let the two then shake hands

Let science and faith then shake hands.

Does not each need the other? Doesn't science need ideas about reality to explore the way in which reality, and even non-reality may work? Why would science refute philosophy or faith? Instead, let it happily wager the challenge as a friend.

Personally, I don't get angry now when new science comes about to explain the world. When I questioned the existence of God because of new findings in science, I began to realize how silly I was. What is even more amusing to me, is how quickly and frequently the foundations of science change, and how consistent and always present God has been. There is no formula or complication in God, he just IS. If he wasn't simple and readily available to every human who seek Him, what kind of loving God would He be?

I have been amused today when I started reading an article today on Scientific American about how Einstein was afraid the notion of quantum mechanics would throw his theories of relativity and the everyday physics as we know today out the window. Well, his physics are still with us today, but just as we look out to the stars at the seemingly infinite vastness, we are now turning our microscopes inward to seeing an even smaller universe at the molecular level. Why then does science pride itself into thinking it will one day know all the answers about how reality works, when we continually keep finding new evidence that blows old theories out of the water? Could this not go on forever? You then begin to see that we may never understand our world completely and we may even become extinct before we figure that out. I'm not saying we shouldn't try, what I am getting at, is there needs to be halting of the fisticuffs between science and faith. There needs to be a friendship.

Vatican claims Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html

Science and religion can and should co-exist. It has in the past, and it's not until this decade that there has been such blatant opposition by secularists and atheists.

intelligence

If we revere intelligence as something well-respected and worth achieving, why would it be preposterous to think something more intelligent created us?

Which is more intelligent to think or believe: something came from nothing, or something came from something? Both of which can be valid arguments.

Intelligence is a 21st century dressed up word for wisdom. Review history for human thoughts regarding wisdom.

Which then is more intelligent, the one who asks questions or the one who makes statements?

Hope

What then, shall we think about hope? Since this is not a tangible item, what good does it do for us? If one has hope, one must go on. If one does not have hope, one will not go on. How has the concept and idea of hope, perpetuated human kind?

Why is it that atheistic regimes are not around today, and if they are, are not fairing well against representative democracy? Why do small atheistic regimes spring up in history and are then quickly stamped out by the surrounding 'goodness' in our societies? Don't the people that stop these regimes, the so called religious nuts, offer hope and aid to stop this suffering? Don't the secular societies stand by and watch(to each their own, your tears are like water)? If these secular societies don't help, what good are they doing for human kind? If hope is offered and the killing stops, haven't we progressed as humans? Haven't we been able to allow evolution and mother nature to run its course in this sense? Why aren't barbaric principles, best man for himself, and other primitive ideas around today? Does the tribe that does not believe in God and eat each flourish and spread their ideas around the world? These tribes have not flourished and rather, religion has snuffed these tribes out. If our species still exists today, then why is religion considered so damaging to the human condition and the 'evolution' of our kind? Can it not be said that religion has actually contributed to the advancement of mankind?

Hope and goodness perpetuates mankind. Without these ideas, we would be extinct.

How then can we keep our values, but dispel God? Simply put, and by Nietzsche for that matter, we cannot.

On a separate note, Christopher Hitchens, famous anti-theist(or however else you want to dress your beliefs Mr. Hitchens: atheists dress their beliefs like a Christmas tree, just like theists do with their various denominations), is an asshole. I would not let him into my tribe/home/community/group and I hope the grace of God falls upon him, because I will not give it to him. I know that I'm not preaching forgiveness as I normally try to do, but rather, from a point stating that if he is an asshole to everyone, his kind will be sussed out by other humans - it's been proven by history once, and it will be proven again. To the dismay of the science/darwinian-lusting atheists(and I say lust because I love science, but I don't lust after it), evolution will stamp out these people, whether or not they want to believe evolution is a product of a greater Good, or dare I say, God. So in turn, these so called idiotic religious nuts are some how programmed to perpetuate their kind, whether they know it or not.

Atheism is like a fish out of water, gasping for air, and not believing the water he would be placed back into would save him anyways.

naps

I have more thoughts run through my mind in 15 minutes of a daytime nap than in an entire day of being awake. I wish I could write them in this blog in real time instead of trying to remember them when I awake.

Death

For the past 6 months to a year, all I can think about is death.

