It's been a long monday. I have two math problems left that are stumping me, so I thought the best way to overcome this problem would be to procrastinate and blog. Perhaps this cleansing of my spirit will free my brain of the casual worries of the day, and I'll suddenly be able to see the Matrix. Who knows! I may be able to bend a spoon with my mind eventually.
Nah.
I'm not quite that vain. Only marginally so.
Blergh.
This morning seems like ages ago, but Thanksgiving passed by in an unnoticeable blur. Time likes to play funny tricks on us. We used to have this book called "300 good, clean, jokes" that we would recite over and over again in our family. None of them were very good, but they were easily memorizable and touched the corniness in our hearts that came from our grandmother from Iowa. She says it was a corny state. Let me try to recount it to you in an even unfunnier fashion, but I promise it relates to the topic, so just bear with me for a moment. http://xkcd.com/365/
A man went to his doctor and asked how could he make his life longer. The doctor replied that he should get uncomfortable twin beds instead of a queen with his wife, never go on vacations, and try to stay away from any exciting foods. The man believed him but questioned how leading such a miserable life would make his life that much longer. The doctor quickly stated, "Of course it won't make your life longer! It will just make it seem like it lasts forever."
Another example: a fun class seems to last for 15 minutes while a boring one has the power to slow down the second hand that will never reach the bell until you fall asleep.
And yet, xkcd provides another lovely example to demonstrate the relativity of one person's experience of time to another person's.
http://xkcd.com/505/
Well, I guess the person who is placing all of the rocks is practically God, and the infinite time and space really beats any finite amount of time into milliseconds by comparison. But still.
Time is funny. I know this has not been the most intellectually stimulating musing on the nature of time, but these are my thoughts as of now. Perhaps I will never be able to return to my homework, and I will write here forever and ever. Poor reader. You know, you don't have any obligation to read this. Of course, I don't mind if you do. But the main reason I have started this is because I do not have one of those fancy astronaut pens that write upside down, and I don't like the desk I have, and I hate writing in my lap. The paper gets all flimsy and wavy. This is the easiest way of performing my own mental yoga or ear wax cleaning.
Who is God anyways?
I guess it could be possible for there to be no god at all. We all just feel the need to blame all of the things that don't make sense on some distant deity that takes responsibility for our universe. Or we just need someone to talk to at night without people thinking we're talking to ourselves. Or we need some political rallying point by believing in something in common. And religion makes us feel safer most of the time. The church has been a political, education, religious, social, intellectual, and artistic institution in years past and today. (Thank you Mrs. Harrell for giving us such an easy form to analyze institutions. PERSIA may be one of the most helpful mnemonic devices I ever learned in my secondary education.) We have always needed religious institutions, even if they may screw up sometimes with the Spanish Inquisition and the Children's Crusade. We can't deny that the church hasn't been helpful. I know I have only mentioned Christiany things so far. I would cite other examples, but I really don't know as much as I should about many religions. I wouldn't want to make an assumption about something I know nothing about.
Right, back to the random question.
Who is God?
People believe in him. That gives him power. Belief is a huge power that can wreck or save lives. I was searching for a study that Yale did that showed AIDS victims with a strong belief in some God created more t cells, but I accidentally stumbled upon this: http://www.healself.org/AIDS,HIV.html
ouch. I know this happens, but it wasn't what I was expecting and it just kind of hit me. Do people really believe in the laying of hands? Well, of course they do. Sorry, silly question. But why do they? Is there some evidence beyond placebo and random chance that it actually works? If someone out there would like to argue this with me, I would love to have a discussion. I would love to be able to understand what makes people who believe this tick.
I personally feel that it's easy to get caught up in a belief that isn't all of truth. Well, it's impossible to know all of truth, right? You can't know every tiny little thing about God/logos/truth or whatever we're calling it. So if you proclaim your own tiny vision of God as the greatest and that no other vision of God could have merit, you could be losing a greater perspective of all of reality. I hope this is clear. I could go into my disco ball of truth metaphor that I stole from Mr. Hollis, but I will save that for another day. Good night, interblag! http://xkcd.com/181/
Interesting thoughts, it was all well laid out, especially the God part, and here I was thinking you were a vehement believer who would never consider any other belief system. Apologies.
ReplyDeleteI for one find it illogical for there not to be a God. The simple belief that there is a being who can do everything is a lot easier and more believable than, "nothing exploded, everything was created". Occam's Razor is far easier to apply to God, I guess you could say.
I have the same question as you though, who is God? Is he the Christian God, a big invisible man in the sky, who loves everyone, and sent us his son to die for our sins? Is he just a natural force, not really meddling in our affairs, but directing us to an ultimate goal? I'm more inclined to believe the latter. I don't really think God is or should be concerned with individual affairs, like overcoming a disease or winning a war, because some situations, like winning something would have to result in two different dimensions to be possible.
For example, say two righteous nations went to war, both just as righteous as the other. What would God do if they both prayed for victory? He can't simply end the war, that's not victory, and he can't just favor one over the other. He'd have to create two different realities where each nation won in it's own seperate reality. Eventually there'd be so many realities it'd just be a big mess. Plus, when everyone went to heaven, there'd be multiples of the same person!
Therefore, I say that God does not care about human v human affairs, rather he cares about mankind v the universe. He definitely has a plan for mankind, and he loves mankind very much. However, I don't think God would concern himself with earthly affairs lest they affect his overall plan.
All religions are windows on the same thing.
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