Hmm. Blogger changed things on me. I liked the other interface better, where I could see the previous post on the same page where I type in the new entry.

Oh, well. Today, I am veering WWWWAAAYYYY off the subject of this blog, only because there is a subject that bugs me and something inside me wants to be heard about it. It just stems from my annoyance toward people who try to tell me how I should think - mostly in regards to religious beliefs. I PROMISE this blog will not turn into a religious or philosophical thread, but I know this entry is going to be long! So consider yourself forewarned - if you're not interested, please skip this entry! If there is one thing I do not want to do, it is to impose my perspective on anyone.

Your motives may differ.

But that's the beauty of a blog. It is like a television. If you don't like what you read, you can move on. The difference between me and a television producer, however, is that I don't care! I'm not selling ratings. :)

So, without further ado, here is my stance on religious beliefs:

When I am asked if I believe in God, my first reply is usually, "I don’t believe in anything." To me, a belief is a limiting factor. To believe something is to accept it without any solid supporting evidence. Therefore, for me to adopt a belief would require that I accept a notion to be true despite a lack of supporting evidence, and reject any evidence to the contrary. If I abandon belief entirely, then I am free to see a complete picture from an objective viewpoint.

It is my understanding that everything within the realm of perception is abstract. I have five physical senses through which I can perceive the world around me, and I have been trained from birth to interpret these perceptions in a way that gives them meaning. My eyes receive patterns of light frequencies that my brain assembles into what I have come to understand is an "image". And within these images, I have learned to recognize shapes and patterns, so that I know that what I am looking at is a truck, or a door, or whatever other familiar object I have been trained or have learned to recognize.

Mankind has further abstracted this pattern recognition idea to facilitate communication, by creating sets of symbols (letters, etc.) to which meaning has been arbitrarily assigned in order that we may communicate through "language". Similarly, we extract meaning from sounds that we hear, sensations that we feel, odors that we smell, and flavors that we taste.

Time, itself, is an illusion, as it is only our ability to detect movement and recall previous states that give us a sense of time and a perception of things changing. The study and understanding of physics has revealed that time is not a constant. The appearance of the passage of time is merely an observance of the rate at which things change. And all things of the material universe change at different rates, depending on the environment in which they exist. Therefore, we perceive such things as "time dilation" and other physical phenomena that probably only the most brilliant theoretical physicists could describe.

If I have learned anything in my life it is that things are not always as they seem. What I understand to be correct one day, can change the next. And I am open to that, because I do not allow myself to latch on to my perceptions as though they are "written in stone," as the cliché goes. Since I cannot guarantee that the world and the universe around me is as it appears to be through the mere five physical senses that I possess, how can I be expected to take to heart a notion or a concept that exists outside the realm of my perceptions.

There is no doubt much that exists in this universe outside of the five physical senses that I possess. Look at what has already been discovered - sounds beyond our range of hearing, light beyond our range of vision, radio waves, nuclear radiation, atomic particles, etc. I cannot discount the possibility - or the probability - that there is something beyond this realm. But it is my contention that the concept of "beyond" does not, itself, exist within any realm of familiarity. At least, not in the physical sense.

Concepts like near and far and earlier and later - and "beyond" - are all rooted in the familiar abstractions that provide meaning within our limited realm of experience in the physical universe, and are governed by the laws of physics that pertain to this universe. In order for there to be a creator, this creator must exist within a realm beyond our comprehension, within which it is possible for a universe to be created.

This universe must be like a bubble within such a realm, although it is a bubble to which the term "outside" only applies to what is inside the bubble, since that term is understood from a perspective of a three-dimensional being. Within this universe, it is a misnomer to ask, "what is outside?" It is much like asking, "what is one mile North of the North Pole?"

My point is that there is nothing in my life experience that suggests that anything is absolute. Therefore, I cannot simply accept a notion - no matter how commonly accepted it is - that there is one, all-knowing, almighty, omnipotent super being that is responsible for creating this universe. Now, that is not to say that I discount the idea of the existence of a god - rather, it is to say that I do not accept the commonly held belief systems that revolve around a one-and-only "God".

Some would try to have me believe that there was no such thing as the "Big Bang" and that "God" created mankind out of nothing, as if by magic, and that the idea of evolution is an absurdity. I certainly do not have a problem with people believing what they want and choose to believe, but I do have a problem with people who try to impose their beliefs on me. I understand the tendency to want to hold on to something - to have some foothold or grounding to think that things are a certain, unchangeable way, so there is something solid (if only within a belief) to hold on to. Some people seem to need that. And I can understand that, because I have been there, myself. But I have arrived at my own conclusion that there is nothing solid, and accept the possibility that there may be no reason for existence. In other words, this may be all there is to life - this one and only chance - and that we may merely exist because it just happened.

Nobody really knows what the truth is. Some people believe they know. But the one and only truth in this world is that there is no one and only truth. And one thing that is certain is that no matter what one believes, it does not alter the truth.

