God and Heaven
This blog was set up originally simply as a file deposit for musings which I sent out to friends. Somehow a lot of people managed to find the URL, and that is ok. Since the blogs were not originally meant for general distribution most have not been carefully edited. I may go back now and do the proper editing. I have recently published a book titled: The Meaning of Life. Anyone interested can find it listed in Amazon.com under the author name Reid S. James. There is a description of the content along with the listing. It was published in late October 2013. Any income from the book will be donated to various 501 category charities. Given the nature of the book, to do otherwise would be hypocritical. Given the original intent of this URL I have never provided an opportunity for any response to these musings. I think I will leave it that way as I don't have the time for a lot of responding to comments by others. These musings are written as food for thought, and do not purport to be anything other than what the blog implies: personal musings. Were I to personally know many of you who visit this URL I sense we would have a lot of engaging conversations. There are too many now for that to be practical.
God and Heaven
Note: ( Above Musing follows this note)
Author Notes about this Blog
God and Heaven
These are topics not often discussed in social situations. Even I, who will cogitate about most anything, will seldom interject certain topics in most conversations. God and Heaven talk is mostly left to preachers and scriptures.
Like most people I believe in God. But I try to keep it simple. For every gift there must be a gift giver. This is logical. The gift is all around us, the sky, the mountains, the valleys, the sun, the animals, the plants, and so on. Clearly I did not create these gifts and just as clearly no one else I know or read about did, so I conclude these gifts were created by God. Who is God and what is He/She like? He/She is certainly nothing like any of His/Her gifts including humans. Other than this, what power do any of us have to describe God? That doesn't stop a lot of people from imagining what God is like and then believing it.
In the United States 74% of people say they believe in God, down from 82% in earlier years. 68% believe in heaven, down from 75%. 58% believe in the devil and hell, down from 62%. Belief in Darwin's theory of evolution increased to 46% up from 42%. 36% believe in creationism and 24% believe in reincarnation.
The highest belief in God is in Indonesia (93%), Turkey (91%), Brazil (84%), Mexico, (78%). People who don't believe in God are most likely to live in France (39%), Sweden (37%), Belgium (36%, Great Britain (34%), Japan (33%), and Germany (31%).
This all may be interesting but nothing I am prepared to explain.
All people have beliefs. That does not mean, however, that all beliefs are equally believable. I can believe the earth is flat, but this is essentially a worthless belief because we can scientifically prove the earth is round. Sport fans often argue vehemently about who is a better player, and when all is argued out, the issue is rarely clear cut. Sometimes we believe something because, if we don't, we lose hope and can become depressed. Often times we believe simply what a majority in our group or nation believe. And of course often we simply believe what we want to believe. Thus, this belief business is tricky.
Some people play the lottery because they believe they might win. Of course they might, but then it is also true that playing the lottery is for those who can't do the math. I used to sometimes sit near this down-and-out character at an off track betting place. He was an older fellow, dressed drably, unkempt in appearance, but he would cheer his horse on with gusto every race. His friend once told him "You know, the horse can't hear you!". I asked him if he won money betting on the horses. He paused, then looked at me and said, "No I don't, but some days I do and what else can I do in life where I win once in a while and can be happy for a short time?. I go home, take the wife out to dinner and we both are happy for the evening." Well, he has a point. And a sad point.
Believing in Heaven is a lot like that. There is no logical reason to believe Heaven exists and there is no logical proof that it doesn't. For me, I again keep it simple. I have no capacity to understand how all this life around me exists, and neither do I have the capacity to declare there is a Heaven or no Heaven. On some matters our best reasoning cannot resolve the answers.
Conversations on Heaven matters are often futile: “Do you believe in Heaven?" "Yes I do". "Why?" "Because it is written in scripture" "Why do you think this scripture you read is true?" "Because it is the Word of God" "How do you know that?" Here the trap is sprung because, in most every case, the scripture they refer to was inherited, or acquired via marriage. I inherited the Baptist religion and both my parents were active in the church. When young I seriously read the bible and believed in the bible and even found motivation in attending a Billy Graham revival. As I look back now on my reading of the bible while young I realize I paid attention only to those passages which made clear sense. Things like "if you would enter the Kingdom of God go and sell what you possess, and give to the poorest amongst you". That seemed real ethical----if we have more than enough we are to give the excess to the poor. But a passage which indicates that if someone is caught having sex with an animal, then both the animal and the person should be stoned---I just skipped over that. After all, why would someone have sex with an animal and if they did, why should the animal be killed? I haven't read any religious scripture from any religion which is not filled with the ignorance of the time it was written. In fact, not only has God not written us anything, but all the major prophets in the major religions did not write anything either---not Jesus, not Buddha, not Mohammed, not Moses, and so on. Someone or some, decades after the death of the Prophet, wrote the scripture.
