I - who know nothing.
No offense intended but some of you may not approve or agree. That's OK ... I don't know enough to disagree with you - or to even suggest you're wrong.
As I see it, humans - not just humans, life - were either made or just happened. I find either theory highly improbable but here we are and I have no other ideas. I suppose I lean toward "made" which implies a belief in a maker - aka "God". Whether the trinity monotheistic god, or one of several other "gods" is beyond my knowledge - one must lean on belief ... which is not the same as "truth". The alternative is that our world "just happened". I find the string of that argument more unbelievable than "we were made".
But by either thought, what's on the other side? The Big Bang theory suggests that the universe began with an incomprehensible explosion ... but gives no idea as to what existed before the explosion. Us - humans - came about by a series of improbable events lumped together as "evolution". Evolution is a poor explanation of race; an even poorer explanation of non-optimal adaptation to our environment(s). Very few humans run around completely naked as do the animals. Why not if we evolved to our environment?
I like the God theory better. But not by much.
Isn't it funny that most peoples have some sort of tale of creation?
Sometimes I think all gods exist - even the Devil is a god. They sit in some room playing heavenly poker for souls - may the best god win. At this time, Christianity and Islam represent the largest faiths in the world, but those religions - including Judaism - all theoretically worship the same god; are offshoots of the same core belief. They play poker at the big-boy table (a family argument - like WWI. Who did Abraham sacrifice?).
But who's to say the god of the Oingo-Boingos is not the one true god? Or who's to say there is only one true god?
But assume the existence of a neutral god or gods. Where do these gods exist? Assume the rightfulness of evolution: In what space did the Big Bang occur? And if not a big bang, what? Some say the universe is expanding. Expanding into what? where?
Who's to say we're not just quarks on a larger scale atomic structure?
What's on the other side of infinity?
Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."
Does this make the world and all in it simply someone's lab experiment? Did the dinosaurs die off because the lab manager decided that experiment was a failure? Is "the rapture" just a prediction that the humankind experiment is also a preordained failure? Will humankkind even leave as much behind as the dinosaurs?
Why is it humankind as we know it only came into existence since the last ice age? - 30 thousand, 50 thousand years ago; a trivial time ago if geological theory is even close to correct. Or only 5 or 6 thousand years ago???
No one explains the time between "human" bones millions of years old in Africa and the time of "cavemen". Or between the time of cavemen and the Sumerians. If mankind evolved from origins in central Africa, why is it no major civilization occurred there? Lots of "empty time" there for PhD students to speculate upon.
How is it that "technology" - steam power, reapers, cotton gins, oil - was never of much use until the last 200 years or so? I can track my family back to before Watt's steam engine. The Chinese, the Romans, the Egyptians, etc - never discovered or utilized such things?
Everlasting life? A heady promise by the priest class to keep the sheep in line? Is "everlasting life" a curse? When you've done everything to boredom, what's left?
I have a neighbor that truly wishes to save my soul. Believe in Jesus, she tells me. I believe Jesus was a historical figure but what does "Believe in Jesus" mean? His existence, his beliefs? ... or just worship the man himself? Or better yet, worship his mother. Is this not idolatry Moses warned against? Is not idolatry simply the worship of a different god?
And are we not all children of god?
Jesus the peacemaker?
Matt 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Luke 22:36 "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Was it not a reformed tax collector (Paul) that actually began the Christian religion some years after Jesus' death?
What if a former IRS agent today started a religion?
History records the tragic fact that men have gone to war and cut each other’s throats because they couldn’t agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut.”
Walter P Stacy 1895 - 1951
Why is it I can't get over the idea that when we die, we simply "turn off"? There is no more.
Genesis 2:7 "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
Genesis 3:19 "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
Ecclesiastes 3:20 "All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
But what do I know?
Continue reading →
