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.

want vs. need

I wrote in my moleskin journal about this a year ago when I was in the mountains with my family.
I want to do an analysis of want vs. need in a materialistic setting, but also explore want vs. need in terms of the human condition.
We all want things in life, and more often than not, the newer the better. So how does this mindset come about? What does psychology teach us about ourselves when determining what we want in life? We want cars(new and old), cameras(new and old), toys(new and old), houses(sometimes old and new), instruments(sometimes old and new), computers(definitely new, but sometimes old), etc. So what separates wanting something new vs. old? Personally, I think it's aesthetics over actual functionality. You don't want an old Apple II computer so you can run Adobe CS4 on do you? Of course not, it won't even work. You want that computer so you can feel nostalgic, embrace the time period it was invented in, collect it, or even sell it for profit for more things you may want. We want new things because we think they will serve us better and help us handle life better. Cars? You better believe people want the latest and greatest models, but there are also collectors that want old relics because they think they aesthetically look and feel better. But what about wanting happiness? Wanting comfort and stability?
Getting back to why we want things in life... We want things because we think they will make our lives easier, happier and in more control. We are almost always striving to want to become better humans, to want to fit into society, etc. This is not true for every human, as their ideas of want in the categories of improving upon self and materialism never meet. Sometimes, people that don't want to better themselves as humans are mentally disturbed or they are just incredibly lazy. The general consensus of what humans want in life is to become better. So do we want material things to make us better humans, or is this a selfish desire? I think this is a little of both and this is also where you begin to see want vs. need bleed together.
You need only a few things in life to actually survive as a human being. You need food to live, shelter to protect you from the elements, sleep, and... well, that's really it! I could expound upon that by saying you need happiness and laughter to stay sane, but these are not material items. You also need in your shelter electricity to see, gas to stay warm, etc. Do you need a car and transportation to get that food? Yes and no. You could walk to wherever you are going, but that takes time, and also places stress on your life, which may eventually cause you to be unhappy, and even more, possibly depress and kill you. This is a pretty broad statement, because one can obviously live as a homeless person and possibly be happy. More often than not, these people are sad, lonely, and long for a better life. Certain spiritual non-materialists only want food and shelter, but also maintain that they are bettering their relationship with God or a higher power by doing this. You don't need a car because you can take public transportation. You may or may not be happy or sad with this, but from the looks of it, you need public transportation and travel(depending on your region). Some people don't have cars and are completely happy. This is where want vs. need becomes a little blurry because want vs. need is also affected by culture and our surroundings.
Let's get a little deeper... if I'm beginning to see a need for certain things in life to keep me happy, does that make me a better or worse human being? This gets even fuzzier, because this is where spirituality can kick in. I may have everything I could possibility want and need in the world, and still not be happy. You see this with many successful business men, who in turn, kill themselves. For me personally, I don't need much. I need shelter(my home that I bought, or an apt or house I could rent), my car(to travel to my place of work to earn income), food(bought with income), friends and family(to stay happy and sane) and God(to challenge my continuing search of purpose in life). This is different for everyone, but that's my list of actual need vs. want. It's not much is it? To me no, but to a monk, it's probably a few more items than they would have on their list. All of the other income I have left over is essentially disposable and can be used for things I want. My main area of focus here is God, family and friends - relationships. I want and need that, and it works quite well saying you want and need this. It's not selfish stating you want it and you obviously need family and friends and God(need not apply for atheists) to survive and be happy. Do people live without family, friends and God and not need them? Sure, but I think they are only kidding themselves, because you need relationships in life.
So how many people think about this in their life time? I have no clue, but I wish more people would think more openly about this. It's a little bit of a scatter brained post, but I just wanted(pun intended) to see the difference between want and need and to see if they were interchangeable and to what extent they are interchangeable.

a man on the moon

Just watched 'In the Shadow of the Moon.'

These 2 guys that walked on the moon, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, took something very special away from them when they viewed Earth from the moon - how incredibly small we are in the universe. Something else that Neil spoke about was how he just didn't understand how in the slightest bit any of life or purpose could be a complete accident. I tend to agree with him, and I honestly I don't even care if I'm wrong when I die. When I cease to think that this planet was put here for a reason, that the people that inhabit it are just circumstance, it makes me not even care to be a part of it or to even try to contribute. Why would I care about the well being of the planet I live on or even the people that dwell on it if there wasn't a purpose for me as I lived here? Morals would be nullified and I would roam the land only savaging for food and shelter - but this is .000001% of the purpose of humans. Sure we need food and shelter to live, but what else do we need to strive as humans? We need purpose. We were given intelligence, whether it was intelligence evolved from a single celled organism to what we are today, or some other form of creation. We were created in the eyes of a Maker, and that Creator is God Almighty. Natural selection and evolution have a purpose. This universe has a purpose, or it wouldn't be here. Existence in itself has purpose. The absence of existence is non-purpose and nothingness.

Lord, I have doubted your presence for almost a year now. I have encountered days of heartache, disappointment and thoughts of emptiness and isolation. I have cried out to you o Lord, wanting to see your face in the simplest of things. Generations have come to pass, and we are still left with wonder and amazement of your Being. Mockers shall mock us as from the dawn of man. Let the disbelievers live their lives in disbelief. Let the believers rejoice in the life you have given. Let the believers know that they have a purpose in You. Here I am, part of a new generation of believers and disbelievers. I am surrounded by those of faith and those of doubt. I beg of you Lord, to show me the path You have set before me. I beg of You to show me Your glory, to show me Your love, and to show me Your compassion. In a world filled with murder, hatred, violence, injustice, envy, anger, wrath, destruction, lust and greed, I ask for you to let your Light shine upon our human race. I ask Lord for you to show yourself to those who know not of you, and to those who know of you and have turned away, to turn again to you. Hear my prayer Lord, and grant me wisdom in You. Give me a child's faith and a heart after You. Let my thoughts and actions have a purpose in You.