My Why
Preface
With effort to discover my religion, I began writing this for myself long ago. I continued because I’d like descendants to have an opportunity to know me better and I think my ideas could help them make better life choices. If you are reading this then I’m probably dead or at least nearly retired. This began as a religious work and wondered onto adjacent topics, but I hope it serves up positivity and possibly even unites the religiously divided with the non-religious.
As curious ideas came together, it seemed so strikingly unique that I rarely mentioned my opinions because I expect a “yuck” from most people I know who rarely stray from the mainstream. However, I eventually began sharing my opinions starting with the more open minded.
Change usually comes with opposition to change and big change can cause big opposition. There is honorable company in creating positive change by going against commonly accepted misconceptions, such as when Galileo died in jail for pointing out that the solar system doesn’t revolve around us. Defending the non-religious pursuit of love based on reason rather than faith is worth the risk of wrath by religious zealots. Regardless, I’m too old to care much about unintentionally offending someone when other people might benefit from reading uncommon ideas, no matter if they agree or disagree.
Accumulating ideas brought organizational thoughts of creating a book before it became a website. Suspecting that people with strongly opposing opinions will immediately discard my work as rubbish, I decided to jumble the chapter order. Despite the loss of continuity, I decided to start in GTAL with a harmless analogy, followed by a well-known game that offers a harmless whiff of my viewpoint, and then pulled forward a motivational chapter so that anyone offended by my later opinions could benefit somewhat before tossing it out. Later I added a condensed summary page at the beginning. If people with opposing viewpoints continue to read my peculiar notions then know that I try to tell it like I see it, but I support honest disagreement and I’m open to change.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I know my truths, and I’m willing to share. My thoughtful opinions may seem radically different, perhaps interesting, or maybe amusing, but I offer thoughts for the curious to ponder, haters to ridicule, the brilliant to analyze, all to question, and some to enhance. With a busy blue-collar life, I chose to tweak this work over time before putting it online. Hopefully, I passed website management to someone before I died or I humbly request that my heir finds someone to continue website management as visitor comments are screened and posted that improve upon this work in progress. As a humble person with common sense but lacking a stockpile of wisdom, I believe others might relate to many of these opinions and some may offer insights that help improve and clarify. Death concludes my work of detailing my particular views, but particular notions could expand and evolve as smarter people contribute comments that fill gaps and polish rough edges. I hope this work exposes my truth, helps you find your truths, soothes, encourages, and generates positive energy for you and all you touch.
I hope to point out that life’s journey should include gratitude to predecessors and responsibility to successors. Born with both instinct and spirit, the purpose of life’s adventure is to grow from instinctively-driven beings possessing some spirit to spiritually-driven beings possessing instinct. When choosing to overcome basic instinct with spiritual love becomes habitual, then we have gained spiritual instincts.
Introduction
Before reading my opinions, please ask yourself a question. How do you define yourself? What are primary defining elements of you? Some may define themselves by a personality type like “nice” or a physical characteristic such as their age. Perhaps you first define yourself by your race, religion, or nationality? Some people will list their career or other pursuit, while a similar person may first consider family position or standing within an organization or a community. Do you define yourself by your individuality or commonality? Do your attitudes, feelings, or personal style top the list, or maybe your abilities, disabilities, differences, strengths, or vulnerabilities? Chances are you define yourself in a variety of ways and this book will promote yet another aspect of identity as primary because of how it impacts other attributes, ways of thinking, prioritizing, understanding challenges, and pursuing your desired identity.
