36. My Personal Beliefs

I just had to do this for my World Religions class, so I will apologize in advance for the length of the post. I numbered the paragraphs for easier reading and understanding.

Here are the questions I had to answer. Each paragrapgh is one number:

1. What is reality? How can you prove that something is real? What is truth? How is a religious truth different from a scientific truth.
2. Do you believe there are "beings" or a "higher being" "greater" than humans? Briefly explain.
3. Where do you think the world comes from? Where do you believe humans come from?
4. Are humans inherently good or bad and why?
5. What do you think is eventually going to happen to the world?
6. What do you think happens to people after they die?
7. How should people behave and why? What should guide people's sense of how they "ought" to behave?
8. Describe your attitude towards those who believe differently than you do. If you consider yourself to belong to a particular religion, describe how that religion responds to individuals of other faiths. Do you have any friends or acquaintances of a different faith?

1. To me, reality is what we see in the world all the time, what happens to us and others, and the overall experience one has during their life that can either hinder or prosper one’s self. I am one for science because there is a realm within the sciences where everything is falsifiable because everybody knows that what has been physically presented to us can be proved or disproved through experiments and equations. We jump and land quickly back on Earth because of gravity and that if you crash your car, unless wearing a seatbelt, you will be flying out the windshield at the same speed the car was going prior to crashing. Those are pure truths because there is not “it happens because it just does” or “(insert higher power here) is the reason” as an explanation. A truth is a statement that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and a scientific truth is what we call scientific laws such as the laws of gravity and inertia. A religious truth is very different from a scientific truth because it all depends on how much you cling to what has been said in the Bible and what you think is real or not and many are not falsifiable and therefore can not be said as truth.

2. I believe there this is a very high possibility of other beings that live somewhere else other than Earth. I’m not saying that I think that Area 51 has UFO ships within its complex, I’m saying that because we haven’t been able to explore all of space to determine whether or not there are other signs of life (intelligent or otherwise) to answer that question. As for a “higher being,” I put that belief into doubt, but not saying if I actually believe that there is a higher power or not. In a reality setting, if a person came up face to face with an animal being like a bear, which one is the higher being in the truest sense? The bear would be seen as higher because it does not need a weapon to take out what is threatening their area. Will people agree with that? Of course not, I have had that discussion before about whether or not humans were indeed animals, which we are or else the bear would not eat us. As for being greater than a human, well sure if there is a God and every coincidence is God’s work, but we would not know if there is a being greater than a human until we have had that intervention.

3. We still do not know how Earth, let the entire universe happened exactly, but I am open to all explanation that can hold their ground in theory. We have these debates about whether or not to teach Creationism in public schools, but because religion is not aloud to be taught at a public school during school hours, it can only be an after hours class or at least a non-credit class during the school day much like how seminary works for Mormon students in Arizona (I use to live in Arizona so I know all about that particular subject). As long as there are religious schools, there should be no need to teach Creationism in public schools. The downturn about religious schools is that they are all private schools which require money out of one’s pocket for their child to be admitted instead of setting up a religious public magnet school. Speaking of Creationism, I do not believe that God created all the animals and that the Earth has only been around for a relatively short time instead of a couple billion years. Us humans developed from other animals, more specifically from our primate brethren. As mentioned before, the theory of evolution is falsifiable but so far has not be disproved. Humans ourselves vary from region to region like all the other animals and we are destined to evolve sometime in the future.

4. It is hard to explain if we inherently good or bad because every human has a different story to tell and we can go from a good parent to a terrible child and vice versa. Did we inherit good or bad from the species before us? Probably so because the DNA that is in every single living and formerly living creature determines or behaviors and notions towards the reality in front of us. Of course its not just heredity that makes us the way we our, we also learn from others either from being told or just by observation which determines what we see as good or bad.

5. Many things can happen to the world. For one thing, the threat of nuclear war is always present and with the amount of nuclear weapons we have, we could destroy existence on this world as we know it. Albert Einstein said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." I believe that could happen if we do not end up destroying humanity as previously stated. Another possibility is Global Warming. We might not think that Global Warming is going to change the world, but we have done so much to the atmosphere that in due time (whether we are still living when it happens) we will end up being like Venus or another version of the humble oxygen-lacking beginners of Earth. It has been predicted that the Earth will be destroyed in about 5 billion years because of how close we are to the Sun. The Sun has a set life span which will eventually run out and end up exploding, swallowing and destroying the nearest planets. If we end up not having a nuclear epidemic or Global Warming, that is what will happen. We have seen so many times people thinking that a religious Armageddon was going to happen and so far we are still alive.

6. I have considered myself Agnostic for quite sometime (even though it can be seen as Atheist from what has been said) and do not really know what to say about what happens when we die. I do not want to tell myself that when we die, that’s it, nothing else because I want to think that our soul continues on into some sort of after life, maybe even reincarnation. This is where I can not draw a line for an opinion. The thought of an afterlife is extremely appealing to me, but the thought of just waiting while living in order to reap the benefits of Heaven is not. I know that as long as we accept Jesus and God as our leader and repent our sins we will be let into heaven and that’s how it should be. I’m not saying we should all be hedonistic pigs and when asked to repent to do so just like that, I’m saying we should enjoy our life and when its over and there is a Heaven, I can let whomever it is know that I will repent and accept whomever is in charge as my leader because I wanted to question and figure out things without being told someone else’s interpretations.

7. We can not be the one’s that determine how others are to behave, but if that was the case then everybody should have their own set of guidelines and boundaries when it comes to what or what not to do. I myself am not religious, but I have my own boundaries that I set where I do not do certain things because I know it’s not right because of reasons and not because I have been told no without any reason why it is wrong. People are taught how they are “ought” to behave either from parents, teachers, peers, or religious verses. We can not change or determine how a person will act because there will always be criminals and others that are seen as “immoral.”

8. My attitude towards others that believe differently than me is a pretty warm attitude. I have plenty of friends who are highly religious and I respect their views. I treat them the same way they do to me and we respect each other’s views because we understand each other’s background. Unfortunately, my view on religion is in a slighted way because of the people that do press their beliefs onto other people or use it to explain all their answers (what I mean is people that use Bible verses for answers instead of actually answering the question). I have a few friends of the Islamic faith and the same can be said for them as with my friends who are highly religious with their Christian faith. I do not consider myself as part of a faith. I was baptized in the United Church of Canada, but other than that, I can count the amount of times I have been to a church for a service with one hand. To sum up a song by Rush called “Faithless,” the chorus talks about one not having faith in faith nor belief in beliefs, but they believe in love and that is faith enough for them. I believe that is true and that one can have faith without having religion because we can all believe in ourselves without a “higher power.” But it can be nice to know you have someone or something there that will protect you and give you a leg up when down.

Again, I apologize for the length. And if you comment, please do not use scripture because the assignment specifically said no scripture or stuff of that ilk so lets treat it like that.