It's an awful, horrible feeling. The thought of my consciousness ceasing to exist really upsets me. I know there have been times in my life when I was younger where death didn't even cross my mind. I specifically remember one time I was with my father on top of mount Currahee, preparing for a day of top rope climbing. I was putting my harness on and I wasn't even close to the edge of the cliff, but my father insisted that I take a few steps back and just be extra cautious. I sort of laughed at the matter and said, 'It's not a big deal Dad, if I die, I know where I'm going.' It was a bold statement, but something I felt 100% confident at the time. Dad got a little frustrated with me and said something to the degree of I can't believe you would jeopardize your life and you should be cautious no matter what. I could tell it was more of an attitude for caring for his son than it was the thought of my personal belief in the afterlife. I look back on that same incident now and I think I was absolutely mad! If I died then, not only would my life on earth be no more, but my family would be put through an incredible amount of grievance. Now my thought pattern consists of, 'If I die, then A. I will meet my Maker and be judged upon my actions and devotion to Him or B. I won't know I'm dead because my consciousness will cease to exist. Put religion aside for just one moment and think about that - your consciousness, everything around you, becomes nothing. You won't know it, because your mind is no longer there. I've read articles and articles about true death being the mind ceasing to fire neurons, etc. But what really happens when you die? We have been dying for centuries, but no one knows what happens when your mind and heart cease to function. To the atheist, it means your body has ceased to work and you have no more consciousness, to a Christian, it means your soul(separate from your mind and body) will be in a new realm in front of the Almighty. We place ourselves above our ecosystem and other animals, because we state that we have souls and consciousness, whereas other animals don't. Now, studies are being done to see if in fact animals have consciousness, such as bees. If bees are in fact aware that they are conscious of their life, does that mean they have thoughts of an afterlife? Is the thought of afterlife itself a fabrication of the evolution of our minds?

So death... why does it scare me so much now, than it ever has in my life? I've always known I was going to die, no telling when, but that my life would end. You don't really stop to think about it sometimes, but we are slowly dying from the moment we are born. I'm 26 now, and God-willing, still have a full life ahead of me... but even still, my days are numbered on earth. I may not be here in the next 3 minutes to finish this blog, and I may die in my sleep, and I may die on the way to work tomorrow. Does anyone want to truly die? Right now, I don't want to die because I'm extremely confused and hoping time will help me sort things out. The thing that scares me is that I will never have the peace that I once had as a young believer, leaving my faith in constant question. So why does death scare me and not other very, very strong believers in any faith? How can you psyche yourself out of the fear of death? I consider myself to be in a very middle ground with my faith right now. Part of me knows everything will be fine and my relationship with God will pick back up, but a part of me thinks its all down hill from here, I'm on my own and when I die, I cease to exist. So do atheists think people of faith just use their belief in God to comfort their own death, ceasing to exist, and do Christians think atheists are foolish and gambling their life by not having faith in God? Yes and yes. It's a constant struggle, and it's what keeps going on in my mind day in and day out. God, or not God? Sounds simple right? Probably the toughest question to ever face mankind.

I want to conclude with something we as a species are flawed with - pride. We have pride that we know everything, that we are better than everything, and that we can and eventually will figure out everything in the universe. That because we have become so smart, we can rule out the existence of silly religion, of miracles, and of other supernatural occurrences. We have become more smart in the sense that we can modify our bodies, make inventions to make our lives easier, and sure, we maybe able to live to 300 one day, but does that really change who we are as species? No, we are just adding on and hacking our surrounding world. It doesn't stop pain, poverty, suffering, sin, even though we are trying to stop it. We will be the most advanced species to ever have lived on Earth in 500 years, with new technologies for learning and growing, but will we cure greed? Pride? Lust? Envy? These are embedded in us and aren't going anywhere. Maybe I'll be wrong in 500 years and we have completely changed our genetic makeup to rid of all these flaws, but for now, and for my generation, I will continue believing in God.

less suffering means less God

Does less suffering mean we rely or need less of God?

When I think about this question, I think about how man has relied on God throughout history. I also tend to think how religion has evolved from culture to culture and it's evolutionary impact on today's modern society. Religion is not the same as when it started. This is obvious, but one must investigate to see what is really going on between man's relationship with God.

I am by no means a history buff, and I probably won't even have all of my facts straight. During the time of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, people relied or feared multiple gods. They feared that if they did something wrong as people that the gods would strike them with lightning, destroy their crops, dry up their rivers and make their women barren. There was a sort of 'touchy' relationship with the gods that if you obeyed and appeased them, you would enjoy a lavish life of feast and blessings. People relied on this line of thought to survive in life. If they didn't appease the gods through daily worship or offerings, the gods would spite them and destroy their lives and culture. This line of thinking continued through newer, but streamlined religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. This is when the idea of many gods became simplified to one God almighty. But still, the same line of thinking remained - if you weren't in the right with God, you would be punished, as can be seen implicitly in the Torah, Old Testament and the Qur'an. People of these faiths would also make daily sacrifices and do what they needed in their own religions to please God, in turn, may have meant less suffering. Some religions began to cope with suffering, stating this was a way of life, and God must still be worshiped even in suffering. I know this is a reoccurring message in Christianity, but I'm not positive about Islam and Judaism.

