Picking and choosing a faith

I would wager that even most evolutionists have religion. But they have posited that, and rightly in my opinion, the idea of an omnipotent being existing before this colossal entity we call the Universe existed and who is solely responsible for its creation is an untenable notion. I for one would like an explanation from creationists as to how we humans, who have evolved our form as necessary adaptions to the challenges of our environment over the eons that humans have been evolving - ie. bipedally with long arms and hands for grasping and holding and legs obviously designed for running away from big predators, were made by this creator in his image. How could this creator have evolved arms and legs as necessary adaptations to an environment that he hadn't yet created? It would make more sense to believe that God is a creation in man's image, but of course that is merely an evasive argument.

The faiths of this world are varied and diverse. On the one hand we have the Christian legend of Jesus miraculously turning water into wine at the wedding in Canaan, and on the other we have the strict Christian faith of the Mormons and Baptists who do not partake of soda pop and certainly not of alchoholic beverages. On the one hand we have a faith which covers their women from head to foot lest they be regarded as objects of desire and on the other we have zealots of this faith seek the martyrdom that will earn them possession of eighteen virgins in their heaven. What makes them think that God would permit them behaviours in his heaven that he would not allow them on this earth? That is puzzling.

It is apparent that we can pick and choose when it comes to our faiths. Some take the collection of writings and manuscripts that were all written independently over a period of about seven hundred years and compiled into a tome we call the bible to be the literal word of God, and call it a divine compilation. Back in the days when those words were written one who could actually write was considered in very high esteem indeed, and such a skill could have only come to them as a gift from God. Nowadays everybody blogs their heart's content, pun intended, and most of it is not nearly holy.

It's obvious to the subjective and non-prejudiced that the story of Adam and Eve is a fable, intended to teach the young about the responsibilities of growing up, when their innocence (the garden of Eden) would be lost to them (eviction therefrom). Like all young adults they would eventually fall victim to temptations of the flesh, and with that would come the inevitable resposibility of child-rearing. Those who actually believe that the events of that story are literally true are intellectually blind. The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, akin to eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was no doubt invented by powers who had that knowledge and who selfishly sought to deny others the opportunity to acquire it, for their greed brought them great wealth, and wealth is still concentrated in the hands of the few.

The narrative of the creation in the Book of Genesis is completely bereft of any scientific method. Obviously, its author had no answer to the biggest riddle of them all, where did it all come from? I can't help but get the impression that it was prepared after the compilation of all those fables and narratives, legends, poetry and song, historical data, and halucinations that make up the Bible. It's a good preamble. But it certainly isn't fact. Take a look at that Hubble image in the sidebar. Those galaxies are billions of light years away. One individual cannot take responsibility for their creation. God is a creation of this Universe, as much as we are.

To understand this, one must first separate oneself from one's self-imposed sense of importance that places oneself at the center of the Universe. In fact, our sun occupies a non-descript position near an outer edge of the spiral arm of this Milky Way about two thirds of the way around the galaxy. Nothing special here. There are more than a hundred billion suns in this galaxy alone, many just like ours, and no doubt many, many worlds that have life no better or worse than ours but not to say not just as interesting. I have rewritten the anthropic principle of the Universe being the way it is because we are here to observe it to state that the Universe is the way it is because if it were any different then that is the way that it would be, and there would still be somebody there to observe it. I believe that life is the rule rather than the exception and that it is determined to exist as long as there is a Universe to harbor it, wherever it can gain a foothold. To my mind, God is just somebody who has a billion years of evolution on us, and who had long ago discovered a way to evict all those corporeal and finite energies that limited him to his physical existence and to retain those spiritual energies that defined his identity with the potential to exist to all intent and purpose forever.

Imagine us, with all our technology and science, surviving and continuing to develop them for a billion more years. What will we not be capable of doing then?

God did not necessarily create us but quite likely intervened to encourage the life that exists here on planet Earth. Life must evolve because it must be hardy enough to adapt and survive. The occasional shot of adrenelin doesn't hurt, though. That there is a God I have no doubt, because miracles do indeed occur, and humans have been visited by angels, and there is simply too much evidence to refute otherwise. God's objective is to inspire in as many as possible the creation and maintenance of their souls, which through cycles of transmigration will one day fully qualify themselves for eternal life in that spiritual realm with which we share this reality, and where God exists with his angels.