Thursday, October 23, 2008

Politics, Religion and Money #2

(All right, let's ride this SOB off the rails. Time for religion kids!)

I call myself an Agnostic. I think that may be wrong. I DO believe that there is something out there. I just don't have any freakin' idea what that is. There is something beyond our comprehension, and that may be the only for sure comment I make this whole post. No matter what you believe, there is no beginning to this whole thing...I mean life, the universe, the...is.

If you believe the science (which I tend to), and the theory of the Big Bang, you still have no beginning. So there was a hot, dense "initial state" that exploded (presumably with a BIG bang) and the universe was formed and continues to expand to this day... Fine. Where did the matter come from? What did it exist in prior to the bang?

If you believe that God created the whole thing (which I don't think has to be mutual exclusive to the above scientific explanation)...fine. Where did God come from? Where did he/she/it exist?

See, no matter what, there is something beyond our understanding as humans. We know that everything has a beginning and an end. Even the long, long, term stuff. Mountains. The sun. George Hamilton's tan. They all are going to end, and they all started somewhere. SOMETHING didn't. Something doesn't have a beginning, I don't know if it has an end, but it didn't have a beginning as we understand it...that is why I believe in something. It is bigger than my puny understanding, and I respect that.

Either on Laggin's or Ciii's site recently, I spoke of an analogy that sums up, for me, Organized Religion's attempt to define Spirituality and the something. If you teach a child to count from 1 to 10, and then to write out those numbers, he will recognize the numbers when he sees them. This does NOT mean he can do math. Hand him a Calculus book, and he will recognize the numbers, and from his limited knowledge base, believes he understands the book. He doesn't, but it is cute to listen to him try to explain it.

I believe this explains Organized Religion's (lets call it OR now) attempts to explain the something . Many humans recognize there is something out there. There have been many "special ones" through the ages that seem to grasp it, and even to teach about it. Humanity listens, recognizes the numbers, and tries to explain the Calculus book (*poof* OR). The problem is, it isn't that cute when we do it.

A quick aside. I am writing about religion, but I don't care for most atheists either. They are as annoying in their certainty as any fanatical religious believer. When there are so many things in the universe we don't understand, they are still SURE that there is no something. That kind of closed-minded certainty is, IMHO, what causes issues in all things.

Atheists love to blame OR for all of the problems of the world. They claim religion is at the heart of all the wars and fighting in the world. Ummm, the two largest losses of life, due to war or fighting, WWII and Stalin's "cleansing" of the Soviet Union, were caused by secularists...so, not so much on that argument.

Let's face it, we are not THAT much more evolved than other animals. Animals fight. They fight for food/water (We humans add stuff to the mix, but mark my words if animals had stuff they would fight over it. Come on, if a pack of wolves had a boat, you telling me they wouldn't fight other wolves (not to mention bears) to keep it?), territory, pack order, and breeding rights. We humans fight for the same things, we would fight if there were no OR, we just like to use OR to justify our fighting sometimes.


So, atheists use their certainty of a lack of something (Bill Maher I am talking about you.) to shake their heads in condescension at all the idiots who believe. They do what all the religious fanatics I can't stand do; use their belief to establish their superiority over those that "don't get it".

All right, enough Miko, people have shit to do. Next time, why people make their God a Son of a Bitch...

12 comments:

cIII said...

You could always join Me at the church of the Evangelical Agnostics.

-We Know that We Don't Know. And, that's Cool.-

Want a Beer?

That's our Motto.

Leslie said...

Yup. You hit the nail on the head for me. What is God? You can use that name or call it "something". Whatever. That there is something makes sense to me.

I do choose a form of OR, personally. Not that I buy the white beard and winged angels scene. Or any of the doctrinization or politics or "you shoulds" and "shouldn'ts". It's because after years of being away, I find comfort and peace in my hectic life...when I go. Not that I go regularly. But forcing myself to stop and think for an hour is a good thing.

Also? I like the history. Personal and world.

I love your acronym--OR. Perfect. Really.

HeatherPride said...

Miko, you went deep on me. Here I am posting a stupid story about a shirt and you're over here answering the questions of the universe. Or posing them, anyway.

I was born into a Christian household and so that is what I believe in. I had a period in my late teens/early 20s when I tried to be more worldly and questioned my religion a lot and sort of wandered around spiritually a bit. The wandering and the questioning got tiresome and I came back to my roots. It sounds trite to put it that way, but since faith is a tenant of any religion, I decided to quit with the questions and just have the faith. That's my story. I don't judge anyone else for their religious beliefs or lack thereof. I think God can come to us in many different ways.

Anyway, it's nice to meet you and I'm glad you stopped by The Short Bus!!

AC said...

miko-

yay, a whole blog of you! count on me to follow and comment, unless you ask me to cease and/or desist.

to my surprise, i agree wholeheartedly with your opinions this post and the one prior. hopefully you'll get to something soon that we disagree about rabidly, and then we can argue about it like gentlemen.

miko564 said...

Ciii- I want to join you at the church, but being agnostic I'm not sure if I will or not...

Laggin- I get pissed when someone says anybody who goes to an OR church is wrong. When my Grandmother was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, going to Mass on Sunday was the only thing that seemed to bring her peace. (Of course she never remembered how she got to church...)

Heather- Thanks for the return visit. Yeah, I don't know why I am on the deep-shit kick right now; I'm really just a sarcastic wise-ass. I think your knowledge that you returned to your roots because you weren't going to find all the answers, needed faith, and felt comfortable there is anything but trite.

AC- Yeah! It feels like an old friend stopped by my new job or something. I'm not that surprised, although we sure don't look, on paper, like we'd agree, it keeps turning out that way. I'll do gun control soon...THAT should stir up some arguing material.

minivan soapbox said...

Grrrr....Ok. I've actually come back here three or four times today - thinking I was going to say something meaningful...But nothing is really coming to me. I've ended too many conversations in my life with the phrase "Because I have Faith..." and was then laughed at...That I stopped discussing it. I love the fact that you are willing to believe in "something" because you realize that you aren't so "All Knowing" to say without a doubt that there isn't "something".

You KNOW I'm gonna have fun with gun control babe.

By the way - Will you be my Blog Boyfriend? :)

miko564 said...

K- I keep reading your comment, and I have a confession to make.

I'm kinda' stupid.

I can't tell if "blog boyfriend" is a cute catch phrase, bloggy flirting, or if it means I have to do something. Do we have to wear each others blog-rings? Can I date other bloggers? Blog-threesomes? Hmmmm?

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