of good vs. evil (how we should live today), what becomes of us (the future), and where did it all come from (the past).
Let’s take these items one at a time. Where did everything come from? God! That was pretty simple. Take it at face value and let it go at that. Nothing more is necessary for the moment. I accept that and am satisfied. Heaven help you if you struggle with that concept. You see, I didn’t specify the nature of God, how or when God did all this, only that God created everything. To say otherwise seems to me to be irrational. You would in effect be saying that the universe does not exist or that it was never made. Neither statement makes much sense to me. We exist–hopefully there is no question about this in your mind. At some point, we did not exist–hopefully no question about this is in your mind either…ergo, we were created. If you understand the mechanism of creation, I’d be most interested in hearing of it. If like every other person who has ever lived, you do not fully understand our being, take the easy way out and fill in the gap. Call it God, Allah, or what have you like the rest of us have.
That is enough for today. More to follow. I invite your comments.
