Musings on the teachings of God - by Annette Weir

As I was sitting in the beauty salon waiting for my turn, I started thinking about a few things that might make you roll your eyes, but to me they are kind of curious. With everything that is going on in our world today, especially another war, most of which is really nothing new, since there have been wars and conflicts since the beginning, I began to ponder some things. I started thinking about the Garden of Eden. God set it up perfectly so that Adam and Eve would be in the chips with no worries.  

Now, here is where it gets interesting, at least to me. God knows everything before we even think or say it. Therefore, since he created those two as humans, he had to know that they had shortcomings because they were not perfect, like he is.  So, when he left a temptation, a specific fruit, and declared it off limits, he was testing their belief and faith. Then, when he returned to the Garden (remember they never saw him, they only heard him, yet, they did see and hear the slippery snake devil who convinced them to go ahead and fall into the trap), he had to know that they had disobeyed what he had asked them not to do.  

He could have destroyed them at that point, but instead he chose to show them that there are consequences to our actions, which leads us to the way our human race is today. And as humanity went on and still did not get the message, he decided enough was enough and gathered a few people to build an ark because he was about to flood the earth and destroy everything. This introduced the second stage of our existence. Once the floods receded, a new set of humans were going to start.

Stage 2: This time, however, God sent his son in human form so that everyone could see and hear directly from the savior, rather than depend on the earthly dreams of others, or on the prophets forecasting about and describing who God is. (although there were some that were good at interpreting dreams) – all the things that HE was all about. 

You could touch, hear, and watch all the wonderful things Jesus did. He healed many, fed the masses on a hillside with just a basket of bread and fish. (I wonder if that fish was cooked. Could be the beginning of sushi I suppose). But I digress. In addition, he raised some from the dead. He spoke to that crowd without any audio system, yet all heard him clearly. So, he continued telling and showing everything there was to know about his father, God.  Many got the message, but some did not.  We can only imagine that those who didn’t, simply weren’t convinced He was a savior, or were merely scared of what would happen to them if they spoke out in agreement with his teachings.  So, as the story goes, he was crucified for being a good guy, never doing anything wrong, and just doing what his father asked of him for our benefit. Again, God was testing everyone.

Stage 3, as I would like to refer to it, is where we are today.  We have been given everything from the beginning to this point in time.  Granted, we cannot hear or see God, or his son, but we were left with two things; first, a holy spirit that kind of gives us a shove when we need it, if we take the hint, and a manual that covers everything we need to know about how things were, how to correct things, and what will be – the Bible.

And, may I add, having a free will is wonderful, but it can be tested repeatedly, every day. The key to surviving the hazards of falling into a sinful pit is to check our attitudes of gratitude and keep in mind how much our savior suffered to forgive those sins. Although it’s often difficult to follow all the teachings of God, when we remember the sacrifices He made for us, we should realize it was a lot more difficult for Him.

 

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A Sense of Faith

 

Suppose you were born blind. You had the other 4 senses but have never been able to grasp the concept of sight. You’ve reached the age of adulthood and throughout your young life, those around you have tried to explain what it’s like to be able to “see” the world. Yet the idea of sight is just not something you can imagine because your world has been limited to sound, touch, taste and smell. The question arises; if you’ve never experienced something, can you ever believe it exists? That’s the question asked by those people who don’t believe in the existence of a divine being, or a “God.” Many people who are blessed with all 5 senses have difficulty with another type of sense. Let’s call it the sense of faith.

 

We often hear about people who have a sixth sense, often referred to as extra sensory perception, or ESP. Generally called “psychic ability,” ESP supposedly gives the possessor the ability to foretell the future and/or “see” past occurrences. Well, in a sense (no pun intended), those who have faith in a hereafter may be using a form of ESP to predict the future of mortal life when it ends. Maybe true believers have reached a level of mental competence that allows them to clearly envision that which their counterparts have not yet reached. Is it possible that faith is a higher level of cerebral acuity?

 

If you speak to a non-believer, he might tell you he doesn’t believe in things he cannot see. When I hear that argument, I’ll ask if he’s ever seen gravity. When he answers in the negative, I’ll ask if he wants to test its existence by stepping off a cliff. If he says he doesn’t believe that there’s power in something invisible, I’ll counter with; can you see the wind? I’ll ask if he’s ever seen the awesome power of gusts traveling at 60 or 70 MPH. Although the doubter will often claim the science behind those invisible forces, he simply cannot dispute that science doesn’t have all the answers to the universe. We don’t even have the answers to ESP, and we certainly have no answers for what happens to us after we shed this mortal coil.

 

Therefore, using the premise that a sightless person finds it difficult to believe there are forces around him that he can’t fathom; a faithless person may be grappling with the same quandary. The blind man listens to the words of the sighted and has serious doubts about whether there are emanations outside the darkness of his limited existence. The faithless man may be undergoing a similar inability to dig his way out of the darkness of spiritual skepticism. Personally, I’ve always questioned the authenticity of an omnipotent and omniscient entity that has created what we call the “universe.” My question has always been “If God created the universe, who created God?” In philosophy that’s what’s known as a “first cause” question. If a chicken is hatched out of an egg; who laid the egg that gave birth to the chicken?

 

In my opinion, that’s a serious question if we are to use our innate intelligence. It’s undeniable that life is complex and fraught with mystery. If you believe in evolution, it’s likely that our brains are still evolving, adding more understanding of the world we were born into. According to evolutionary theory we didn’t have 5 senses in the beginning but accumulated them over the course of tens of thousands of years as organisms changed and acquired the necessary components to sustain life. How long has the concept of faith been around?

 

Let’s say it began a few thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. I use Jesus because Christians, with 2.3 billion adherents, form the largest religious group in the world. Next come Muslims with 1.8 billion; Hindus with 1.1 billion and Buddhists with .5 billion.

 

Religious faith, being a spiritual, rather than a physical entity, isn’t thought of as part of evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, since it didn’t always exist, isn’t it possible that it became part of our cumulative and necessary components needed to continue the species? Where would we be in the hierarchy of human history if we didn’t have the structured discipline of religion? Wasn’t the faith in a higher power the result of the perils that existed in a barbaric society?

 

The Bible is filled with references to infidels who paid the price for their faithlessness. In the Old Testament, God demanded allegiance to his word and those who denied him suffered grievously. Although replete with parables, the Scriptures appear to be a roadmap to carve a civilization out of a savage wilderness. It’s easy to say that we’re not a perfect world today, but, when you realize the way life used to be, you should be extremely grateful that religion was born, giving us a set of values that kept us from devouring each other.

Moreover, in case you think religion belongs in the past because we live in a new age of “reason,” the fact is that 84% of the planet’s population identifies with a religious group. Furthermore, members of that demographic are generally younger and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation. Hence, the world is getting more religious, not less. Accordingly, that “sense of faith” may become the ESP of the future.