A belief statement

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We believe! Why?

Believe that life is worth living
   and your belief will help create the fact. ~ William James

Why is life worth living then?

The bible says...

1 Peter 3:15

¹⁵But make sure in your hearts that Christ is Lord. Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you about the hope you have. Be ready to give the reason for it. But do it gently and with respect.

How do you answer about your hope to someone who may not believe?

Faith is important but in our modern world so is being logical.

This is one of the ways we can explain what we believe and why…

We believe that we exist and that we are alive and know it. I guess than means that unlike other forms of life on earth that we can understand and make decisions to identify truth.

We would probably agree that it is probably reasonable to expect that most of us try to live a quality life daily. Also, most of us can decide on what is true and what is untrue, can't we? Then, independent of whether we agree or not, life is made up of a series of decisions we need to make, isn’t it?

This means that while living I will come across things that to me are true, and some other things are apparently untrue. I also realize my understanding of truth can be wrong without me knowing it. Belief progresses and is not a single experience.

Our belief statements grow as we live and develop them further.

At the moment, I believe that in order to understand truth, we must evaluate everything through our perceptions and to do that we focus our perceptions with logic.

Logic is learned by experience, and is perhaps better understood by more mature people. (Though this a bit of a generalization and sometimes not true. :) )

Since we live on earth, we must consider everything we experience in terms experiences in our daily environments. This should include using all history, art, science, and other disciplines to understand the boundaries between truth and non-truth.

To do this means that amongst other things we must face the current questions of evolution, human development and life, since these are key aspects in the truth determining process in current thought.

In these areas, I have some fundamental statements regarding my own current beliefs, but perhaps you may agree with some of them if they are investigated.

I believe that to date, nobody has given a sufficient explanation of how life originates.

Discussing life: To date no scientist can show how life originated. Not one! Nobody can even currently provide a plausible argument about how life could originate either on earth or in the universe anywhere. This means that currently there is no mechanism for development of life without allowing for there being an external force constructing the building blocks of life. What caused the improbable and unexplainable to come together and form life?

Discussing evolution: While I see the probability of the earth having formed out of the cosmos as being high, and evolution of life within species as being high, I see that Darwinian evolution dictates a migration from one species to another as mandatory to it’s process.

Now if this migration between species occurred, there should lots of fossils of these between species creatures, at least as many as any specific specie of the fossil found so far. This is logical, but when we investigate it appears that this does not appear to be so. This leads me to believe an external directing force needed to be involved with any interspecies evolution, if it occurred.

I must also state I am using the word “force” loosely. I am also not saying inter-species evolution did not occur, but I am saying that if it did there was some external force involved.

Now I do believe that this universe is uniquely made, and that science itself has posited that the probability of our existing by chance is extremely small. Options for disaster to occur by slight variances in balancing forces of various types outweigh success if this is the only Universe.

Then the level of complexity in the variation in densities of energy in the original “big bang” being setup perfectly for life to have occurred as it has, is so improbably, that the fact it did occur should probably be ascribed as a “miracle”.

Yet, we would all probably agree that science suggests that evolution is the current program by which we and our universe have reached our level of complexity.

So, despite the holes in this evolution theory which are as yet open and unproved, I accept that this universe, if it evolved, did so like a huge complex brain of immense proportions.

No person could ever have thought this all out and set it up, because we were not yet in existence when it occurred. So there was some other “brain” that did this. We have less thinking ability than that “brain” (I am using the term “brain” to refer to decisions driving the multiple laws, forces and processes of universe in which we exist).

So this “brain”, our highly evolved universe, is extremely complex and beyond mankind’s ability to fully understand at this point.

Now is it logical to state that anyone who says that this “brain” of our universe is the only “brain” of this complexity, is limiting possibilities and being narrow minded.

Following this logic there must be other “brains” other than the “brain” of our known universe.

This means that belief that there are other “brains” other than our known universe is LESS narrow minded that believing this one universe in which we live in is the only “brain”.

Now, if there are multiple “brains” of this nature, then it stands to reason that if we apply evolution then these other brains evolved from or were created from a source.

Therefore, I am suggesting that there is potentially an originating “brain” from which these others evolved, and contend that is what many people call “god”.

We can therefore state that those of us that believe god does not exist (atheists) are less broadminded than those of us who state a god probably exists (agnostics).

