I believe
In one of his comments Chill Daddy asked me a question that required a rather long answer: do I believe in anything supernatural?
This post is that answer. I can’t answer that question without first explaining what do I actually believe in.
I’ve tried to keep it as simple and as short as possible and at the same time I’ve tried to explain as much as possible in order not to be misunderstood.
I hope the answer is clear enough, now you can either skip it altogether or click here and read it.
I believe in science as a tool, as a way to understand the universe where we live and ourselves. Science deals with causes and effects, using theories and models that allow us to predict events, the accuracy with which we can in fact predict the said events is the measure of the accuracy of the said science.
This way science allows us to have an idea of how the universe works and to a certain extent how it was formed.
Yet there are some things that science can’t answer, at least not yet anyhow.
Man tries to understand the “rules” of the universe, our physical laws are the best model we have of those “rules”. Those models however are far from perfect, take gravity for instance: our models are pretty accurate when it comes to predicting the fall of a body under the Earth’s gravity, but when we think gravitic interaction of the planets things aren’t quite that simple and there is still a lot to learn about gravity. You can read plenty of books about the search for a unified theory, one of the greatest goals of science.
But even if one day science gets that unified theory, there will still be an answer to be found: where did those rules come from?
Questions like where did it all come from? What was there before the Big Bang? If the Universe is expanding, where is it expanding to? And plenty of other questions usually can only be answered with and outer entity or god.
I accept there may be one such entity, I believe there may be some god, but on the other hand if there is one such entity, who created everything and who set all the rules, where did that entity come from?
Probably there will always be one step beyond that is never reachable.
I don’t mind calling god to whatever originated those rules, those natural laws we try to understand, even if I don’t know if that god is a single entity or even if it still exists.
Although I have been raised as a Roman Apostolic Catholic I don’t believe in any church or human religion, mankind has made all religions if you ask me.
Should we burn the Bible then? No, it is a good book, it has plenty of lessons, if you see the whole thing as a big parable it can be of great help. But take a good look at God in the Bible: in the Old Testament you have a God that tests His people, a Punishing God, sometimes even cruel. I mean, even the angels are violent in the Old Testament. With time God ‘evolves’ to a promise of hope and in the New Testament that promise becomes a message of love. This evolution of God is nothing but an image of human evolution.
But is this god entity looking after the lives of each and every creature?
I don’t believe so. Otherwise, why would the innocent suffer? Why would a baby die with leukemia? Why would a fireman burn while trying to save someone?
I think the rules are set, whatever those rules are, and that is about it.
Furthermore, even if any religion were right, religious leaders are but men, men are faulty. In every religion you’ll find good people and bad people, good leaders and bad leaders. Most religions profess a set of values that is pretty similar and so every religion is just as good as the next providing someone with good personal ethics, should that person actually live by those values.
I like religious people, priests, imans, rabbis, whatever, as long as they truly dedicate their lives to help others. Who can help but to admire someone like Mother Theresa?
But I hate people who try to impose their beliefs or use religion to manipulate others.
One thing I must say, I believe that Buddha was right by saying you can’t lead someone to Nirvana, you can’t teach wisdom, so every man must take his own path, with or without the help of religion.
That is why we have free will, that is why each of us makes his/her own choices.
Where does that path lead to? Is there an afterlife?
Maybe.
I can accept we are more than just bodies, but whatever there is after is beyond our current understanding. Do I worry much about it? No.
If there is something I’ll find out one day. The later the better ‘cuz I am enjoying my life as it is.
So what is my incentive to follow my own ethics? Hope in a better world for all our children, for all those we love and those they will one day love.
I believe that we make our own destiny, we as a whole.
Each of us has a little influence in whatever happens to mankind, if not to the universe.
This said, do I believe anything supernatural?
I believe there are things science can’t explain but an explanation for those things doesn’t need to involve supernatural powers, things like telepathy or premonitions may have earthly causes that we simply don't understand.
I believe for instance that a crowd praying may have some effect affecting someone or something, due to will power not to godly intervention.
I believe in miraculous cures, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness several in loved ones. I’ve always considered those as a consequence of will power.
Assuming that will, or soul if you prefer to call it that, still lives on after our death, it is reasonable to assume it can have influence over the physical world, most likely as much influence as it had while its body was still alive.
So if the question is do I believe in powerful ghosts and stuff like that the answer is NO.
If however the question is if I believe there is something bigger beyond our lives the answer is YES, I believe there may be something. But nothing we should fear or even long for, for the time being we must follow our own paths.
