What do you believe in

[abu nuwas]

Very entertaining stuff here- I'm just catching up.

I wish that I could be so confident the way you guys are about what you believe. I just don't know what to believe. I was raised to believe that God created the world in 7 days and for 6,000 years his chosen people (the Jews) roamed around Asia and meanwhile this pure Bloodline was carried on from Adam to Jesus Christ. After all those years of sacrificing animals to the One True God- now God had a new plan: Jesus would die once and it would atone for all the sins.

Now I'm just not sure about anything. I see holes in all the theories- so what can I believe in?

Even though I have my doubts deep inside somewhere is this compulsion to pray that I have never been able to shake. I can not logically justify a God, but I am too superstitious to disavow God without proof either. I try to just do the best I can and search for enlightenment. If I'm shown or can see that I'm wrong- then that's what I'll believe.

Mark --- I do not see how a person can fail to be guided by their reason, even if, in fact, it is flawed. It provides a base-line. But apart of that,for me, includes speculating on the apparently impossible, on the possibility that things are not at all the way we think they are. The quite bizarre findings of science would have bewildered our ancestors -- indeed, they fill me with wonderment.

I worry a bit over people, or groups, who make huge assumptions: 'Religion is just fairy-tales', 'we're all agnostics/atheists', and so on. The Nazis also indulged in that kind of group certainty, and so do various sets politically. There are places I go, full of media types, where centre-left is the only stance-- and these are journalists who, you might think, were always anxious to get to the heart of things, comfortable or not.

Some of the diatribes against belief make me despair. "Does anyone seriously believe that there is a man up there with a long white beard, whom they can pray to, and he'll answer?" Much laughter, and embarrassment on the part of the pathetic believer. Yet-- it is quite possible to keep an eye on a child, and give it sweets when it asks, or refuse. But underlying the argument, is that there are so many of us: that must overwhelm the old man with the white beard. A being of infinite -infinite - power, intelligence etc, why would it be the least troubled by a handful of people? A simple failure to get near the concept of 'infinite'. Now, the white beard-- yes, seriously!

Is it not perfectly reasonable to suppose the an infinite being might by its nature experience itself by creating or dreaming, or being everything that could be? Including being a mouldy little human, suffering etc-- or being a man with a long white beard? Do I believe that--no, but not for any sensible reason.