OK, its Sunday… Sunday being traditionally a Christian day of Worship. Many of the readers of this blog are not religious in any way, and don’t see “faith” or God as being rational…. and I can understand this, but I chose not to follow that school of thought, I choose to be a Mystic Anglican Christian. I know my beliefs, I don’t need to have faith because I feel.
To me, God is a rational thing because I define God as being the Explanation and the Being of Love itself. If you have ever experienced love then you will know that its a really odd sensation. There are many forms of love of course (and in Greek there are many ways of saying these forms of love), one form of love seems like it springs from nowhere, another form of love is the love for and from family and friends. These are unexplainable things, but they exist, and we need love. To me, God is the Being and the Explanation of Love.
Another rational thing is Life. Yes there are scientific explanations of Life, but who developed the equations and algorithms for the scientific explanations. Scientists follow these equations and algorithms with faith. God is the Being and Explanation of Life and Scientific Explanations.
Another rational thing is synchronicity and power. Isn’t it weird how everything just works together, synchronised, flowing with energy and vigour. God is the Being and Explanation of Life and Synchronicity and Power, which we can see within Nature.
To me, the following is what God is not:
- A guy in the sky
- Somebody that has created everything in the world and universe within seven (literal) days
Now for a section on Interreligion:
And another question is, why so many religions? My answer is: we are just following the same entity really, no matter what religion or path. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Pagans, or whatever, we all see that there is something else in the world that is unexplainable in human thought and speech - I say we are all following the same thing, doesn’t matter if you go to a Church, a Mosque, a Synagogue, a Temple or even if you stay at home and do praise or ritual.
Now for a conculsion:
So I hope that I have given some rationality to those who feel that God isn’t rational, and I have also given my thoughts that we should accept others. It all comes down to: try to understand others religions/faiths/beliefs/creeds/rules-of-life, and get along with each other.
These are my thoughts for today.
Today is for the following feasts within Christianity:
- St Simon and St Jude (Western Christianity)
- Nostra Aetate - 1965 (Roman Catholicism - Christianity)
- St Job of Pochayiv (Eastern Christianity)
- St Godwin of Stavelot (Western Christianity)
- St Fidelis of Como (Christianity)
- St Edsige”Edward the Confessor” (Western Christianity)
- Abgar V of Edessa (Eastern Christianity)
- Abdias of Babylon (Christianity) <- First Bishop of Babylon, consecrated by St Simon and St Jude
Love and Blessings,
Daniel
Technorati Tags: rational, religion, christianity, God, science
2 responses so far ↓
Hi Daniel,
Wow! This is a change from the Daniel I once knew
but do you really believe that faith and God are rational? I’m really interested in these questions so I hope you find the time to reply.
I have a couple of comments:
You said: “I know my beliefs, I don’t need to have faith because I feel.”
Isn’t that a contradiction? I’m not sure I understand the difference between believing because of faith and believing because of a feeling. Faith is believing in something without sufficient evidence or with no evidence. If you choose to believe in something based on a ‘feeling’ isn’t this essentially the same thing?
You said: “Scientists follow these equations and algorithms with faith.”
I would disagree with this statement. And I’m a little taken aback to see you have written this. I disagree for two reasons:
1) There is evidence to support scientific claims. In the case of successful theories (evolution, relativity etc) there are literally thousands of peer reviewed scientific papers documenting experiments and results that forge our understanding of nature, no faith is required. Scientists don’t think up a theory and make the evidence fit their idea. Rather, it starts with a question, and then experiments are conducted to answer that question. The theory is built up from the results of experiments and so the theory comes last not first. This is totally opposite to faith based thinking where you have a concept (God exists, God created etc) and no amount of contradictory evidence falsifies these claims .
2) Science isn’t a domain that claims to know all the answers, therefore it does not need faith. Religion, however, does make this claim by using God as the universal explanation for everything! But its a completely unfounded explanation simply because it is lacking evidence, and hence requires complete faith.
You say: “God is the Being and the Explanation of Love.”
This is exactly the point I made above. God is an unknowable, unfalsifiable universal explanation for everything! If you don’t know the answer its OK, God explains it. The problem is that there’s no evidence for a God. Rational thought and the scientific method provides answers that are supported by evidence, if new evidence is reveled that suggests something else then the theories and beliefs are revised.
“another question is, why so many religions? My answer is: we are just following the same entity”
Then why are there so many contradictions between religions?