This work seems brilliant to me, but I’m often a knucklehead. I usually feel confident about my feelings and beliefs, but try to stay open to other opinions. I see the value of humility as we sometimes realize how foolish we’ve been, only after looking back at life’s episodes. Even while currently proud of progress, a few years from now, I could easily look back at today and realize that I was still a small-minded knucklehead and didn’t even know it.
blue collar motivations
This work began as an effort to determine my religious beliefs, both for myself and by my desire to share thoughts with descendants. Before this work, I understood more about things I disbelieved than things I held true. However, simply refusing to agree is not good enough. Simply opposing ideas without providing candid reasons for opposition seems ignorant and rude. If at all possible, disagreement should be accompanied by viewpoints on which we believe and trust. Therefore, I decided to figure out my beliefs, think about it, and write it down. Some might compare this attempt at defining my religion to a gay person openly and bravely coming out of the closet, unsure how things might go and knowing certain people will react adversely, but determined to honestly define true identities.
Before this work, I noticed too much hypocrisy in religion and I didn’t accept what others were pushing. Leadership scandals, religious wars, and religious persecution seemed disgraceful. Two-faced piety is pathetic. Opposing others because of harmless religious differences seems foolishly primitive. I’ve always respected sincerity, but it seemed weird when people acted like having faith implied goodness and lacking faith is bad, even as they require faith in primitive religious myths that nobody really believes. Particular friends and relatives would loudly define themselves by their religious identity as if it were a merit badge for moral superiority. Some zealots push it even further by classifying contrary opinions as evil. Sometimes they seemed too eager to test others with a ‘we against them’ mindset. In some cultures, they take intolerance way too far by fighting and killing people of a different religion.
While I feel repulsed by flaunted attitudes of moral superiority, I believe we should try to be accepting of everyone and avoid judging people based on religion. Similarly to when I’m pleased that a sweet toddler is comforted by their favorite doll or cuddly teddy bear, I’m also happy when grownups feel a comforting relationship with any god of their choice. I assume that everyone is trying to do whatever they think is best and opposing anything that seems helpful without being harmful feels wrong. Besides, nobody is perfect as most people are born into whatever religion that happens to become a part of their identity. I like hearing about the religious beliefs of people with a different heritage in their upbringing. Even though I’m likely to find their dogma more interesting and entertaining than accurate, I’m open about differences and respectful of their beliefs. People often hold onto whatever they are taught to believe and people should be able to openly and honestly disagree without being disagreeable. Being friendly and caring is more important than particular ideologies.
Problems occur with particular interpretations of their god’s will, notions of superiority over others, and when the religious feel a duty to impose their faith on others. Ignoring the tribal hostility of others becomes difficult when they present an unwanted no-win choice to either suppress dissent or strongly oppose. When anyone tries to impose their ideology on others with a differing ideology then they cross the line of acceptability into disrespecting another’s right to disagree. The acceptably religious do not force their faith on others. Faith is a choice that cannot be imposed by those demanding either acceptance or conflict. The less powerful may tolerate this rude arrogance to a point but suppression eventually fails as opposition to oppression builds and conflict waits to emerge. Those who proudly flaunt their antiquated religious notions in promoting laws to be imposed on everyone in society are foolishly challenging others to submit or fight. Most people prefer to avoid conflict, but eventually people will refuse to submit.
I try to just get along, but I also value truth and scorn pretense. While conflict avoidance strategies may reduce external frictions, quietly going along in order to get along feels like a forced surrender that causes internal irritations. Going along with the crowd without rocking the boat can conflict with personal desires to be honest with ourselves and with others. Feeling contrary to herd mentality, I often avoided going negative, so I said nothing. Silence can seem justified after witnessing rational people forced by peer pressure into irrational stances, even when they know better. Many people are honest in private, but simply pretend publicly in order to get along as they obediently parrot the ridiculous dogma passed down from a more primitive time. Others choosing not to crumple under peer pressure or submit to mob mentality choose to go too far in the direction of total avoidance by opposing religion altogether as they accept an Atheist label, which may or may not be accurate. My honest skepticisms along with a refusal to agree with old-fashioned supernatural explanations motivated a search for answers that would make sense to me as well as allow me to reveal honest answers about what I believe and how I feel. My annoyance with those who loudly define themselves by their religious identities was a motivating factor in attempting to discover my personal beliefs. I didn’t need their approval but could better handle their disapproval when I understood myself. Also, challenging particular notions seemed inappropriate without my own thoughtful opinions to espouse.
