Summary: I’m Agnostic. Not only do I not understand how so many people can be so sure that there is a God out there, but I completely disagree with people who think that their particular religion is right and all the other religions are wrong. I think that IF there is a God (and, clearly, due to the very nature of religion, I can’t prove that there isn’t one), that we must all worship the same one under different names and within different cultures. After all, religion is very cultural. How many people do you know who were raised Catholic and became Muslim, or raised Jewish and became Hindu, for example? I also think that if there is a God, that science and evolution are not in conflict with religion and that not all passages in the Bible and other religious texts should be interpreted literally.

Politics & Religion: I think that while religion is one way that people may agree upon the frameworks of morality that they choose to live by, that moral frameworks can be created by cultures, individuals and laws, too. Just because I’m not a Christian or Catholic does not mean that I am pro-choice (though I am not, and I am, even though I would never have an abortion myself), nor does it mean that I support the death penalty (an issue that various religious communities seem particularly divided over). Yet, in election after election, millions of people use religion both as a litmus test and an information shortcut when deciding which elected officials to vote for.

To be continued…

Science & Religion: Regardless of what you believe, what religion you are, trying to conceptualize the universe presents at least two equally incomprehensible possibilities–either that the universe is infinite or that it is finite. But it still strikes me as at least interesting that we continue to try to explain the currently scientifically unexplainable by having faith in something, or someone, that is unexplainable or who we will never know with certainty exists. What we do know is that, given enough time, anything even remotely possible will happen. What we don’t know is how much time there has been, and even if earth and the universe could have come to existence without a God, that still doesn’t rule out the possibility that there is one.

“Extrapolating backward in time, scientists have concluded that the universe seems to be expanding from a common origin about fifteen billion years ago” (Barbour, Ian)… and we have fossil records that are millions of years old. However, this contradicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible that suggests the world was created in six days merely a few thousand years ago. Of course, theoretically speaking, one could argue that these seemingly conflicting stories may be reconciled because “the relativity theory in which the quantification of time is in reference to the observer…” and God did not create Adam until the sixth day (Schroeder, Gerald). Also, the first two days, there was no Earth, and so time could not have been Earth-based. A projection proposed in The Science of God assumes that “time takes hold with the appearance of matter” and estimates Day 1 as 8 billion years, Day 2 as 4 billion years, Day 3 as 2 billion years, Day 4 as 1 billion years, Day 5 as 1/2 billion years, and Day 6 as 1/4 billion years, which equals 15-3/4 billion years (or 6 24-hour days). Of course, it is difficult to prove whether this is even near accurate or not, but it is at least one plausible way to reconcile this huge difference. Especially considering that “If energy of the big bang were different by one part out of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, there would be no life anywhere in our universe” (The Science of God). Still, it is possible that life started by chance, given enough time.

Evolution: Coming Soon

Women & Religion: Coming Soon

Why a Literal Interpretation of the Bible Doesn’t Fit:

“The account of each of the first three days of the creation week closes with ‘… and there was evening and there was morning…’ Nothing unusual about that until we arrive at the fourth day to discover that only now does the author produce a sun.” – The Science of God

“Adam is old that if he eats of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he shall surely die. So what does Adam do? As typically human, he eats it. And then he lives another 930 years.” – The Science of God

To be continued…

And What About the History of Religion? Religion, it seems, historically originated and continues to serve as an attempt by man to understand the world around him. However, in trying to discover the origins of religion, a historical view seems insufficient to determine how and when religion began, as much is left open to interpretation. Though, evidence does seem to support the view that religious and spiritual beliefs originated with human beings, and not earlier in evolutionary history (largely attributable to the larger human brain capable of forming much more complex philosophical ideas).

If you consider the act of burial an illustration of religious practice, then religious history could go as far back as somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. Of course, burial also could have begun as a purely personal, ceremonial practice or it could be done to prevent the spread of disease.

To be continued…

Other Interesting Quotes:
“The Hebrew word for evening is erev. The root of erev is disorder. The Hebrew word for morning is boker, its root being orderly, able to be discerned… The Bible declared a step-by-step flow from disorder (erev) to order (boker).” – The Science of God

Religious Humor: “Brian: Where are we?   Stewie: This is quahog, Brian. Same year, same time. But in this universe, Christianity never existed, which means the dark ages of scientific repression never occurred, and thus, humanity is a thousand years more advanced.” – Family Guy