This post is that answer. I can’t answer that question without first explaining what do I actually believe in.
I’ve tried to keep it as simple and as short as possible and at the same time I’ve tried to explain as much as possible in order not to be misunderstood.
I hope the answer is clear enough, now you can either skip it altogether or click here and read it.
I believe in science as a tool, as a way to understand the universe where we live and ourselves. Science deals with causes and effects, using theories and models that allow us to predict events, the accuracy with which we can in fact predict the said events is the measure of the accuracy of the said science.
This way science allows us to have an idea of how the universe works and to a certain extent how it was formed.
Yet there are some things that science can’t answer, at least not yet anyhow.
Man tries to understand the “rules” of the universe, our physical laws are the best model we have of those “rules”. Those models however are far from perfect, take gravity for instance: our models are pretty accurate when it comes to predicting the fall of a body under the Earth’s gravity, but when we think gravitic interaction of the planets things aren’t quite that simple and there is still a lot to learn about gravity. You can read plenty of books about the search for a unified theory, one of the greatest goals of science.
But even if one day science gets that unified theory, there will still be an answer to be found: where did those rules come from?
Questions like where did it all come from? What was there before the Big Bang? If the Universe is expanding, where is it expanding to? And plenty of other questions usually can only be answered with and outer entity or god.
I accept there may be one such entity, I believe there may be some god, but on the other hand if there is one such entity, who created everything and who set all the rules, where did that entity come from?
Probably there will always be one step beyond that is never reachable.
I don’t mind calling god to whatever originated those rules, those natural laws we try to understand, even if I don’t know if that god is a single entity or even if it still exists.
Although I have been raised as a Roman Apostolic Catholic I don’t believe in any church or human religion, mankind has made all religions if you ask me.
Should we burn the Bible then? No, it is a good book, it has plenty of lessons, if you see the whole thing as a big parable it can be of great help. But take a good look at God in the Bible: in the Old Testament you have a God that tests His people, a Punishing God, sometimes even cruel. I mean, even the angels are violent in the Old Testament. With time God ‘evolves’ to a promise of hope and in the New Testament that promise becomes a message of love. This evolution of God is nothing but an image of human evolution.
But is this god entity looking after the lives of each and every creature?
I don’t believe so. Otherwise, why would the innocent suffer? Why would a baby die with leukemia? Why would a fireman burn while trying to save someone?
I think the rules are set, whatever those rules are, and that is about it.
Furthermore, even if any religion were right, religious leaders are but men, men are faulty. In every religion you’ll find good people and bad people, good leaders and bad leaders. Most religions profess a set of values that is pretty similar and so every religion is just as good as the next providing someone with good personal ethics, should that person actually live by those values.
I like religious people, priests, imans, rabbis, whatever, as long as they truly dedicate their lives to help others. Who can help but to admire someone like Mother Theresa?
But I hate people who try to impose their beliefs or use religion to manipulate others.
One thing I must say, I believe that Buddha was right by saying you can’t lead someone to Nirvana, you can’t teach wisdom, so every man must take his own path, with or without the help of religion.
That is why we have free will, that is why each of us makes his/her own choices.
Where does that path lead to? Is there an afterlife?
Maybe.
I can accept we are more than just bodies, but whatever there is after is beyond our current understanding. Do I worry much about it? No.
If there is something I’ll find out one day. The later the better ‘cuz I am enjoying my life as it is.
So what is my incentive to follow my own ethics? Hope in a better world for all our children, for all those we love and those they will one day love.
I believe that we make our own destiny, we as a whole.
Each of us has a little influence in whatever happens to mankind, if not to the universe.
This said, do I believe anything supernatural?
I believe there are things science can’t explain but an explanation for those things doesn’t need to involve supernatural powers, things like telepathy or premonitions may have earthly causes that we simply don't understand.
I believe for instance that a crowd praying may have some effect affecting someone or something, due to will power not to godly intervention.
I believe in miraculous cures, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness several in loved ones. I’ve always considered those as a consequence of will power.
Assuming that will, or soul if you prefer to call it that, still lives on after our death, it is reasonable to assume it can have influence over the physical world, most likely as much influence as it had while its body was still alive.
So if the question is do I believe in powerful ghosts and stuff like that the answer is NO.
If however the question is if I believe there is something bigger beyond our lives the answer is YES, I believe there may be something. But nothing we should fear or even long for, for the time being we must follow our own paths.
posted by DCveR at 3:05 PM
13 Comments:
Great answers. It is impossible to answer this question with a straight yes and no without explaining your beliefs. I definitely believe in there being something bigger beyond us and the rest is debatable.