Do we really need religion? Religions divide people as the various faiths disagree with one another. I believe religious ideas should be openly discussed without judgement and I feel contempt for laws derived from the faith of some imposed on all in societies. I see religion as interesting, but as defining as hair color or sense of humor. I distrust zealots who superglue their religion to their identity and prioritize their religion-based judgments. I can disagree with someone’s opinions and still care about the person. With everyone trying to grow as they think best regardless of situations born into, talking together might be helpful. Even though religions don’t matter much to me as long as the religious don’t impose their faith on others, I wanted to clearly determine my beliefs and honestly identify the beliefs that I have chosen for myself.
Does religion require a deity? With religious cynicism I couldn’t ignore, I considered Atheism, but that wasn’t right for me either. I settled upon the notion that we are all spiritual animals, operating on our particular spiritual level, while also behaving like animals. I believe in morality as a bottom-up approach to growth rather than a top-down directive from a monotheistic god. I believe in a timeless spirit that flowed through ancestors, streams within me, and floods throughout all life, but I need not apologize for my disbelief in an all-powerful, personified guy in the sky.
Choosing an open mind without opinions as an Agnostic may appear to be easier, but it’s not. Everyone needs foundational beliefs to build upon and I wanted a foundation of facts. Besides, when lacking opinions, others will want to fill the void by giving you their opinions, regardless of wanting to hear them or not. The text-driven folk considers open-mindedness as an opportunity to put forward their word-of-God persuasions derived from parchments and chiseled stones joined with mythical mortar.
When I’m asked if I believe in God, I do not accuse them of presenting a binary false choice. I don’t argue that it’s another gotcha question or ask them to clarify their god definition. I might declare that I’m more spiritual than God-fearing or simply tell them; “yes” and leave it at that. Nonetheless, I do not believe in their supreme being, but I believe in a higher power. I believe in a loving spiritual energy that isn’t a personified omnipotent god but is as consistent as gravity and as powerfully mysterious as electricity. I believe in a natural spiritual energy that animates life and is shared by all life. I believe in a spiritual power which presumably can be called God, but would more accurately be referred to as positive energy, life force, your conscience, loving spirit, holy spirit, ancestral spirit, universal spirit, dark energy, or whatever you wish to call it with capitalization optional. I call it love. I do not believe in traditional notions of heaven and hell, but moments of heaven and hell happen now and then.
Is a religious person the same as a moral person? I think not, because in my case I believe in morality while choosing not to be religious. Also, I’m repulsed by the hypocritically immoral zealots who are quick to judge others until they are caught. I feel bothered when they judge others. It doesn’t bother me that zealots simply repent and are forgiven as they claim it is not their fault that we are all sinners. I believe our choices positively impact life when doing right and adversely impact life when pursuing or focusing on the negatives, but positive intention is paramount. To me, instilled religious identities and supernatural explanations feel forced and fake. I disbelieve the mythical nonsense of traditional teachings from interpretations of ancient writings. I’m wary of those eager to interpret God’s will, particularly when they ask for money or power. Even as traditions are often great, loyalty to verifiable truth is more vital than faith and tradition. While some religions foolishly stick with primitive dogma that seemed appropriate in medieval times, I believe we should be open to growth and change. I believe all so-called miracles ultimately become explainable, like the simple flick of a cigarette lighter that would have caused a miracle flame in ancient times. I refuse to go along with mainstream notions simply because everyone else may believe the world is flat. My moral identity feels right when I pursue a caring style based on growing truth and love.
This work combines an older, more basic concept of spirit with a modern understanding of evolution. People of earlier civilizations believed the wind was an invisible spiritual presence that could be felt all around them. Today, we better understand wind, but I still believe in an invisible spiritual presence that is all around. I believe we advance spiritual growth by growing both truth and love for ourselves and building a better world for current and future life. Spiritual awareness grows as evolving life promotes positive energy and feels love. Evolving life tends to experience many heaven and hell moments with countless ups and downs but naturally proceeds in a long-term spiritual direction as evolving life gains spiritual identity and purpose beyond physical survival.