It is strange to me that someone would discard the notion of a "Big Bang" theory over the notion of a god creating a living being out of nothing. I simply cannot accept the idea of a god creating a being out of nothing. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. In my mind, I have to question what makes that idea less absurd than the idea of the Big Bang?

Evolution is a fact. We can see it. We can track it. And we can - to some degree - trace it back into the past. Every year, the flu virus mutates, and every year, we come up with a new vaccine. Cockroaches are becoming resistant to bug sprays, because the ones with the genetic composition to survive are now breeding. That’s natural selection. Antibiotics are not working anymore, because the bacteria that has the genetic composition to survive is reproducing. Another example of natural selection.

Life is highly adaptable. It has to be to exist. The only thing that makes sense to me is evolution, for there is no other way so many species of life forms could co-exist within such a balanced system than if it was borne out of it. To me, it seems that people are arguing the wrong points when it is a conflict between evolution and creation. How do we know it wasn’t both?

There is a passage in the Bible that suggests the Earth was created in six days. This concept has always bothered me, because it is contradictory to itself. If the Earth did not exist, then what was a "day" measured in? And if it took six days to create it, what conversion factor was used against what time scale to determine that the elapsed time equaled six days, once the Earth was finally created?

The problem I have with the Bible is that it is so widely open to interpretation. The original texts were written hundreds of years ago in an old dialect of an old language, during a time when any texts of contrary nature were destroyed as blasphemous in order that a commonly held belief structure could emerge and remain. The translation of those old texts into English - or any other language - was, itself, open to interpretation. I don’t care what you say in what language, any time something gets translated, meaning gets lost.

The word or statement in the original texts that got translated into "six days" was, itself, taken too literally, in my opinion. One of the possible translations for what we read now as "days" was something akin to "periods of time" or "stages". It makes far more sense to me that the creation of the Earth was a process. Perhaps, if we could somehow go back and witness the creation of the Earth, we would see that there were six distinct phases of the development process. Or, perhaps, there are thousands of people today who are following the words of a lunatic.

I would have far more reverence for a creator that was smart enough (as "God" is supposed to be, if he truly knows everything) to know how to create a universe - to bring together the conditions that we understand to have been the "Big Bang" - and work with the resulting elements to shape and mold and direct it along a line of evolutionary phases until mankind emerged, than I would have for a creator that could just create a human being out of dust at the blink of an eye.

After all, if it is not ludicrous to think a god can create a human from dust, then why is it so ludicrous to think a god could create the Big Bang?

I am convinced that there is something beyond what we know to be familiar - perhaps even a "life after death". But I contend that it is something that we cannot comprehend - merely because we cannot experience it in this form - and I expect that it is totally unlike what anyone expects. After all, we can only interpret and form an understanding of the clues we are given, based upon what is familiar to us. I also feel that whatever is at the helm - whatever is responsible for all this - is directed by more than a single entity. Or, perhaps it is more like a collective intelligence of some kind. One can only guess.

And I am malleable. Because I do not know the answers and can only provide conjecture, my opinions and understandings as they are today could change tomorrow. Or a minute from now. And I will only ever say, "this is how I see it," and will never attempt to impose my perceptions on anyone else, thinking that they, too, should feel this way.

I think we are all here to learn our own lessons in order that we may each obtain our own level of enlightenment, and to share our perceptions with others. I am not about to live my life based on the teachings born out of the interpretation of some ancient writings. I do not like to feel locked into a particular way of thinking, and I will not allow my thoughts to be dictated to me. I am not a lemming.

I am free and have peace of mind knowing that I do not have to fear my thoughts. I also will not subscribe to a system that would have be fear my creator. I often hear people referring to the "fear of God." I know in my heart that if I created an intelligent life form, I would love it and care for it and provide for it and wish for the best for it, but I would never give it a reason to fear me.

I think a lot of people equate fear with respect. In reality, fear is the opposite of respect. Respect is something that is bred out of a positive influence. I respect people for being kind and giving and understanding and who offer to share their wisdom. I have no respect for anyone who threatens me (or anyone else for that matter). I also hold no respect for those who try to dictate how I should live my life. I do not share the notion that there is only one right way to live one’s life.

In fact, it is not of my opinion that there is even inherently such a thing as "right" or "wrong". These are concepts that we learn and that have largely been defined for us. Some things appear to be intrinsically right or wrong on the surface, but it is only our interpretation and our perceptions that determine how we interpret it. I think there is an intrinsic nature to "good" and "bad" - or at least "beneficial" and "detrimental" - but there is no one-to-one correlation between good and right, and bad and wrong. And I think this is a trap that many people fall into.

So, anyway, I think I have said enough for now. There could be no end to this, so I'll end it here. Just had to get it off my mind - take it or leave it.

Well...back to the computer circus!

[Take a deep breath here]