|
OK, Ready to go for a ride? Strap yourselves in. Your gonna ride the 'Common Sense' roller coaster (According to me)
Most people, simply just have the faith, and that's great. First off, I believe in GOD, without question, but I also believe that there was more than just GOD playing a role in the creation and growth process, and that GOD did come from somewhere.
After doing quite a bit of thought, five years to be exact, I came to the following conclusions. Once again, according to me, I am just a person with an opinion. I do not attempt to discredit anyone’s belief. Hold on to your beliefs, and don't let go. This may solidify your faith, and I hope it does, no matter what strain of belief, faith, or non-belief/non-faith. It's at least an attempt not to disturb those instances.
The foundation of this opinion is centered on a few factors.
1. Human perspective.
2. Observation of the immediate surroundings.
3. Common Sense (According to me)
4. The cause and effect paradigm. (For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction)
Most people view GOD(S) as the ultimate perfect being(s). Simply 'Just having the faith' is acceptable in their hearts, souls, and thoughts. Being of the Jewish faith, which believes in 'One GOD', I personally hold the core 'Jewish' belief in my heart, soul, and thoughts without question. But there are others who, even though they have the same belief/faith with intense conviction, will cross the barriers, in their minds, of faith, and simply ask where did GOD come from. This theory is proof and testimony of my willingness to walk across "That Bridge".
I first asked myself "The Question" how did GOD come to be. According to my faith, GOD has always been there. I believe that, but then I asked, from what perspective. Well that is simple. Our perspective and outlook according to what is put in front of us since second one. You know the universe, heavens, and earth etc.
A couple of questions and thoughts roamed around in my head that I had difficulty conceiving. I stumbled on to the concept of no temperature. 'No Temperature' that's insane. Could there be a point in time when there was 'No Temperature'? Then I pondered the thought of 'No Time'. Wait a minute (No pun intended), that also doen't make sense. 'No Time', how can that be? I finally asked myself, could there have been, at one point, well, yeah it could have been possible? Faith, which reaffirms belief, is still just faith. In our hearts, souls, and minds we cling to faith, regardless of which GOD(S), or beginnings and endings exist (like Heaven and HELL for example). So for me, the question of whether the thought of 'No GOD' was insane or impossible, was pointless. Faith, in my eyes, is not on the same level as temperature or time for that matter. Time you can conceive along with temperature, but you don't conceive of faith, I think, you just simply have it.
Then I asked myself 'OK, if these elements like time, temperature, and GOD could, at one point, not be in existence. Then what was there if they were not?' Well the only thing that I could think of was NOTHING.
WOW, NOTHING, that's a mind blower. Imagine that, we can't hardly conceive the concept of NOTHING.
Have you ever heard the expression 'NOTHING is perfect', and it is. NOTHING is not just the absence of 'EVERYTHING', NOTHING, in simple form, is the absence of 'ANYTHING'. Please keep the 'NOTHING is perfect' saying in mind. It plays an important role. I then said 'Yes' that's it. No GOD, 'no time', and 'no temperature' could exist in NOTHING realm. Yes?
OK, so where did it go from there?
Let's examine a few things. Start with the 'No Time' concept. Time is not made of seconds, or whatever smallest unit we can conjure up. It is made from moments. Moments are unitless. We measure a collection of moments, adjacent or not, by labeling it with a unit like a second or a minute etc...
I then ask myself 'Could there be a moment without time'. I said sure there could. If we believe that NOTHING existed then this was possible. Because then we could say there was a moment with out time. Yes? So the moment had to exist first.
Next, I looked at the 'No GOD' issue. If it's true that GOD, at one moment, didn't exist. Again it would be in NOTHING. Yes? There was a reason that GOD came to be. Uh, Oh here we go again, I see that there was a reason that GOD came to be. Yes, that's it, the 'reason' was there before GOD. Wow, now I have, what would appear to be, two components that could exist in nothing. This does not seem logical does it? First I define 'Nothing' by saying that it is the absence of anything, and yet I just stuck two things in it. So, how could it be nothing. How much of a contradiction is that? Well I will admit it's quite a contradiction, or is it simply illogical with respect to 'Nothing'. Keep this illogical perspective handy. I will attempt to make some sense of it.
So, if you take what just I said on faith, then
let's try to make sense of 'a moment without time' and the 'reason without GOD' perspective.