I think the major reason I shun association with any major religious sect is the ghastly realization that while they all preach kindness and fairness and peace---in reality every one of them has a history of extreme violence and intolerance of others with differing beliefs. Religious beliefs are strong. Often very strong. Some become addicted to religious beliefs to the same extent others become addicted to gambling, drinking, smoking, eating, sex, work, shopping, and so on. Addictions are all based on not understanding, and accepting, when enough is enough. If you attempt to talk to someone about their drinking they usually say, in one form or another, “I don’t want to talk about it.” If one pushes a fervent member of a religious sect with the kind of questions in the paragraph above, the response is typically “I don’t want to talk about it.” If we arrive at a belief with no logical evidence for the belief how can we, after all is said and done, explain our belief?
“Why can’t someone believe anything they want?” Well, they can unless their belief causes overt actions which infringe on the well being and rights of others. It is one thing to believe the earth is flat, but it is quite another to believe those whose religious beliefs differ from our own need to be punished by law. Why can’t differing religions get along? Sometimes they can to a certain extent, and at a certain level, but when you get groups of fervent Muslims and Christians together the animosity rises to a level which is cruel and barbaric. Same with fervent Catholics and Protestants, like in Ireland. Or the Tutu and Hutu in Rwanda. Or the Jews and Arabs in Israel. And so it goes on and on throughout history. What religious group has ever been beyond cruelty to non believers? Maybe the Quakers. Even the Puritans, who fled to America to escape persecution for their beliefs, were unmerciful to anyone amongst them who dared differ with their beliefs. Actually the Pilgrims left Belgium because they couldn’t stand the tolerance there for differing religions.
No one ever talks about the specifics of Heaven because it would be pure fantasy and filled with endless quandaries. What age will we be in Heaven? Which wife or husband will we be with? Will pets be allowed? Do we have to work or do we just lie around in endless bliss? Will we have bodies? At any rate the particulars are so off the wall that even the faithful never talk about them.
Belief in Heaven or God, accepted purely as a belief, without any interference with others, is not only harmless, but can be a sense of comfort for us if we are not up to facing uncertainty in this area. It need be remembered that ethics is not something prevalent only within certain religious sects. Ethical people come in all shapes, colors, religions, nations, and cultures. The basis of this ethics is always the Golden Rule. The Golden rule is accepted universally as an ethical principle. Ethics is always about how we relate to, and treat others—especially those who are less fortunate than ourselves. It has nothing really to do with whether you believe in God or in Heaven. We have varied levels of responsibility to others. Clearly we have an ethical responsibility to a spouse, to offspring in their formative years, to friends, to enemies too, to pets, and to those less fortunate on our planet, plus to nature and other animals. This is not a world of good vs evil but rather one of progress via natural selection—which depends on diversity to succeed. It appears that God designed an evolutionary process that operates on laws He/She created to keep it working. Evolution has been working now for billions of years—a time span we, as humans, cannot really relate to very effectively. Thus, we are tunnel-visioned. This tunnel vision—combined with ‘family values’, greed, our addictions, sectarian religious dogma, and imperfect genetics/environment—all manage to put pressure on us to ignore the Golden Rule. My profession and natural inclination to observe diverse people have made it clear, in my mind, that the most contented people, in the productive/terminational phases of life, are those who follow the Golden Rule the best. The way to contentedness seems to be through helping the less fortunate, and those who fail to develop this inherent ethical trait are doomed to an agitated, frustrated, unfulfilled life. The end goal in life is contentedness, and the path to this goal is the Golden Rule.
I reckon I could go on, and I often do—yet for this topic it seems best to not to miss the forest for the sake of the trees. Ethics is not complicated. An ethical life is not something available only to a select few via inherited religion, or race, or culture, or education degrees, or location and so on. We really do, almost always, understand right from wrong. The problem is we often choose to do wrong for self-serving reasons. Yet these self-serving reasons are counter-productive to generating any maximum sense of contentment in life. Humans have an inherent species-generated sense of ethics which, applied individually and collectively, can level the playing field to varying degrees for the less fortunate, and thus generate a society in which contentment is maximized for the greatest number of people. In this sense praying becomes a cop-out——a demand on God to do for others which we individually or collectively can do for these others. We, individually and collectively, fail in our duties to others, and fail often.
Will things ever change? Of course, evolution is all about change. Why can’t we stick around to see the change? Because we, or any other species, are not the focus of evolution, it is the evolutionary process itself which is the focus, governed by laws God created. Why can’t I be a star athlete making millions of dollars or have the sexiest body on the planet? Well, I can’t—not my bad, or the work of the devil, or a cruel God—but I did get the chance to be in the game of life for a bit and that is enough for which to be thankful. Even star athletes don’t stay on top very long and those with beautiful bodies, by the time they are 50, like everyone else, have the body they deserve. In the last analysis what really is our bitch? If I ever achieved anything worth being interviewed for on national television I would thank that one of a million sperm who swam so hard to find a particular egg and made life for me possible. Wait, these two living sperm and egg each came from living cells, and those living cells did too. Oh my, giving credit is getting complicated. When things get complicated I take a nap. Soon, as aging progresses, when I wake from a nap, I will forget what complication caused me to take a nap. Dying can be a long drawn out process. In fact, death is a destiny acquired at birth. The alternative—not to be born—lacks appeal.
