MY WORLDVIEW -

Feb 15 2008

                                                A Personal World View

At any particular moment in time what we believe, what we are, indeed what we are to become, is dependent in part from where we come from. This includes what religion our parents and Grandparents practiced (or did not practice); the social strata they came from, and of course their ethnic background.  But also important are the friends, teachers, teammates, and classmates one grows up with during their school years.

I have always thought of myself as a rather logical person. I have tried to use what limited intelligence I possess to come to logical conclusions. I assume we all wonder where we came from, where the earth came from, and indeed where the cosmos came from.  I realize this is quite a tall order for little old me.  Regardless of that, what follows will be what I have come up with, I’m not sure if we can call it a Belief but I’m sure it is not Faith.

 However   I would wager pound for pound the two little words faith and belief have caused more sorrow, pain, consternation, anticipation, disillusionment, tears, anger, hate and various other strong emotions than any other two words in the dictionary.

Speaking of dictionary’s

                 Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Belief:
The feeling of certainty that something exists or is true:

Faith:                 A particular Religion or belief in God

                                

                                      Webster’s

Belief

To accept as true.

Faith

Faith1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof

When I refer to the word belief/faith from now on it is to be associated with either the word God, Religion, or Natural selection.

It seems to me every thinking person on this earth when giving any thought to how he got here, believes in something. What I think stymies those who give it the most thought is that the two most common answers are God, and Natural selection.

To the thinking person both are totally illogical.

However there appears to be one undeniable fact.  
WE ARE HERE.

Let’s take the Big Bang Theory.

There are many scientists and laymen that do not consider this a theory at all. It is a fact.

 Or is it a belief?

These are some of the things I have great trouble imagining.

(a) A relatively small, extremely dense, glob of something about 13 billion years ago exploded and expanded into a couple of trillion Stars, Suns, Galaxies and Planets, separated by distances measured in hundreds of light years.

(B) 13 Billion years.

(c) Trillions of Stars/suns.

(d) Hundreds of light years.

(e) All of this expanding for 13 billion years and continuing today at this rate. I’m not saying it didn’t happen this way, but it is totally beyond my comprehension.  Just read in the Scientific American, that they now believe the Cosmos is traveling away at a speed greater than the speed of light – in ‘X’ years there will be no heavens/Stars to see – interesting, but we will have to be around at least a billion years to see if this guess is true.

I have read, and to a large extent agree (I’m sure that would impress them) with the following three writers; Richard Dawkins - (The God Delusion), Sam Harris - (Letter to a Christian Nation) and Christopher Hitchens – (God is not Great)  

When I say ‘agree with’ I am referring specifically to their general opinion of religion, not their ideas pertaining to Darwinism, natural selection, etc.

I believe all Atheists have a rather low opinion of Religion, if the don’t they are not worth their salt. They are all good writers and make excellent points, but what none of them actually address in any meaningful way is how we began. I mean really began, ie the beginning, how life actually progressed from nothing to a beautiful Robin and a great Elephant. I mean step by step how long the first vestiges of life (call them what you want) lived long enough to develop into humans.  There are two fundamental answers – Lightening Bolts – and Time – not seconds, or months, or thousands of years, no but measured in millions and Billions of years. Of course all the while this little initial spark(s) of life was able to sit around existing.  I must admit I do find it rather difficult to imagine this original spark of life existing in this nothingness without any form of sustenance for a day or so, (let alone trillions of days) waiting for a lightening bolt to zap it, or a neighbor piece of nothing, so they can get together on their relentless march to the Nobel prize. I have read Darwin extensively, biographies, etc. Darwin does not address the above.

God

I also have great trouble imagining God.

Is he a He?

Is he a She?

Is he an It?

Where is He/She/It?

Does He/She/It control the universe, the Galaxy, the Cosmos?

Does He/She/It care about children?

Does He/She/It intervene?

Is this God a loving personal God? Well God may be personal – (as in a ‘personal relationship stressed by many Christian groups) answering prayer, granting relief from sickness,- or not,- selling a house, getting a job, meeting a mate, buying a car- you get the idea. Things that God gets credit for if they are granted, but if not it is just Gods’ way.

These are events that will happen, one way or another.

