Hello World
A recent study at Baylor University found that Americans who believe in a universal God are of four basic minds.
I'm personally in the Distant God camp and that makes for some interesting thoughts about science and the universe. If the Distant God indeed "sets the laws of nature into motion", then science is the "cat and mouse" game in which man attempts to figure out exactly what they are. Yet, as human beings, we are of the very thing -- nature -- we are attempting to figure out. And, that my friends, is the ultimate Catch 22.
Oh, we have made some inroads into understanding nature for our own purposes. Newtonian mechanics, for example, is the engine that drives engineering. But, Newtonian mechanics is, at best, an approximation. Indeed, every time we peel a layer off the physics onion, we gain a better understanding of just what the approximations are and get a little closer to the Truth. But, I fear that, regardless of how many layers we peel away, there will always be another layer just below the one we last peeled away that we must use to understand the next layer below that.
And, without being able to peel away that last layer to expose the ultimate Truth we can never fully answer the ultimate question, "Why?" We must live in Mystery.
So, just what is a body to do?
One option is to adopt a Faith that explains everything. One of my favorites is associated with the Hindu faith. It explains that the earth is supported on the back of a tiger, and the tiger is supported by an elephant, and the elephant stands on the back of a turtle. And the turtle? Well, from there it's turtles all the way down!
(Hmmm. There are my onion skins posing as turtles!)
As for me, I'll take the path that I'm a part of nature and nature is a part of me. And, while I'm never going to be able to fully understand nature, I'm going to study it and enjoy it until I'm returned to the dust from which I was came.
And, I can live with that.
Authoritarian God: Individuals who follow this model feel God is highly involved in their personal lives and world affairs. They give the Deity credit for their decision-making, and they feel God is angry and meting out punishment to the wicked.Demographically, the differences break down along educational, cultural, regional, and racial lines.
Benevolent God: These believers also think God is very active in their daily life, just not as wrathful. They believe Benevolent God is mostly a force for positive influence in the world, and reluctant to condemn individuals.
Critical God: The faithful of this subset believe God is not meddling in world affairs but is nonetheless looking on in disapproval. These people tend to believe that God's displeasure will be felt in another life, and that divine justice is not of this world.
Distant God: Individuals in this group think that Distant God is not active in humanities affairs, and is not especially angry, either. Believers consider the Deity more of a cosmic force who sets the laws of nature into motion.
I'm personally in the Distant God camp and that makes for some interesting thoughts about science and the universe. If the Distant God indeed "sets the laws of nature into motion", then science is the "cat and mouse" game in which man attempts to figure out exactly what they are. Yet, as human beings, we are of the very thing -- nature -- we are attempting to figure out. And, that my friends, is the ultimate Catch 22.
Oh, we have made some inroads into understanding nature for our own purposes. Newtonian mechanics, for example, is the engine that drives engineering. But, Newtonian mechanics is, at best, an approximation. Indeed, every time we peel a layer off the physics onion, we gain a better understanding of just what the approximations are and get a little closer to the Truth. But, I fear that, regardless of how many layers we peel away, there will always be another layer just below the one we last peeled away that we must use to understand the next layer below that.
And, without being able to peel away that last layer to expose the ultimate Truth we can never fully answer the ultimate question, "Why?" We must live in Mystery.
So, just what is a body to do?
One option is to adopt a Faith that explains everything. One of my favorites is associated with the Hindu faith. It explains that the earth is supported on the back of a tiger, and the tiger is supported by an elephant, and the elephant stands on the back of a turtle. And the turtle? Well, from there it's turtles all the way down!
(Hmmm. There are my onion skins posing as turtles!)
As for me, I'll take the path that I'm a part of nature and nature is a part of me. And, while I'm never going to be able to fully understand nature, I'm going to study it and enjoy it until I'm returned to the dust from which I was came.
And, I can live with that.
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