I have talked a lot about my political and social philosophy. Both of these subjects can bring forward strong feelings from the reader. As ever, I do not ask you to agree with me, just read and if you have any other views please leave them on the place for comments on the blog or via direct email to me. I really appreciate it.
To live my particular religious flavor, so to speak, is very hard. My time, money and daily efforts are spent actively practicing my faith. To me it is a way of life and I really take seriously the phrase “do unto others as you want others to do unto you.” I do not push my denomination on anyone nor do I publicly advertise it. If you were in my home and asked me about it, I would gladly share with you. However, my intent, contrary to what many feel, is appropriate is to live and practice my religion in such a way as to be an example so that others may want to know and simulate my example.
I am defiantly not without sin. I have done many things that I am ashamed of and if I could do them over again, I would hope I would do them better. To anyone I have wronged or offended in the past I am truly sorry and I offer my apology. However there are people who I feel have offended me and I will gladly forgive them but first they must offer their apology to me. Not for my welfare but for what I see as their eternal progression and road to repentance.
Basically I believe, and these things may be in contradiction to my particular denomination, the following points.
There is a God ---- Heavenly Father--- Supreme Being --- or what ever you want to call him.
Everyone is born with a belief in God. Oh how about all those atheists or agnostics etc.? Well let me explain. If you believe in God as is described in your particular scripture and organizational denomination, that is how you understand God to be and you can call him by what ever name you like. Including Allah. If you believe that God is a myth and only superstition, and there is and never was such a thing well that is fine, but you still have a God that you are staking everything on and lets call him NoGod.
So if those who believe in the traditional God are correct when they die, if there is no God well I guess that is it. If there IS a God they will be rewarded for their faith. Now those who do not believe and die. If there is no God all is well, BUT if there is a God you are in deep doo-doo. One of the basic sins in all religions is the sin of denial of God….Look it up. So would it not be smarter to at least believe with reservations? I think so. So I still maintain that everyone has a God, either the traditional one or the modern NoGod.
Another point I believe in is, that even if you do not believe everything your religion preaches, would not, or is not, your life, and how you lead it, better than what it would have been if you had no moral training, standards at all? I know the life I was leading before I adopted my faith was on a very destructive path and honestly I feel I would not have been alive today and I am certain I would have not been married all these years to the same woman.
Unfortunately in today’s world religion and modern life are at odds with each other in many ways. The practice of most religions takes time and effort. You got to get out of bed and go to church or wherever you go for your organization. Many of us have so little free time and to sacrifice part of a day, or if you practice the principle of keeping the Sabbath Day holly it is all day. For many it is more than they can do. It is not that they do not believe, they are just running as fast as they can. They will get into their religion when they are old before they die…right!!!!!
Also for many and I think the young in particular, their life style tends to put them at odds with what they have been taught by religion and the root of the problem for them is the big G word and that is GUILT. Nobody likes to feel guilty. We grow up into adults and we do not want mommy, daddy or God telling us that what we are doing is wrong. So we don’t go to church and justify our actions to ourselves and others and say we are not religious. But deep down many know they are really fooling themselves and if they had the strength of character they would change their lives.
Many have participated in their particular religion in the past have felt hurt or wronged by what went on in the past. Maybe a clergy, or other member or some event has done something to cause this hurt. People in religions are human and thus make mistakes and commit sins. Condemning religion because of the actions of other people is very destructive and hurtful to mostly ones self. It is not religions fault but the fault of people in religion. Many times these hurt people stop attending church, and that is a loss to them. Most religions teach repentance and forgiveness and in my belief I feel we should go that path before giving up.
Many folks get caught up on the scientific and religious contradictions in today’s world. In the statement to follow I want to say that my particular denomination is at odds with my personal belief. There is the contradiction between creationism and the big bang theory. The smart crowed knows with no room for wiggle that the world was created by some scientific principle and that all on earth have evolved from that point and we continue to evolve. The earth is much older than what the scriptures say and that cavemen and dinosaurs prove that there were creatures on the earth much older than what is taught by religion.
Let me put what I believe, not my religion, believes here. The stories of creation in the old testament were past down from early times by way of mouth and then later put to paper. They were not really written by Moses and are not literal. They are stories meant to illustrate how man understood the process of creation when their scientific knowledge was not sufficient to understand what had happened. They have no concept of time, as we still don’t understand the difference of what I call God’s day and what we call a day. I believe that God’s day in our time may be millions of years or billions of years.
As all things on earth are done, they are done in an organized and defined way. No clapping of hands or thunder but in a scientific and specific organized method as all things on this earth are done now. Erosion, earth quakes, volcanoes, storms, and many other things that are in place that change or evolve our world in a normal explainable way.
God is not that mysterious, and he wants us to know and understand his ways. Science is his way of allowing us to discover how he did what he did. Many scientists feel they will be ridiculed by their friends if they slant to the religious side, so they go along with the mainstream. They ignore the things they can not understand or explain away in scientific methods. Yet they have seen so many things happen that the doubt lingers.
One of my professors said it best and I remember it well as I was studying to be an MD. Neither creationism or evolution can be proved as a law. They are theories and you should never assume they are cast in concrete.
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