Thoughts On Getting Older

You probably don't come to this blog to read about religion. To be honest, flying and motorcycles are the two topics with which I'm most familiar, so I kind of stick to them. But as I get older, my faith becomes more and more important to me. And so now I write about that. I'll try to be brief. But you know how that goes...

I don't know whether you believe that there is a Creator or not. But I'm sure you understand that there are many, many people for whom the belief in a Creator is a central part of their very being. Like me. I've run it through my brain six ways from Sunday, and while we cannot scientifically prove the existence of the Creator, neither can we disprove it (and no, evolution does not disprove God's existence). My gut, my eyes, my heart...and my brain...tell me that this world of ours was deliberately created for some reason, probably our benefit. And so if it was created, there must be a Creator! For the sake of convenience, many of us call this Creator “God.”

Now, I believe in God, but I cannot tell you what to believe. However I would hope that you can make a little room in your heart and mind for the possibility that our existence here is not due to happenstance. Because if we were created, then our lives here are not meaningless. If there is a God, and if He created us, then it must have been for some purpose. That's good enough for me. The quest for knowledge begins...

Wikipedia tells us that there are something like 10,000 distinct religions in the world. Obviously there is something deep within us that makes us want to believe in a higher power. I see no harm in this. We can argue all day long about whether belief in God is a positive or a negative thing. I say: What difference does it make as long as we both agree that our time spent here should involve doing good for “the tribe” (i.e. everyone else on the planet). You do it your way; I'll do it mine.

Speaking of religion - the concept of infinity used to bother me. Not anymore. Not since my personal epiphany that we are part of God, not separate from Him as many contend. Imagine our whole universe being just an atom in God's bloodstream. (A simple analogy, I know, but humor me.) We circulate through His veins in an eternal journey, one that has no beginning nor end. Infinity!

Or maybe we're just a figment of God's imagination. Maybe we exist only within His brain. Our world certainly seems solid and “real” enough to us, but maybe it's not.

Either way – and they both work for me – the end result is that we are a part of God just as much as God is a part of us. Most Christians do prefer to think that God created us separate from him. I disagree.

“Oooooh,” some Christians wince at the thought. “Then are you saying that we are God?”

In a way, yeah. We are a part of Him, but yet we are not Him. How did John Lennon put it? “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.” Maybe Lennon was onto something there.

The truth is that we do not know...we cannot know...and will never know. We puny humans cannot possibly conceive of what our Creator is really like. Some say that He made us in His image, but which image is that: Physical or spiritual? I do not think that the entity that created us has human physical qualities. But who knows?

A lot of organized religion is about behavior control. You must follow these rules if you wanna get to heaven. By and large, rules are good for society. But sometimes it gets kind of silly. My Mormon friends are not supposed to partake of “hot” beverages (e.g. alcohol and such). Am I consigned to hell for having a cup of coffee every morning and the occasional beer at night? I don't think so. We Catholics have no such prohibition. Oh, and rules change over time. We used to not be able to eat shellfish or pigs, remember.

...10,000 different religions.

I split hairs and tell people that I'm spiritual but not religious. They counter with, “Well, if you believe in God then you ARE religious by definition. HAH!” Okaaaay, well you got me there.

A lot of Christians believe that we were put here to serve God. But I think that we serve God best by serving our fellow man. So rather than subscribe to the beliefs of any one particular religion, I prefer to follow Christ's example and be a servant to man. That's servant, not slave. And it's not as simple as it sounds. In fact it's quite hard. But it is my philosophy, and I try my best.

“CHRIST?!?!?” the atheists screech. “I was kind of with you on this Creator stuff, but who the hell said anything about Christ? Sheesh!”

Well...if we believe in a Creator, then I think it's entirely logical and plausible that the Creator sent us someone in our human form to be an example of how we should live. Thus, Christ.

You may not agree with my specific beliefs here. That's okay. But if all people, believers and non-believers just followed Christ's example and unselfishly lived their lives in service to each other, what a wonderful world we'd have, eh? Unrealistic? Maybe so. But it starts with us individually.  I just wish that I'd thought of this when I was younger.