My simple faith is in our ability to eventually learn the answers. I believe truth eventually surfaces like cream in milk, while magic and superstition come from ignorance, yet to be solved. Things we take for granted would have been inconceivable witchcraft or magic a few generations ago; like video chatting on your cellphone. I prefer a religion that makes sense to me and doesn’t rely on accepting old myths on faith. After putting simple notions together that seemed reasonable and true, ideas grew and built upon other ideas. As concepts begin to fit together like puzzle pieces, the big picture of this manmade religion comes into focus. My beliefs seem like those of a native American with a Darwinian slant, so the religiously faithful might consider me a modern aborigine. Better yet, I respect the Stoics, which predated Christianity and was a popular philosophy for thoughtful living with less supernatural stuff. Stoics pursued ethical behavior in seeking to be virtuous rather than simply becoming a faithful follower of a religious doctrine. My philosophy seems to build upon an old Stoic base with updated understandings of evolution and science, therefore I could be considered an evolved Stoic. Also, I welcome the label of spiritual animal.
Positive change can occur in our world, has been occurring for a very long time, and can continue as physical and spiritual truth is discovered. Even though this might not even be considered a religion by some, parts may change ways of thinking when it strikes the right chord. Understanding others can be helpful, even with disagreement. Some of these unifying ideas might help serve as a catalyst for positive change, particularly for the nonreligious at one end of the sacred spectrum and the zealots at the other. Love can unify the religious and nonreligious. I hope this comforts the typical good person who feels their world needs to proactively love more and inspires those who didn’t realize they need to love more. I hope these notions continue to progress as they are refined, clarified, and expanded upon by people able to contribute positive change. I think this evolving religion has started in a good direction as it feels right to me. I hope you find parts that are appealing, even though it’s still unfinished and imperfect. But honestly, what isn’t?
Religion
This religion believes in purposeful growth of truth and love, while in pursuit of healthy balanced growth that is physical, mental, and spiritual. I’m happy with my religious beliefs, but still willing to learn from others as I fine tune my own beliefs. I can see why some might claim that my religious beliefs shouldn’t even be considered a religion at all. I believe faith hinders the growth of truth and therefore faith is discouraged. This religion is godless, but believes in prayer and spirit. It is leaderless as truth is revealed by science, but groups can still gather and the closest thing to clergy is the webmaster responsible for screening and posting comments that can be contributed by everyone. It is moral, but has no rules or dress code beyond learning ethical behavior and tolerance for those still learning. This religion promotes growth of both truth and love, but little is specific because appropriate methods depend upon the environment and the current spiritual level of evolving life.
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Organized religions are often better with rituals involving hatch, match, and dispatch. Many religions do well at promoting love and a sense of community, even though they tend to be tribe-based; however, faith can hinder the growth of truth as the faithful often refute new knowledge by clinging to old myths, traditions, and writings from a more primitive time. Positive spirit with positive purpose is admirable within many religions. We try to accept the current spiritual level of others and we try to be respectful of everyone’s beliefs, except when they try to impose their faith on others.
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After deciding upon my religious beliefs, I looked at the commonalities and differences with other religions. I found agreeable ideas in every religion, but each one also had notions that diverged from my views. When a religion has one main prophet, I like the idea of followers making choices by considering “what would our prophet do?” I was delighted to learn that WWJD embroidered on clothing means “What Would Jesus Do?” All religions probably have similarly identifying clothing. Buddha and Confucius had good teachings and they were real live humans and not gods. Taoism was sounding really good until I learned a primary tenet of WU-Wei, which translates into lacking intention, but my creed is to intentionally grow truth and love. I like Hinduism, which is the oldest and has no specific founder, but some sects have gods and some don’t. I found a Spiritist philosophy that believes in reincarnation, but my notions differ. A Spiritualism movement believes in a spirit world with spirit guides and all that sounded interesting, but some still believed in a god and I don’t believe in ghosts with physical abilities. All religions offer some good ideas.
