My Take On Religion

Atheists tend to work up the arguer (or lawyer) in me.  No I'm not a real lawyer, but I believe I could have been a competent one if I had followed that path.  I recently read The Wisdom Of Homer (Simpson) by Larian Lequella on Blogiverse.  In it Larian makes a very interesting observation, " I cannot support such a petty, cruel, vindictive, incompetent, and downright stupid creature even if it were to exist."  He was talking about God but he used the word creature.  I find this statement very important.  The statement applied to any intelligent physical entity (human, alien, or otherwise).  It is also very universal, that is, most people would not support such a creature.  Which begs the question, what is God?  In order to explore this question from my own standpoint, I like to touch on the commonality of all major religions, how different people are in perceiving the spiritual realm, and what conclusions can be drawn about the nature of God.

Now contrary to popular beliefs, religions tend to have similar aspects apart from the aspects of controlling their believers.  The major religions believe that there are beings that are not physical, not from this world, and live forever.  Islam, Judaism, and Christianity have a similar God.  They all believe in communication with their God through prayer and/or meditation.  They all believe in the betterment of humans.  The all believe in the unity or brotherhood of all humans.  As an empath I too believe in these things.  I can sense emotional communication between people without words.  I can sense God.  I can perceive that humans are actually becoming better through time (some pulpits may preach otherwise).  So I see that the baseline beliefs of the major religions is correct and the religions have more in common than they wish to acknowledge.

Let us talk about people.  This science based society loves proofs and they physical.  That is fine when you are talking about physical entities, but when your talking about spiritual entities it doesn't work.  The spiritual has nothing or little to do with physical perception.  Taking the overall population of the Earth and you get a mixed bag of perceptions.  I will use the 20/80 percentile rule to explain the situation.  20% of the population perceive the spiritual all the time.  60% can only partially perceive the spiritual realm, and 20% cannot perceive the spiritual realm at all.  Now I'm talking in generalized terms not from scientific data or such.  That means that we have spiritual people and atheists in the population.  In other terms we have sensitives and non-sensitives.  I think this difference is due to biology.  So if a spiritual God exists, then 20% of the population would attest to it, 20% would deny it and the rest will make up their own minds.

What conclusions can be made then?  If God did not exist then nobody would attest to his existence. You may argue that I'm not taking into account of religion being a hoax.  If religion was a hoax then it would not have so many followers for so long a time as our history attests.  It would have been a passing fad at best.  So I see that God exists.  I don't see that God is like how he's portrayed by the major religions though.  Not in the least.  Most things preached to the public is for public control and for continual existence of the religion.  Most things preached are not true.  To me the best religion is that which helps the needy most.  They show faith by helping.  If a religion is not helping, what good is it but to serve its own purposes?

I answered the question about God's existence by looking at common religious beliefs, the sensitivity of people to the spiritual realm, and drawing a conclusion.  Something I have to say though.  I cannot condemn anyone for opinions of non-perception.  Many Atheists are honest in that they do not perceive the spiritual realm.  How can they be blamed for that?  Its the responsibility of the seeing to make sure the blind has their needs met.  It is not the responsibility of the seeing to prove or convince the blind that something exists.  Each person has their path laid out before them to learn as they can.  There are some spiritual things most people acknowledge, these include life, kindness, love, hope.  These are my perceptions and I cannot prove any of it.

Religious Freedom

There is a movement out there in the US that is trying to establish Christianity as the only religion of the Federal Government.  They cite publications of the founding fathers that indicate that they were Christian.  They therefore say that the principles the US is based on should be openly acknowledged as Christian and from the Bible.  I disagree.  The world of the founding fathers were replete with various of flavors of infighting Christianity, the principles that the US is founded on are not solely Christian, and the US uphold more principles than its founding.

The world of the founding fathers had various religions.  Any religion of significance at that time was Christian.  The pilgrims fled religious persecution from the Anglicans of England, which was and still is the state religion of England.  Many what we consider Christian factions were regarded then as different religions.  They did not agree in many ideas.  In such an environment was the letter drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 that established the concept of the separation of church and state.  Today we have man more religions in the US.  We have Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Wicca, Paganism, and Atheism to name a few non-christian based religions.  We also have more christian based religions to include Mormonism, Rastafarianism, Jehova Witnessism, and Fundamentalism.  So in the continual growth of the US we have broadened the definition of religion to include all faiths.  As such the separation between state and all religions should be upheld.  Now you may say that the state is not to infringe on religion, but religion is to infringe on state.  I also disagree.  The separation between church and state must be both ways in order for it to be practical.  Only the religious influence on the elected officials are the only way religion is allowed to influence the state.  Thus the principle of "For the People and by the People" is upheld.

The principles that the US are founded on are found in the Bible, but not only in the Bible.  Among the basic principles are life, liberty and happiness.  All the major religions embrace life, if they didn't they wouldn't be major religions.  Who would follow such a religion?  Liberty is a basic human need and throughout history people have sought it.  Its often that freedom is the main drive to start a religion.  Judaism started with Moses taking the Jewish people away from slavery.  Happiness is also a basic human need.  Part of happiness is the need to prosper.  I can't think of any major religion that counters the need to prosper.  For the US to make a statement of some kind that they principles the US is founded on purely Christian religion would be fraudulent.  These principles are not exclusively Christian.  They are innate human principles.  You may say that they are Christian principles in the Bible.  While this may be true it doesn't make it appropriate for the US to make or assert religious based principles.  The US must keep the separation of church and state.

The US has founding principles but has many other principles that were adopted over time in the pursuit of freedom.  Woman's rights, making slavery illegal, racial integration, are examples of these principles not found in the Bible.  For the US to uphold only its founding principles would be denying the history and the precedence of our ancestors.  If the US were to make a statement of some kind that says that it's founding principles are only Christian, then it would be denying the principles it has taken on over time by implication.  You may disagree, but the US is more than just it's founding.

I have argued that founding fathers had a different religious landscape than today, that the founding principles of the US are not solely Christian, and that the founding principles are not the only principles that make up the US. The idea that the US needs to make a statement of any kind indicating favor to one religion over the rest is unnecessary and could spur infighting among the religions.  This is not good for the US in any way.  I thoroughly disagree with the idea that the US is based solely on Christian principles and needs to state so.  The principles of the US are constantly in flux as time goes on, this is the democratic way.

Social Injustices

You know the great thing about SciFi is that you can write about current social injustices and do almost anything you want with them.

Star Trek in the original series had many social injustice themes.  From mixed relationships to bullying to nuclear holocaust have been portrayed.

In my novel, Viewing Creation: Encounter (free ebook), I recognized several social injustices.  Prejudice against foreign people is prevalent in our United States society.  So I intentionally had an international crew for the UES Encounter.  The black human is often prejudiced against, so I made the heroes buddy a black man and the prevailing race of the aliens (Qars) to resemble black humans, with some differences.  Threat of bombings anywhere, is a type of social injustice, but also a political statement.  I depict a bombing in the Preface to introduce the foe for the story.  Another biggy today is religious intolerance.  Its regnant in this society.  Everyone judges everyone on this one it seems.  From those who have a religion to those who don't, from those of one religion to those of another.  In the story the tension is depicted.

So SciFi gives a very malleable venue to tell your story.