Yes, telepathy is a reality.
-Bruce
"But I hate people who try to impose their beliefs or use religion to manipulate others." I do, too. And I hate when the believers look down on you as some sort of person who needs pity! Good post!
i absolutely agree that you cannot drag anyone into believing in God, beliefs are something one needs to come to on their own.
I believe in God and reading the questions you pose its interesting to see that infact these were the exact questions i posed to religious leaders, and most interestingly the ones that tried to give me their own answers fell flat on their face. the only ones that made sense were the ones that found the answers in the bible for me... and as you point out it is a very "smart" book indeed.
does GH share your thoughts on the subject?
nml: Yup, debatable. And none of us can be 100% sure of our convictions, thus the only point of debating it is sharing ideas, what is the point of trying to convince someone to accept a theory that may be wrong?
bruce: I think so too, but a completely unexplained reality yet.
TGOV: I almost mistook you for one! Only to realize people could mistake me for a Scientologist too. :)
nat: Thanks Nat. I know that kind too. The ones who so often say "may God have merci on your soul" and similar sentences. They are so superior to us all... wait, wasn't vanity a deadly sin? ;)
ale: Having several priests and nuns in my family and having had 10 years of sunday school/biblical studies, plenty of people have tried to keep me on "the right track". If you feel your belief answers your questions and if you feel at peace with yourself in your belief just go on believing.
GH and I used to be quite like minded regarding religion, although with her being in Oregon State University and all I have my suspictions she might have been touched by the Flying Spaghetti Monster noodly appendage...
dcver that's what i was trying to say- when PEOPLE try to give you answers they never seem to make sense- so that's why i agree w/ you that religion and God is definitely something one has to come to on their own. so priests and nuns can try to lead anyone to the "right" path or whatever, but the actuality is that bible is so smart that you can have 100 people read it and interpret it in 100 ways.
As an Evangelical, I find most Evangelicals as alluring as fingernails on a chalkboard. Perhaps I'm not a true Evangelical - I don't believe that you can convince another person to believe something spiritual. Spirituality by its very nature is only something that can be experienced - or not experienced - by an individual.
My Christianity boils down to the daily choices I make everyday. I can't preach to other people because I'm so far from getting it right. However, I hope that in some small ways I impact the world around me for the better. That is the heart of Christianity, I think. That and the faith thing, but again, it's an individual thing.
I don't know about all you science geeks. You are probably all a lot smarter than I am and are better able to judge the world around you in scientific versus spiritual terms. However, I think the world is big enough - indeed our own souls - are big enough to encompass both a spiritual and scientific explanation of things and the experiences that go along with it.
bunny jo: Who said anything about being smarter?
Anyway, science doesn't exclude spiritual explanations, but it can't validate those explanations either. Maybe in the future science can answer a few more things, but that will only happen if those things have in fact measurable properties.
Science is mostly about measuring and comparing, throwing stuff at other stuff, watching, making notes and then if you're lucky being able to predict what will happen to something under certain circumstances.
For us here, religion is a very, deeply personal issue.
I agree with Ale, that we each have to find God ourselves. Priests, Rabbis, Imams, etc. can only guide us. But even they do not know all the answers. Only God has all the answers. Maybe after we enter 'the next world' we know more.
What I find interesting...folks who've suffered the most tend to have deeper faith than those who live on the surface, enjoying life.
Nice post - I'll give it another, longer read when I'm not in a hurry.......
It's become obvious - I need to check your blog daily. It seems I've missed all the fun.
I found your answers to be well thought out and well expressed - In my experience, most people don't even know what they believe, and if they do, they struggle to articulate it. I don't necessarily agree with all of your views, but then, you wouldn't agree with all of mine and there's no harm done - as long as nobody calls anybody else a 'stupid puddle of dog vomit', am I right?
I guess when I asked you the initial question, I was kind of expecting a 'yes/no' answer, or maybe a short list ("yes Chilldaddy, I believe in astrology, bigfoot, acupuncture and gnomes, but not ghosts, ufo's, telekinesis, or the moon landing")
Thanks for being so thorough - it was very interesting.
chill daddy: The problem with the short answer is that I found out some time ago it usually brings about misinterpretations that usually lead to someone calling me something unpleasant. BTW, "stupid puddle of dog vomit"?! That's a lot more elaborate than the insults I usually get.
It's a staple in my insult arsenal.
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