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Recently, I learned that I’m almost Quaker. I didn’t know what a Quaker was until I watched some YouTube videos. I heard of them, but didn’t know much about them and thought that they dressed like the Amish or Mennonites. However, I like their style and most seem to consider God a spirit rather than an omnipotent power. While the Quaker religion began Christian, most follow the teachings of Jesus rather than common Christian dogma. One video had a leader saying a relationship with God improves when you disregard traditional omni teachings; that God is all powerful and all knowing. They believe in equality justified by the fact that spirit is within all and quote Jesus, “the kingdom of God is within you.” However, they differ among themselves in beliefs of the trinity and if Jesus was a profit or a god. Personally, I don’t believe in God and spirit, but believe God is spirit. I disbelieve in an omnipotent God and do believe Jesus was a very wise man.
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Truth is a never-ending quest because the more we learn, the more we understand that there is more that we need to learn. Also, there is both physical truth and spiritual truth. Spirit within fledglings can be subjugated by physical needs and fears, but with gains in physical knowledge that improve abilities to negotiate physical truths, spirit shines brighter as gains in spiritual knowledge promote healthy balanced growth.
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Growing love is nothing to fight about. Learning and practicing morality and ethical behavior is more important than particular beliefs or faith. Ethical behavior is more important than opinions. Another religious difference is our religious indifference when opinions are disputed. Truth will eventually surface to resolve differences in opinion, but simply understanding both viewpoints is more valuable than arguing for one or the other. Spirit is love and we grow spirit in practicing to gain love and caring empathy.
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I should have more to say about religion after reading a book that will soon arrive called Ethics by Spinoza. My curiosity raised when I heard that Einstein had responded when questioned about his belief in God; “yes, I believe in Spinoza’s God.” Spinoza was a Pantheist who believed God is the combined substance, forces, and laws that manifested in the existing universe. He believed God is everything. Therefore, he must believe everything is Devine while I believe only spirit is Devine. In my duality, spirit can utilize substance, forces, and laws to manifest life and our world. Adopting his ideas could unify my faith of duality into a singularity. Perhaps the physical and spiritual realms are like two sides of the same god. Quick research reveals Spinoza, like me, was very influenced by the Stoic’s of Ancient Greece and Rome. One difference of opinion seems to be his disbelief in prayer. While we agree there is no supernatural god to seek favor from, I believe the spiritual side of life that is shared by all life and exists beyond life can bring positive energy when invoked through meditation and prayer.
Growth is our purpose
I define myself as a spiritual animal. As spiritual animals, we have both divine spirit and animal instinct. I humbly believe we are insignificant specks of space dust experiencing a fleeting flash in time. Also, I arrogantly believe we are pieces of God, but so is everything else alive. Devine spirit provides awesome powers to create and destroy, but these powers come with responsibilities to our common spirit because this same energy that propels each individual is minuscule in relation to the totality of spiritual energy within all life. Our purpose is learning to positively manage growth and propagate love. Along with managing both our physical and spiritual growth, we must positively influence the health of life in general and the environment. Expanding truth and love with positive purpose can echo throughout time as evolutions of life continue to advance from simple, unaware, physical beings to lovingly intricate spiritual beings.
From the get-go, I should mention the theory of evolution has been well proven. Popular religions want to deny this proven truth because it conflicts with primitive teachings from ancient scripture. Not only do I reject some unbelievable religious text and accept evolution as proven, but my belief system embraces the concept of evolution even more than the original Darwinian ideas. Evolution explains change that makes sense on many levels: physically, intellectually, spiritually, for individuals and groups. Not only is the theory of evolution an explanation for life’s changes, but evolution is also a purpose in life. Growth is our purpose.