You say: “try to understand others religions/faiths/beliefs/creeds/rules-of-life, and get along with each other.”
It’s one thing understanding others religious beliefs, but respecting them is quite another. It’s all well and good to respect others beliefs until those beliefs impact on your life. How can I respect belief in homosexuality being a sin and punishable by death. Or the inhumane slaughtering of animals to make them halal. Or the belief in with-holding condoms from people in Africa where AIDS runs rampant?
Don’t get me wrong I think its great you found peace, and as a friend I’m really happy for you
All the best mate.
Oli
Hi Oli. Thanks for the comment.
I’ll try to answer your questions as much as possible:
1) “I know my beliefs, I don’t need to have faith because I feel.” Isn’t that a contradiction?
Faith is trust in the unknown. I was trying to explain that my beliefs are based not on trust in the unknown, but trust in science (feel should be know in this case)… which leads onto your next question.
2) There is evidence to support scientific claims
A lot of Christians (and other Theists) would argue that there is a lot of evidence to support theistic claims. Except its not so scientifically proven. However, I am not going to argue on this exact subject. Because I entirely approve of Scientific Claims. When I say “Scientists follow these equations and algorithms with faith.” I mean it from an entirely philosophical point of view, everything that we perceive can be proven with science. But is it really there, you cannot prove (for example) whether we are in something thats actually happening or whether we are in a big Computer Game.
3) Science isn’t a domain that claims to know all the answers, therefore it does not need faith
We both know this, but a lot of people believe that Science holds all the answers. These people tend to be people without religion, although there are some people with religion who also believe that Science holds all of the answer.
4) God is an unknowable, unfalsifiable universal explanation for everything!
Thats a definition. My definition is that God is Love, Life and Power/Energy. They all occur in our perceived reality, and they all can be proven scientifically. I make no claims that God is the answer for “everything” just, as you say, Science doesn’t claim to know all of the answers. However, many Christians do claim that God is the answer to everything…. whether this is the case, I don’t know, I do just know that there is science.
5) Then why are there so many contradictions between religions?
Different interpretations, different routes through history, different people trying to control nations (politics), different climates.
It isn’t about the similarities and differences, its about knowing that there are similarities and differences.
6) How can I respect belief in homosexuality being a sin and punishable by death. Or the inhumane slaughtering of animals to make them halal. Or the belief in with-holding condoms from people in Africa where AIDS runs rampant?
I agree. The key is not to look at religion on such a high level, because there are many Christians who don’t believe in homosexuality being a sin, there are many Muslims who disagree with inhumane slaughtering of animals, and there are a lot of Roman Catholics who believe Africa should have Condoms. I suppose this is why there are liberal and conservative parts of every religion and every government. There are also people that want to things “by the book”, and others which know that times have changed and want to take more general morality into a more modern context.
Final Question) do you really believe believe that faith and God are rational?
Rationality is based on what we can perceive, so by a strict definition, no I don’t think that faith and God are rational… because we can’t see them. However we can see a few things:
1) For me going to Church is a social thing, I get to meet loads of people and converse with them about everything… not just Christianity. If faith in God brings people together like this, in a caring and sharing way then its all good. Being Social is a rational thing, going to Church brings people out of there homes, including a lot of people who don’t tend to see people during the week (like a lot of the elderly).
2) For me, when I go to Church and follow the very structured service its a form of meditation. Words pass out of peoples mouths, phrases rhythmically. Its very rhythmic, and superb for meditation. Then you start to think that there are loads of people doing this service all around the world on the same day, and thinking that is also quite meditative.
3) Christianity, as in many other religions, promotes morality. Yes you can have morality outside of religion, and there are some people without morality who claim to have religion. Its quite rational to have morality, its good to be fair on people, show respect etc.
If you put socialness, meditation and morality together then you’ve got some good living going on. Which seems entirely rational to me.
There are many different religions, and within them many different denominations, and within them there are different views (some liberal, some conservative), and within them there are different thoughts/interpretations. It comes down to the individual. I don’t believe that you can classify people, you can try, but usually those who have studied their belief system will be completely different from the next. If you tried to classify my belief system then you would probably come up with something like:
Modern Pluralistic Mystic Liberal High (Ritualistic/Eucharistic) Anglican Christian
But even that doesn’t sum up my exact view, because I agree with Science and Historical claims.
I hope I’ve answered your questions. I have been thinking about these things for a long time… and all I’d like to see is peace no matter about peoples belief system.