Catholics believe that the Pope is Christ's representative here on Earth, sort of a stand-in for the almighty. This gives a hierarchal power structure and a sort of chain of command. The Catholic believer should approach his Church, who will then instruct him on the matters at hand. In early times, most people could not read or write, so Church scholars were really the only ones qualified to interpret scripture and so this structure made sense. Whether it does today is a matter of personal opinion.

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.