Living beings are both physical and spiritual, all made of basically the same stuff, but each uniquely proportioned and constantly changing. Life is the temporary blending of two eternal realms, the physical world, and the spiritual realm. Only a portion of the eternal physical world is alive and only a portion of the eternal spiritual world is alive. The blended portion that is both physical and spiritual is life.
Physically we nourish the body, spiritually we nourish the soul, and as blended beings that are both physical and spiritual, we develop a mind with reckoning and reasoning to negotiate conflicts and make choices. Our choices determine progress or regress in our world. Physical truth is rationally pursued and spiritual truth reveals passions.
Individuals have inherited physical instincts along with survival needs for the body; such as demands for water, food, and sleep. Instincts are delivered in the instructions deep in our DNA passed from ancestors with innate drives that promote survival and growth. These DNA directives allow systems of our physical bodies to function automatically. Much happens within our bodies without thinking about it; from the obvious stuff like blinking and digestion to wilder stuff like cell divisions and white blood vessels attacking viruses without our knowledge. Our physical world, of plant and animal reciprocity, tends to award survival to the fittest and posterity to the environmentally compatible.
While individuals competitively pursue instinct-driven physical growth, spirit-driven growth requires caring cooperation for mutual benefit and nurturing love. All life is both physical and spiritual. Primarily physical beings might seek growth at the expense of another, while love doesn’t grow at the expense of another, and primarily spiritual beings seek growth by strengthening connection, unity, care, and love.
Spirit is within all life. Spirit enables consciousness and aids the blended mind in interpreting physical facts, creating emotion, and developing a caring conscience. Spiritual growth requires tapping into love. Instinct and self-love motivate survival and growth strategies, while feeling love for others will enhance spiritual growth with capacity for spiritual contribution. Spiritual beings love the spirit within all life past, present, and future.
Similar to our physical/spiritual duality, superposition in quantum theory refers to an atom that is in two positions at the same time. An interesting experiment seems to prove that conscious observation transforms a spiritual wave into a physical particle. The quantum mechanics double-slit experiment investigated the observer effect. The observer effect in physics is the idea that observing and measuring can alter whatever is being observed and measured. Measuring tire pressure requires releasing some air, which reduces tire pressure. People have been heard saying, “I can do it when you are not watching.” The double-slit experiment provides a higher level of proof.
In the double-slit experiment, particles were shot at a partition with two slits in it and the wall behind the partition displayed a pattern of marks from particles that made it through the slits. Particles caused two strips of marks on the wall with roughly the same shape as the slits. Next, they shot light photons of a single wavelength at the partition. The resulting interference pattern had many stripes on the wall. This pattern results from the wave being split into two waves that amplify highs when peaks meet or lows when troughs meet, but cancel each other out when a peak meets a trough. This pattern is similar to looking down on wave ripples on water. Lastly, atoms were shot at the partition and the particle pattern resulted when it was being observed and the wave pattern resulted when it was not observed. Observation caused the atoms to function as particles, otherwise the atoms functioned as a wave. This is better explained on YouTube.
I’m not a scientist, but I speculate that Spirit creates consciousness. Consciousness seems to create physical realities and even indirect observation with a camera had this effect. The double-slit experiment revealed a functioning camera caused particle atoms and an unplugged camera resulted in wave atoms. Dualities resist unification as the physical world, made of particles, obeys laws of general relativity and the spiritual world is like quantum mechanics waves.
I believe dark energy is the same thing as the common spirit that everyone knows about without much understanding. Measurements of the mysterious invisible dark matter that scientists do not understand, accounts for eighty-five percent of physical matter, along with dark energy that they suspect is some strange sort of energy fluid that fills space, expands cosmic acceleration, and accounts for about two-thirds of the universe, but I think it’s all the same thing. Our science cannot see before the Big Bang that initiated our physical beginning because we are both physical and spiritual. Our science cannot see past the end of our expanding universe into their theorized dark energy that I believe is pure spiritual energy. Life only exists within the blended zone. Science might eventually see further or answers might be revealed after life.