So now there came about more of a personal relationship with God, rather than a fear-invoked line of reasoning that you didn't know and understand what the gods would do, just what you had to do to stay alive. Once the personal relationship with God began to develop for societies, the more they began to abuse the relationship. Enter God's wraths, the Ten Commandments, etc. This is a part in history where there was still a heavy ideology placed on suffering and God's involvement in human life. It was a 2 way relationship, whereas before, it was a 1 way relationship - you pleased the gods and they didn't wipe you off the earth.

Moving forward just a little bit, Jesus Christ came to the earth, suffered for all of humanities sins and rose on the 3rd day to sit beside God Almighty. This is the Christian belief system, the one I know best, and the one I will base my thoughts on suffering. So there came a big sense of relief and 'sighs' when Jesus did this, because no longer was God the angry, quick tempered deity that was previously described in earlier scripture and generations passed. People began to see that it was O.K. to sin, they would still suffer a little, but the pressure was seemingly relieved by God. This is also what separated the church, Catholicism and Protestantism. Catholics stated you would also be saved by God's grace, Protestants stated there was always room to screw up your relationship with God. Now, I want to interject a very, very important point here. Society was beginning to develop more during this time. Republics/democracies were in their infancies and people became technologically and environmentally smarter. People in turn, began to rely less on being scared by their gods/God and more about what they didn't know how to do/prevent. This is a bold statement, and I am by no means discrediting God here, I am simply asking the question - Has technological advancement created less suffering and in turn, since there is less suffering, do we rely on less of God?

Fast forward to the Enlightenment. Here we have new thinkers, enlightening our culture with new inventions, ideas, and in a sense almost abandoning their worship of God to pursue what will make human life better. Until this point, people thought whatever they did, was controlled by God in a metaphysical sense. Many of these thinkers wanted a life that was explained outside of God and you can almost say this was the early stages of atheism/agnosticism/skepticism. Sure these thinkers still attended church regularly, but there was another side of them that stayed in labs at night and away from the public and governments eye. Religion and government were always closely tied, and still are to an extent today. The government/church threw out the ideas of Galileo and Copernicus saying the world was round and not the center because it opposed what they thought of the world based on their religious beliefs: humans and our planet is the center of the universe - we are the most important thing to God. We all know that they later ate their words and from that point on(or sooner) began to realize the benefits of understanding the world we live in. They also realized they could use this technology to form a more stable society, and also meant for a way to control society.

Fast forward to present day. We live in a society(outside of the Bible belt and many fundamental religious countries) that doesn't care whether you worship God/gods or not. Technology as we know it has caught up to meet all of human needs to make us live longer, safer and do the things without the fear of God. Some think this is great, but some, like myself, are very, very cautious and almost terrified of this. Humans have created a society that is so self-efficient that we rely less on God because we suffer less. If I have a common disease, I probably won't die - like the old days - so I would in turn pray less and just go to the doctor for a quick fix. This is the same line of reasoning for many diseases, injury, food, etc. The main problem with this line of thinking is there is still mortality, and we all die. No matter how efficient we become as a culture, we all die. What happens when we are able to regenerate ourselves, live immortally, etc? Honestly, I don't know. I know that generation and the philosophies within that generation will have a very tough time arguing on the side of God, because we will essentially have no need for God if we can allow our physical minds and bodies live forever. But if we eventually learn how to live forever, there will still be doomsday, because the universe or our galaxy will supposedly come to an end. Again, all this is speculation.

So what is next? Is Christianity(and other religions) undergoing an 'upgrade?' Are we living in a time that just like computers and other technological upgrades, in need of Christianity 2.0 or 3.0? If we want Christianity to stick around, it has to conform to modern times. I don't think any religion or faith will ever be completely lost, but I do think in order to preserve it's integrity, it must be continually examined. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. People and societies have changed, along with their inventions. What still remains, and what we don't have an answer to, is why we are here and what is our purpose. As long as this question remains, I think we will always have a reason to search for something in life, and hopefully continue to find God in that search.