However the global God of the universe; all powerful, the see everything, power over all, kind of God is a little different

The amount of hate, atrocities, slaughter, sorrow, and butchery the human race has perpetuated upon one another in our little speck within the Cosmos is more than obscene.

The perpetuators of these horrors, in the main, have been strong believers in one religion or another.

This has been the norm from the beginning of the Old Testament, where half of earth’s first two offspring’s was a murderer. One was a farmer growing grain, the other raised cattle.

A truly bizarre beginning.

This all knowing loving God of course insisted he/she/it must have an offering of the best a person produced – particularly if this something had to die and produce lots of blood.

What a start, a pouting, churlish God chastised Cain for giving him an offering of what he produced from his labors of the earth.  

   ¹ Adam ^[a] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. ^[b] She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth ^[c] a man." ² Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
      Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. ³ In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. ⁴ But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, ⁵ but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.”

Note: One must remember the semi savage nomads who wrote these words envisioned a God that not only looked like them, but thought like them. Indeed they had the audacity to declare that God made them in “His” image.

It has often popped into my little brain that if there are extra terrestrials flitting around the universes, and assuming they have maps, these maps probably have a large red ring around our beautiful planet earth. In large print a note with something like this stamped over the image.

“Beware contaminated – Boil of the universe.”

For the first Thirty years or so of my life I was an Atheist. I then “progressed” to Agnosti

I have been very involved in the Christian Church for over thirty years, and attended literally thousands of services of various denominations.

 I still attend weekly with Beth.

My wife Beth is a devote Christian, in the true sense of the word. She is loving and honest and has an unwavering belief in Jesus as the Son of God.

I love Beth, admire her, and support her in her belief. It is hers.

I have met hundreds of good people within the Church; indeed probably most of my true friends come from within the Christian community.

I have however had grave reservations and have been very critical of virtually every denomination we visited. And believe me we have attended the full spectrum  -from the fundalmentalists - to the 'so called' liberal churches.

I haven’t changed much.

I have seen people (who outside of their church appeared normal) writhing on the floor and making strange noises. I have heard many pastors saying the most outrageous things. There is one belief that virtually all the denominations of the Christian church spout when confronted with the following question. Why does the loving god allow (ie does not intervene) when innocent children are being raped, abused, bombed, or in other ways harmed?

The smug answer always is: – God gave us free will. God did not make us robots.

It should be made very clear, the perpetuator of heinous crimes against the weak and helpless in our society may have free will – the little victims definitely do not.

It is abundantly obvious, if the clergy did not say this, the concept of a loving compassionate God, looking after his flock and taking a direct interest in every human would dissolve into the ether like your breath on a cold day.

These same spokespersons for God are never reluctant to give God credit for any wondrous happening no matter how trivial.  Most recently at a church we regularly attend the senior Pastor gave God credit for him getting his house sold. I guess although God gave us free will and does not go to all the trouble to intervene (to busy with important Cosmos matters) in an innocent child being killed, he/her/it/ can and will take time out to intervene into a house sale, or a new carpet, or a good deal on a car.  I’m sure anyone who has attended church (at least a fundamentalist type) can add many more examples.

 I believe this diminishes the message of Jesus.

Why can’t the Christian establishment just admit that they do not know the mind of their God? This would be relatively well received by the average Canadian rather than tying to bamboozle the “Flock” with this idiotic Free-Will stuff.

Recently I have been reading a book by the brilliant Muslim Canadian author Irshad Manji, on the evils of her religion. It is amazing how often I noted the similarities with the Old Testament...

Of course to a great extent this is logical since both religions have their foundation in the Jewish Torah or Old Testament. Now granted the problems with her religion ‘appears’ to be worse than those of Christianity, but often the principles are virtually identical.

I believe it is logical (I know this is a strange word to use in this context) for individual humans (all other forms of life as well for all we know) to look to some supreme being for guidance and help.

We call this prayer.

When things are at their darkest, life is hopeless, and there is no one to turn to, I believe virtually all humans plead and pray to some form of superior Being/God. One does not have to belong to, or indeed believe in, any particular religion to pray.

I know I have done this more than a few times.

Well this is where I am at this particular juncture of my life. (Which I just revised April 2010)

Larry Bennett