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Oh My Gosh
I don’t believe in good and evil, I believe in good and not so good yet.
I believe in good choices and bad choices, including bad choices to act evil.
Yes, I do believe in heaven and hell, and it’s here and now.
Those believing in evil tend to look at many things in terms of opposites. Good and evil, right and wrong, heaven and hell, them and us, etc, etc, ect. However, judgements can be opposites because they are all in the mind, but most things have degrees of similarity and difference without being true opposites. Opposites are like positive one is very good, negative one is very bad, and life is mostly zeros for those confused by opposite thinking. Males and females are different, but males and females also have many similarities, and are not true opposites. Look at life without negatives and try to understand both similarities and differences. It becomes more like zero to one for both instinct and spirit, but instinct overpowers the less evolved and the more evolved truly value spirit. Instinct and spirit are different, but not opposites, and we have both.
Evolving life learns the power of maintaining a positive attitude because a positive outlook can overcome negativity. Most try to be proud of ourselves with attributes that might include goodness and humanitarian values. Most people believe in right and wrong, and in natural consequences, karma, derived from doing right or wrong. Simply maintaining a positive attitude can improve situations. The Placebo Effect proves there are spiritual components to physical ailments as just expecting a positive effect can create a healing outcome. Just thinking and dreaming is the start to making positive things happen. This religion believes spirit is essential to life, the interactive spirit is within all life, and life manipulates the material world with choices to create and destroy.
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Only the dishonest or delusional can claim to be absolutely sure of the unknown, but faith provides the confidence of convictions. Some of the faithful can be quite forceful and narrow-minded in their convictions, thereby creating division instead of unity. At various places and times, ignorant mobs have put people to death for rival ideas. With increasing tolerance, religious environments tend to positively evolve as the faithful fearing the almighty gradually transform into loving congregations with a loving god. As evolving environments cause the faithful to be less about fear and more about love, increased tolerance and acceptance causes exclusions to wither regarding them and us. The faithful often talk to their god-like a close friend, just as the godless consult the spirit within themselves and spiritual energies beyond themselves with only minor differences as all seek hope.
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Many people call themselves agnostic or atheist when these monikers are inaccurate. Many good people accept these labels because they reject other labels. Some friends call themselves agnostic or atheist because those tags seem suitable and because they are uncomfortable with labels, such as sinner, incorrectly imposed by self-righteous people. Many don’t want to join or oppose religious groups, but just want to get along without going over or giving in. Some people don’t realize that we can still be spiritual while rejecting unbelievable religious stories, threats of damnation, promises of paradise, and imposed choices to either join or oppose popular religious beliefs. A spiritual person can reject the God described by powerbrokers seeking to interpret holy scriptures and God’s will for their followers. We can disagree with popular notions that include stories of God, heaven, and hell; even while believing that spirit enhances life and leaves the body at death.
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Spirit is not about ideology. Spirit unites, but religious identity divides. Contagious inspiration can feel good when listening to sincerely devout people, but a truthful message can be sturdier than the messenger’s image as disappointment sets in when learning of their human deficiencies. Friends who identify with a religion might suppress dissent by publicly pretending, even as they privately admit disbelief in some of the common doctrine. Some of these religious friends enjoy the healthy religious communities with caring values, but will hypocritically engage in immoral activity when nobody is looking. Some of my other friends may call themselves agnostic or atheist but are actually very moral spiritual beings. Remember that physical beings often place a higher value on themselves, while spiritual beings place a higher value on relationships. A wise choice is to pay less attention to labels and more attention to behaviors.
