Being a child whose Dad was in the U.S. military, and being a child with a strong understanding of science and nature gave me many opportunities to select facets of my upbringing that were in direct conflict with the teachings I learned in Sunday school/religious education classes.
For example, tell a classroom full of Army kids to "turn the other cheek when someone hits them" and the whole class will burst into an uproar screaming they'd hit the sorry bastard back several times.
From the perspective of science, the existence of life, its structure/processes, and the characteristics of living organisms all compel people to disregard belief in the concept of life being created by an omnipotent and loving God.
So, even though I told many a priest and nun that I thought various aspects of the faith I was supposed to be learning to follow were bullshit, I never doubted that there was an order to the universe managed by God, the supreme being.
In my opinion, His actions and motivations cannot be truly represented by an organized band of human followers. Mankind is not perfect, and in many cases of impure motivations, so for a man or any group of men to tell the rest of humanity what God wants them to believe/do is complete and utter crap.
But that is where my contention with religion ends, in the organized implementation of it. A community church that performs acts of service for local needy citizens is a wonderful organization. An international power conglomerate that imperially commands all the administrators of the aforementioned local parishes has great potential to abuse great power to great lengths.
So, it is my belief that man's true connection to God, his creator, is through each man's heart. When we use our minds and bodies to help those who truly cannot help themselves, to comfort those in a state of despair, to defend those targeted by agents of treachery, we strengthen our connection to the God of our understanding. When we recognize that we are at a crossroads in our lives, and that we have calculated each and every possible outcome, but still unsure of how to proceed, and we open our hearts to reflect on the situation not only from the perspective of maintaining our own best interest, but also from the perspective of the greater good, we strengthen our connection to the God of our understanding. These are the things that are indisputable acts of faith and devotion, over and above throwing money into a basket once per week and singing songs for 45 minutes. A religious community can be a wonderful thing, but religious communities cannot exist without a core membership that are commited to the same principles which they adhere to in the daily acts of their lives.
Consider the following. Some scientists have proposed that life evolved here on Earth as a series of random events that caused the nucleic acid bases of DNA/RNA (cytosine, guanine, thymine, and adenine, and in RNA uracil) to interact with silica chips as they swirled about in a planetary primordial soup. I say that is bullshit, simply because the inter-relationships between ALL living organisms on this planet are so extensive and deep rooted, that it is very hard for me to believe that it all came together as a series of random events and their subsequent evolutions through a series of mutations.
A good example of this is the similarity between CHLOROPHYLL and HEMOGLOBIN. Chlorophyll is the "central moleculte" of life in plants, allowing them to have tissues that create sugars (food) when they organism has access to water, light energy, and carbon dioxide (photosynthesis, aka the Krebs Cycle). Hemoglobin is the "central molecule" of animal life allowing animals to carry oxygen on their red blood cells, fueling the internal cells of their bodies with the ability to burn sugars (and fats, and proteins, aka "fuel") for purposes of sustaining their lives. So, what's amazing about these two molecules? Look at how closely they are related to one another in structure as compared to their functions in plants and animals...
FROM: chlorophyl and hemoglobin - Botany Forum - GardenWeb
"The chlorophyl molecule and the hermogloben molecule are almost identical in shape and make up of atoms and how they are combined. However,
HEMOGLOBIN has IRON as the center atom whereas
CHLOROPHYLL has MAGNESIUM as its center atom.
Obviously, the functions and the hosts (their connected networks) are completely different.
It just show, however, that hemoglobin (red blood cells) and photosynthesis material (green plant cells) may have at one time been similar micro organisms and that each has developed into seperate functions over millions of years.
The real conclusion - really - is that we are probably closer related to all kinds of life forms than we may think. "
THIS is why I do not believe all life, whether it is that in our ecosystem on this planet, or all life as it exists throughout the universe, evolved out of random particles banging against each other for millions of years. EVERYTHING IS SO INTRINSICALLY CONNECTED, THAT IT SCREAMS OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN...in my opinion.
