Posted by Wayne Parham [ 192.35.232.241 ] on May 23, 2006 at 21:48:25:
In Reply to: Re: My sister`s friend and other stories posted by manualblock on May 23, 2006 at 20:53:10:
I was raised Christian, and in the "Bible Belt" of America. I am very comfortable with both the Protestant and Catholic versions of the Christian faith, and I do not want to be rebellious, certainly not against God. Nor do I want to be against any man that I think is sincerely trying to find truths and live a spiritual life. Because of this, I feel more in common with Christians and Catholics than I feel apart from them. I suppose this could also be said of other faiths too, particularly Jews and probably Moslems too. I have some Zoroastrian friends, and their religious text, traditions and culture have always fascinated me. And I also have a lot of Hindu friends, and their rich traditions are interesting to me as well.
But I am also somewhat of a scientific kind of person, maybe a critical thinker. That's how I'm built. So I had to reconcile those two things, faith and science. That drove me towards a belief system sort of like the gnostics, so when I discovered them, I immediately became interested.
A long time ago, I realized that science is a belief system not unlike religion. There are uncertainties and assumptions, hypothesis and theories. It seems concrete to me, but it is not. Still, it is a way of thinking that I am comfortable with. It is basically to hold as matter of principle the idea that truth should be sought by rigorous testing. I thought to myself that a God would probably not be insecure, and so would proably not mind an inquisitive subject. God would not mind proving himself and could stand up to scrutiny. So I decided not to be afraid to put God to the test. To me, faith is built like trust - It is built by testing and seeing repeated results that are as expected. That builds faith and ultimately wisdom.
I began to form a definition of God, one that is basically everything in the universe. Maybe the "I AM" of the Bible. The thing is, even an atheist scientist believes in the universe. So when one defines this way, they have no reservation that God exists. God's Will then, is the natural and physical laws of the universe. Some we understand, some we don't. My job is to understand things as well as possible, and to try and be part of the plan rather than trying to force it into something it isn't. Surely lots of other people have lots of other views and that's fine with me. This is just my take on things, or part of it. Probably not worth going into much more detail on an audio messageboard.
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