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An all-powerful eternal creator makes anything possible, therefore many believe God is responsible for everything, but others believe the notions of an all-powerful creator performing miracles as an easy answer that is flawed. Many recognize incredible tales as proof and others credit naturally occurring explanations for life as we know it. Whether you believe in creation by God or believe in evolution, both concepts require a measure of faith. Most scientists agree with a big bang theory, though disagreement stems from the cause. While many accept the notion of an exploding tightly compacted physical pre-existence, some believe it was caused by God and others believe it was only some natural physical thing, such as the other side of a black hole. Whatever caused a big bang might be beyond our current understanding, but researchers discovered an interesting fact that the expanding dispersal is accelerating. Scientists had mistakenly expected the expansion to be slowing over time but were surprised to discover that the expansion is speeding up. A lack of resistance in space explains a lack of slowing, but speeding up implies an unknown cause is still at work. This information weakens the nothing theory and supports spiritual energy theories with or without a god.
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Intelligent design is an argument for god based on probability. However, this argument uses a backwards approach to probability. Probability is for looking forward rather than backward. Using probability to look backwards is only a distraction pretending to be proof. Using backwards probability is like foolishly claiming that unlikely things never happen. For example, calculate the odds of you waking up at the time and place you did today. Multiply by the various odds of various choices like whatever you’ve eaten, what you are wearing, what has happened so far today, the odds of you reading this right now, and don’t forget other longshots like being on this particular page and the electricity not going out. In every instance there were various options, choices, and possibilities. The odds become smaller with every detail considered. However, we can try to calculate various probabilities that something will happen in the future, but the odds become 100% after it occurs. All those odds mean nothing looking backward.
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The double-slit experiment might be the beginning of proof that we can easily see and sort of understand. Brilliant friends talk about string theory, multi-dimensions, the God particle, the Lord particle, and all kinds of other stuff that I don’t understand, but most of it doesn’t seem to prove or disprove a spiritual connection to the physical world. Evidently, paired photons are a phenomenon whereby two photons relate even when separated as the paired photons still coordinated with each other when one was taken into space. Einstein referred to this Quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance.” When I hear about such mysterious topics along with other things like dark matter and dark energy, I wonder if science is beginning to discover physical and spiritual connections. I am waiting for follow-ups on the double-slit experiment. Discovering the wheel took countless generations, but the accelerating pace of discovery and learning will likely uncover the answers within a lifetime or two. This evolving religion believes in the interconnection of the spiritual and physical, particularly when these eternal realms temporarily merge in life.
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According to Einstein’s well-known equation, energy can be converted into mass and vice versa. If energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, then it seems mass and energy are related. So perhaps the physical and spiritual realms can be united into a singularity that could be called God. I’m no Einstein and with this stuff way over my head, I’ll continue with the duality until a well-established singularity is proven in an understandable way that doesn’t revert to ancient writings or faith-based reasoning. Plenty of people already claim to understand this singularity, but until many in science can confirm and better explain a singularity, I’m satisfied with the belief that all life exists within a duality of realms.
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This religion believes in a spiritual force, which can be referred to as God but is different from the conventional god created by man in his own image. I suppose every species might imagine a god in the physical form of that particular species, but I’m pretty sure dogs think humans are gods. Anyway, this religion believes all life shares the same spiritual energy. All are welcome to decide for themselves between physical and spiritual priorities and if holy spiritual love is as natural as gravity. I believe in a shared energy with eternal truths type of god rather than an all-powerful spirit, but learning, understanding, and wisely utilizing this shared energy is our goal for growth.
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While miracles are typically discounted as unexplained natural phenomena, coincidence, manufactured tricks, and exaggeration, this religion believes in prayer. Prayer works to focus energies, harness spiritual energies from the outside in, exude spirit from the inside out, and spread contagious spiritual energies. We can pray in our sleep when there is less physical distraction and hopefully remember some of the brilliant insights when we awaken. Humble prayer attracts positive energy regardless if we pray to a stone statue, to a pervasive spirit, to a guy in the sky, to dead ancestors, to the yet to be born, or whatever; but sincere prayer can summon the positive energy we seek.
