Mind Blowing Thoughts
There are some things that are just beyond our understanding. I do not mean something that we can discover or understand if we only study or concentrate on it long enough. I am referring to those things which we will never find an answer in our lifetime.
Start with time which has no beginning and no ending. How do we know there was no beginning? Scientist would have us believe that the beginning of time was when an explosion of some minuscule amount of material perhaps the size of an imperceptible atom occurred, which was the start our universe. But where did that minuscule amount of material come from? Wouldn't that in and of itself indicate that time existed before the explosion? Something or someone had to provide the material through which the universe and therefore time first began.
The Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions believe that God created the universe, and so God obviously existed before the beginning of the universe. So where did God come from? The Bible says that He has existed for all of time. So when was the beginning of that time when God suddenly existed? Certainly there is a number of days since the moment that God first started thinking of time passing. As an omniscient God, He could tell us how many days have passed since then. Will we know the answer to that someday in Heaven?
And what about God? The Christian faith believes in the Trinity: a single God that has revealed Himself to us in three distinct ways as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Each one is fully God, yet scripture tells us that once a person accepts Jesus as their Savior, God the Father who is all-knowing no longer remembers our sin. When God the Father looks at us, He only sees Jesus, not our sinful nature. Yet God the Spirit is not only aware of our sins, but compels us to seek forgiveness of our sins and to strive not to sin. Yet this is still the same, single God.
And look at Matthew 3:13-16 where God the Son is being baptized by John while God the Spirit comes out of heaven in the form of a dove and God the Father speaks from heaven. How could all three "personalities" or "revelations" of God be present at the same time when They are only One? Star Trek tried to depict this with the Q which was comprised of many all-powerful beings who were all the Q. But that is not how scripture reveals God to be. There is only One God, not three beings which make up One God. And while we are discussing God, what about God the Son: Jesus, who was born to a virgin; Jesus who was fully God and yet fully man; Jesus, who died and yet is alive today?
I am not particularly found of philosophy, so I will let the geeks who enjoy spending their time dwelling on mind blowing, impossible to explain subjects continue this discussion. When I am faced with such unexplainable theoretical or theological statements or questions, I fall back on my faith in God to handle the impossible. Some may call this a copout, but I prefer to use my mental time musing on things that are attainable rather than pondering on the imponderable.
Comments
I sometimes like to think of people like Jesus and Muhammad just being immensely philosophical people who led amazing lives and were able to sacrifice so much to try to help people learn(especially in the case of Jesus). It could be possible that those people went on a "spirit journey" and had a hallucinogenic experience that they attributed to divine inspiration by GOD.
We could go on for days on the subject. At this point in my life, I mainly try to respect others and try to be a good person, help people in need, be supportive of my friends. However, I'm torn because of what the Catholic Church and religions in general represent. SO much pain and suffering has been caused by religion, but we need to focus on the collective good of humanity. God would want that for us if we in the process can become better human beings. Be thankful for being alive! Love your enemy if you have to! I just don't think we need religion to do things like that.
I'd love to continue this conversation.
Many evil things have been done in the name of Christianity and other religions, but that does not mean they were things ordained or condoned by God. God's original plan was for a utopia, but His creation (man) could not accept the one rule placed on him. That brought about the process of death, decay, and the destruction of man. Much of that happens because of our selfish desires.
Religion in itself is not bad. It is actually something that God ordained and honors: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
(James 1:26-27) But we have created our own forms of religion and have shut out God. We don't like what God says, so we make things comfortable for ourselves, once again selfishness.
You must come to God through faith, putting aside all of your personal ideas and desires. Faith is perhaps one of the most misunderstood things. People seem to find it easy to put their faith in science when so little of it has been proven true. Or we put our faith in others when they often fail us. Read Romans 11 for a better understanding of faith. We have such a vast historical record of what God has done throughout history (the bible) that having faith God will continue to do what He has promised should not be that difficult. Certainly not as difficult as believing that everything in the universe came from a speck of matter when nobody has yet explained where that matter first came from itself.
But science is not something that is in contrast to the bible. It actually supports it whenever science finally reaches the proof for their theories. The bible stated the world was round long before scientists discovered that. The bible stated that the earth revolved around the sun long before scientists discovered that. The bible mentioned cities and events that scientists latter discovered to be true based on other historical documents. I personally believe that scientific knowledge would grow much faster if scientists started with biblical truths and worked from there rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
No other religion has as much historical and scientific support for the validity of their teachings. The Christian bible was written by multiple people over thousands of years time, yet the teachings found within are completely compatible and do not contradict each other. That is because God directed them in what they were to write. Prophets foretold all of the events of Jesus and everyone of those were proven in Him and documented by four separate men. And the Dead Sea Scrolls, found hundreds of years after the bible was compiled into one book, have proven that the biblical texts have not changed in all of that time.