Then if a god exists, it seems logical that the god would probably want to leave a “signature” or evidence of his creation within his handiwork.

So, I guess the universal task of looking for truth would be an investigation within which this signature would be capable of being found. That finding this “signature” is a capability that should be available to anyone.

Now isn’t the ability to identify a signature or signatures (and obviously I am using this word in the broadest possible way) dependent on accepting that these “signatures” could exist?

This means that only those acknowledging that a god exists (even if they do not know him personally) are likely to see the evidence of these “signatures”.

That’s why we can say that agnostics(who believe in a god) are more broadminded than atheists who do not accept this, since atheists exclude themselves from the possibility of finding this truth.

It is also true that “agnostics” have the greatest potential of discovering the signature(s).

Understanding this, we must also accept as true the fact that different people could also “discover” multiple perspectives of what they consider to be THE “signature” without actually being correct.

So if there is only one correct “signature” or group of “signatures” hidden in creation, submitting other versions as being the correct one(s) would be interesting, but untrue and invalid. This would be true no matter how fiercely anyone holds to beliefs in these false signatures or signature groups being correct, right?

Isn’t it true that the only one who can know the signature(s) is/are correct, must be from outside the created universe, and hence must be a god out there somewhere?

Also isn’t arguing a signature is correct, limited and incapable of being evaluated without assistance of this god?

So a god who creates a person would probably want to interact, or even have a relationship with that person, and would establish a way to have such a relationship.

This means it is probably more broadminded to state that we believe a god does exist and may want to have a relationship with us, than to state such a god does not exist.

In other words agnostic’s who accept, but don’t know god, are more broadminded than atheists who deny the possibility of god’s existence.

Now, for the true “signature” to be correctly identified, the “god” would have to interact with the people in creation to enable this truth to be discerned correctly.

This means that it is broadminded to consider that a god exists, and this god potentially interacts and wants to interact with those of us within this universe that are alive and know it.

It’s probably that the god, if they exist, would not go counter to the known truths in unveiling how this universe was established, wanting to add to and expose truth rather than misdirect us.

Now I step to a region of my own personal belief and to which each person, I believe, needs determine and to develop for themselves. I am moving from logic to faith on this step, but this does not mean I do not have facts to back this migration.

I do NOT believe in an impersonal god, because at a point in my life development, at a time when I was in a no-win position (having totally screwed up my life), and where any action I could personally have taken to rectify it would have been negative, I was given a exposure to this god and the option to accept this god as the God in my life.

I had this option presented to me by an interaction with GOD and without being in a religious group, also without having any current knowledge of or respect for any religious person or persons at that time.

This was at a time when I was not even investigating anything spirituality and was looking for physical ways of saving my own skin from impending doom and pain. In fact, I was also looking for a way out without any subscription to the concept of good or evil. I was selfishly focused on self-preservation.

I believe that I was exposed to God at this time in a rather unusual specific way, simply because I as a person am very unlikely to accept God under any other conditions.

Hopefully you and others will have perhaps more friendly and supportive paths to this knowledge...

However I believe that God, once I had accepted him, moved me from atheist to believer, without passing me through that agnostic option. God then directed me to Jesus Christ and pointed to Him as his signature in this world, and as the source of truth.

This is a personal belief, expressed in faith, but consider this... if I encountered the true God, then it is also a true belief. I want to add my life experience to this point confirms this experience.

So, I believe in God, Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, as defined in the Nicene Creed and as exposed to us by the original texts from which the Christian bible was compiled and translated.

It is my duty to continue to explore truth and offer this evidence to everyone.

Yet, I believe that this pursuit needs to be done with respect and tolerance for those who are on this journey at different levels and without thinking in any way that we can be superior or sub-ordinate to any other person.

I believe that on the continuum of most broadminded to least, the believer in God is most broadminded, the agnostic believer lesser so, and the atheist believer the least broadminded of people.

Mostly, I believe that my daily relationship with this God gives me a vibrancy that those without it simply fail to achieve in their existence.

These are my beliefs.

The version of the Nicene Creed to which I subscribe is on my website for anyone to review. I do honestly pray for us all to reach a vibrancy of life found by acknowledging God and I suggest it is more reasonable to believe in God than to not do so.

For me this is true, I hope it is or will become true for you too!