There are countless other examples, that the same gene is responsible for the formation of the eyes in a fruit fly larvae as in human fetuses, and the observance of evolutionary stages of development of the human fetus, the connections go on and on and on...
So, if that is the case, to me it supports some sort of basic spiritual belief of a supreme God. I think that our existence as beings of free will is a great statement to the fact that we are loved by the Almighty, regardless of whether we live ina good world or a corrupt world, the state of our world is a result, is reflective of the humans that control it, not the being that created it or the creatures that inhabit it. God is not supposed to sit there and be like a great Santa Claus in the sky, fulfilling our wishes as we pray for what we want in this world. God helps those that help themselves, and the course of our lives we will all be tested, we will all be tried, we will all have our own crosses to bear, no matter how great the gifts we were entitle to at birth, or ammassed on our own thereafter.
Whatever, I do not think that sitting and waiting for a flavor of religion to make sense to you is a likely method of determining what your true faith is, or what organization will assist you in implementing the vision that a kind and loving God has for us. I think you have to answer a few simple questions before making the steps you wish to take.
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- Do you believe that you, and the rest of the universe were created by a supreme and loving being?
- If so, do you believe that the supreme being that created all life wishes for men and women to love each other as they are loved by The Almighty?
- Finally, are you willing to commit yourself as a person to futhering the efforts of the universal human greater good, to the best of your abilities, as you use your mind, body, and resources throughout the course of the living of your life?
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If so, it seems to me like you might have a substantial foundation for living a life of a faith that makes sense to you without binding you to the complexities of faith as defined by others.
I have never thought of science and faith as being in direct conflict with one and other. In modern times we use science to understand the world we live in and to manipulate our surrounding to accomplish our objectives. In ancient times mankind used mythology to describe the world he lived in and to try and makes sense of where he came from. The two missions are the same, just being implemented in different ways, in different languages, notations, and objectives.
No matter how badass we get in our understanding of science, I do not think that man will ever be able to SYNTHESIZE LIFE FROM NOTHINGNESS. We can clone, we can use stem cells to create tissues, we can transplant organs, and we can even make fetuses develop from human tissues outside of natural XX/XY sexual reproduction...BUT NONE OF THESE TECHNIQUES SYNTHESIZE LIFE FROM NOTHINGNESS.
And maybe I have created more questions, than answers to questions, but for me, that is good enough, I don't need to know everything to be at peace, I don't need to know everything to have the courage to live my life, I know all I need to know in order to be at peace with religion and science, and how both ultimately affect me in the course of my life.
I do not fear hell, I think it is a bullshit concept, especially because in the early days of religious education we were told one could be cast there for commiting but one mortal sin, but then later that even the most heinous of murderers could be saved if in their final breaths they admitted thier sins, asked for forgiveness, and accepted the Lord as their savior. If that is the case, then I cannot be cast to hell for lying or stealing candy when I was a little boy. But that does not stop me from honoring the God of my understanding, by trying to do his good work in my time here on this Earth. He created us and gave us an opportunity to live, he set us free, and I think he smiles when we honor Him by recognizing this, and by treating each other with love and understanding, just as it saddens him to see any of us lost in our ways and suffering, but no matter where we are in the course of our lives, the choice of what to believe, and what to do is OURS.
So, that's how things make sense to me. If you find any of the above useful I'm really glad to share it. And if anybody doesn't like my beliefs I couldn't care less, I am not trying to convert anyone, I am simply trying to answer the question posed in the OP.
Peace love and chicken grease to everyone!
-Halla
umpyouup:
she intentionally mixed up the word Good with God while writing... I kind of liked that in a way 
I've always kind of felt that all religions were merely different paths that people took towards the same goal... different paths for different manners of understanding- despite being raised in a Christian culture, it never really resonated with me in a way that some things have, though I admire what some people can and have done with it... and I can think of one or two commandments I haven't broken 