We live in a very logical place. Whether it's an omniverse, universe, or world, etc.. However you wish to define the scope of our surroundings, it is all logical. It might not always make sense, but it's still logical. Everything happens for a reason, and can happen at any given moment. I say everything is logical based on the 'Cause and Effect' statement 'For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction'. That makes sense, we see it every day in our lives. A person insults another person. The insulted person is or isn't offended, and reacts accordingly. Whether they respond verbally to defend themselves or not. A seed is planted, a flower or tree grows. You convey your feelings of like or love to another person, that has it's response. All these cited examples are logical. Again, how one person reacts to the other, or how tall the flower grows is based on internal and external factors. Once more, it is all logical. Do you agree? A person's understanding of events is based on their perspective, and biased with respect to internal and external factors relating to them. So understanding or making sense out of events is relative. Where have we heard that before?
If you believe this 'cause and effect' statement 'For every action, there is an equal and/or opposite reaction' holds it's weight with respect to everything, and I wish to include 'Nothing', then you can accept concepts like the existence of logical and illogical events that happen, have happened, or are going to happen, at any given moment.
Perspective, how we view things, plays an important and powerful role in our lives. Let me ask you. Would the following statement be fair to say? With respect to our viewpoint at birth, our mothers and fathers or guardian(s), are 'Godlike', in a matter of speaking. We view them as our caretakers. They, in most cases, unconditionally love us, they feed us, and they guide us, and as we grow older, we learn from them. We quickly come to believe and have faith, that 'our parents' will always be there for us. Now, we all know that there are varying degrees of this love, caring and external events beyond our control, which ultimately sets the foundation of our lives. Our parents are our whole world. Now, as infants, we don't think in these terms, but our viewpoint is quite limited. It's as far as we can see, based on our perspective. It's our little universe. I will also add, in a sense, our parents can also be viewed as perfect. Do you see my point?
As we grow older, our scope becomes wider as we see the 'Bigger Picture'. So our parents, no matter how much we love, care, and guide ourselves by them, suddenly seem to be less 'Godlike' and less perfect as well.
Our scope or perspective seems to be limited by our understanding, and what we can make sense of. For the people who have come believe in GOD, they actually have to take, for lack of better words, a leap back into the hands of faith. GOD is beyond the scope of our understanding and what we can make sense of. GOD is our ultimate parent, and our guide. We seek answers, get direction, balance, and inner peace. GOD is the best candidate, in our eyes, to answer our prayers in times of need and when we don't understand or can't make sense of the curveballs that life throws us. For most us, as believers, we also view GOD as perfect. Our perspective(s), along with that belief/faith in GOD(S), helps us feel complete.
There are people who feel they have to take another glance at the edge of the scope, wondering where GOD came from. I am one of them.
I do not hold a lack of faith in GOD. I do believe GOD is the 'Almighty', and can answer my prayers. I want to make that attempt to put the part of faith aside that says GOD always was and has been. That part is not logical, and I have the greatest difficulty understanding it.
So I am trying to put a couple of logical puzzle pieces together based on 'What I have on the table in front of me', or everything in my logical scope. This is like trying to find the missing link, or solving for an unknown variable in an algebraic expression.
I did try to imagine the inconceivable like no temperature, no time, and no GOD, or just plain old NOTHING. Using perspective/relativity, Symantec’s, common sense, and re-aligning that faith (that I have difficulty accepting), as vehicles to plant this new belief inside myself.
Here we go.
Nothing is perfect. Lets examine that saying/statement for a moment. Well, its true.
If you were to take a look at nothing, how would you try to imagine it. I imagine it having no temperature, and no time. It’s still, (no motion) and it’s absolutely void of anything/everything. Yes? If I put faith in the fact that nothing did exist, then I have to believe that there was a moment when nothing existed.
But we say, as believers, that GOD is perfect, and has always been. Remember the perspective/scope/relativity discussion? If our scope takes on a bit of faith to include GOD. Then we choose to see/believe in GOD, and we do not pay attention to NOTHING.
Let me attempt to relate GOD and NOTHING with respect to ‘Perfection’. I say that NOTHING gave birth to GOD. Let me ask you, is it true that a child takes on characteristics of the parent. YES? Then I say GOD is not perfect, but GOD is the closest thing to perfection that we know of with respect to our scope of view. Once GOD came to be then NOTHING ceased to exist. YES? So this leaves GOD, as perfect in ‘our eyes’ because we don’t have NOTHING anymore. It’s a bit of a play on words, but it makes sense. If we choose to believe in GOD, then GOD is the most perfect thing we can see, and is a solid reference point for perfection. YES? Remember the ‘Reason’ discussion?
The reason discussion really stated that for some reason GOD came into being, but it also said that the reason had to be there before GOD did. Does that make any sense? So maybe the reason resided in NOTHING, kinda waiting for that moment to occur.
I say GOD has a sibling. That sibling is TIME. Hear me out. The ‘Moment’ discussion states that there could have been a moment without time. I believe that. This moment did not have TIME, it simply was a moment. At that moment for some unknown reason it all happened. GOD and TIME were born. GOD and TIME need each other too. If you believe that GOD can perform miracles, or can do anything in an instant, then you have to believe that it takes TIME to do it. No matter what length, fast or slow, split seconds or 40 nights and 40 days. YES? GOD can do anything, but GOD needs TIME to work. YES?
Lets examine how we deal with both GOD and TIME in our scope of existence. We guide ourselves by both of them to the core, don’t we? We read a watch, to keep track of time, and we read a bible to guide ourselves by GOD’s words. We live and die by both GOD and TIME, don’t we? So precious are both to us. But what sets GOD and TIME apart? Their good and bad characteristics. Generally, GOD is used in a ‘good light’. GOD is with you always. Be good, go to heaven, and you will be with GOD. I really can’t see a bad thing about GOD except for the Devil, we don’t need to iterate on that. TIME on the other hand is generally used in a ‘bad light’. Gotta hurry up, you are running out of TIME. You did something bad, your going to do TIME from the consequence point of view. You are running against time. When you die, TIME keeps on going without you. See? The only good thing I can see with respect to TIME is that we have lots of it.
The bible states that ‘Man is made in GOD’s image’. If that’s the case then just as we do GOD have to learn and grow, so did GOD, I believe. GOD just started before we did. Remember that reference/relativity discussion? It applies here. This give the appearance that GOD knows all. Did GOD make mistakes, I do believe that GOD does not make mistakes, GOD learns. Example: look at the stars at night. You have red ones, blue ones, green etc… These are not perfect. Some stars live longer than others, some die terrible deaths. It was all in the math, and remember it all took TIME. This goes for all things in life. Some people live for a long time, and some don’t. Some people can smoke there whole lives and not die of any smoking related disease, and at the same time there are other people who die at a young age who were perfectly healthy. Our genetics, that dictate our sex, and physical makeup are not always jiving with their intended design.
There are straight people, gay people, and varying degrees of both. This could be brought on by genetics, environment, or other factors. Some people who are extremely healthy create children with handicaps, and handicapped people give birth to healthy offspring.
We spend our whole live trying to make ourselves better, which is not bad, but I think we should just try being ourselves. I think we would be more accepting of one another. We also have people who’s brains don’t process on the same level as others. The degrees of variance lead to many different ways of thinking from priests and rabbi’s to mass murderers, and so on. So does this answer the perfection issue, I think so. Besides this applies to all beings, insects, animals, trees, plants, stars, you name it. I’ll take imperfection over perfection, any day. The only thing that makes us the same is the fact that we are all different. How beautiful. Isn’t it?
In the absolute beginning…
OK, so how does the math work with respect to the absolute beginning? Well, that should be rather easy, but there is explainable illogic. The question being: How to get something from nothing?
Equation: - 0 + 0 = 1
Two things about the equation.
1. The numeric representations are just that. So we can conceive it. The zeros represent the moment and the reason in nothing, and the one represents everything. You will notice that there are signs associated with the zeros. That’s ok. They distinguish the moment from the reason. The moment is assigned a negative sign. Remember the negative associated with TIME, there it is. The positive is associated with the reason. Remember GOD? What made these elements come together. Simple: ‘The Attraction’.
2. The numerics would not logically compute, therefore you would see this as being illogical. That’s right it’s true. But if we accept NOTHING for what its worth then it makes sense, and if you remember the ‘equal and/or opposite reaction’ discussion, then you can accept this illogic. It does not make any sense that 0 + 0 = 1. We know this, but in an illogical environment it makes perfect sense. Remember the opposite side of our logical existence is illogical. We cannot get
The equation 0 + 0 to equal 1 in our existence, it’s impossible, but I believe we can get it to happen in the illogical existence, but only once. YES. Once you have something (the simple attraction), you can’t have nothing anymore.
Besides, we still have attraction in our existence, it just doesn’t always make sense. That’s OK.
This is how I, Robert Garfinkle, have attempted to resolve my issue. It is just a belief. Nothing more. (No pun intended)
GOD Bless all...
© 2001 Robert Garfinkle. |
