Why and what do we believe? : . : Belief : . : Why should we believe?


: . : Now, I do realize that it has been a long time since I have written an artice, and I am sorry for that. I've been really buisy with university stuff lately (I didn't say anything about actual university work). Now, I also realize that I use the word 'now' to start far too many of my sentences. Although this may be true, I really don't care. This is my page, and since I do not take the liberty to write offensive material (nor will I ever), I feel that it is my privilage and right to use poor english, and whatever kind of grammar I want to. Now that we have this out of the way, it's time to get down to the nitty gritty (bite me, I like that word) of this article. Now, this is a very general subject, so this will probably be a very long article, but I do feel that this needs to be addressed. Belief is the very basis that this entire page is placed upon. It is what underlies my intentions here. I am trying to change what you believe to be true. I will now look at what people believe, and why. Which beliefs can be proven, and which cannot. Just in case you missed my intentions in the computers article, all of this information is totally out of my head, and cannot be trusted, unless you think that I am trustworthy. All opinions are subjective, and I can't be bothered to back up anything I say here with sources, because it's just not all that important. If I wrote down all of the books that I read on this topic, the chances of me changing what you truly believe probably wouldn't change.

: . : Belief has always been the very basis of human life, from the beginning of our race (however you may believe that to have occured), we have looked beyond ourselves to find that which is greater than us. Whether it be (in chronological order) pantheism, polytheism, monotheism, deism, the belief in science, or the belief in the basic progress of humanity itself, every man looks to something beyod his or her self. Always has, and probably always will. Now, you may be thinking, science and humanity are not beliefs. Oh my, are they ever.

: . : To see science as giving progress, even though it has basically failed to improve the human race takes a lot of faith. We (or at least most people) believe that science is correct, we believe what scientists tell us, and we believe that the methodology of science is the way to discover knowledge. If you think that humanity is striving towards perfectiong in any way, you have faith in it, if you think that we are improving at all, you have faith in it. Your belief lies in human nature. It takes belief and faith, whether you like to think so or not. Faith is faith, and belief is belief, no matter what it is that you put your trust in. You may or may not choose to put your faith in this page.

: . : So, then, why is it that we seek to find something, anything, that we can respect as greater than us as individuals? Why is it that we seek for answers where there were seemingly no questions? I see three possible answers to this question. Maybe humans just have it bred into us as a genetic trait, something that 2 million years of evolution has instilled in us that somehow will prolong our lives; maybe it's nature's cure for depression, to keep us from falling into the realization that this is all that there is, and after we die, it's game over. Perhaps people are just innately stupid and insecure, and try to make up things to make themselves feel safer and more important. Finally, maybe there is something else out there that wants our attention, and quietly tries to reach us. Yes, of course I'm talking about God, or gods there, I'm not assuming you to be that dumb. So, which answer is correct?

: . : Some may say that correctness is relative, and I would say that that's just rediculous. Something that is right, is right, period. Let's see what is right, shall we? 1+1=2 Now, can we at least agree on that one? If you have two marbles (specifically defined objects which have simple form), there are two of them. One and one, equals two. Perhaps you have to define what each object is, and why there is only one of it, but that's just really stretching things. It's a pretty simple concept. If you disagree, I'd like you to go taunt a hungry polar bear. If you do agree, then let us move on. Since we have little space, I'm not going to jump around the issue. Is there a God/god, or isn't there? Some, actually many, say that the answer is different for each person. To that I say, go taunt a hungry polar bear (don't worry, I won't say that again). If God/god is real to only one person, it is no longer God/god. To believe in God/god is to believe that it exists, right? That was repitious, but some people don't seem to get that point. If you believe it, you think it exists, fully and completely. If you don't think it exists fully and completely, you don't believe in it, no matter what you may think you think. It is either real, or it isn't. It is either correct of incorrect. If you say that you believe in God/god, but also say that it may not be real to someone else, then you actually don't believe in God/god. It simply isn't a possibility. If you believe this, and think that I'm making unfounded presumptions about your belief that I could not possibly understand, you are wrong. If you do not think so, read the paragraph again, and think about truth for a minute or two. If you still think I'm wrong, then you might as well stop reading here because you're obviously not going to believe what I have to say, or even understand it.

: . : Since God/god either exists, or doesn't (I'm saying 'God/god' and 'it' to retain my neutrality until I have come to a conclusion), we should probably try to figure it out either way. This is a pretty important question for anyone to answer. If you believe in God/god, and you have yet to even think about substantiating your faith, then for all you know, you could be just wasting your time, and losing out on all the 'fun' that the world has to offer. If you don't believe and have no reasons for your position, then you could be missing out on a chance to have eternal life, hope, and assurance. So, how do we know what to believe? Since we live in the western world, and I can write whatever I want in it and don't feel like taking the rest of my life writing about every religion on earth, I'm going to stick with Christianity (the belief in God, and the deity of Jesus of Nazareth) and Atheism (the belief that there is no God, and that the universe is simply the sum of it's parts, a one of many productions of chance). Maybe I'll discuss other things at a later date. Now, I'm not going to touch on the arguments of chance, and the astronomical odds of such a 'wondrous and beautiful universe' being popped into existence for no reason, because I think that arguments like that have no conclusion, no matter how many theologians think they do. The fact is, if you believe that the universe was created by a chance explosion and instant development of sub-quantum laws based on random first happenstance, then it doesn't matter what the odds are against it - it already happened, so the odds just don't matter. You can't argue with what already has happened. You just can't.

: . : Where else can one begin? History is a good place. Although post-modernism says that nothing can be known about history, and that it is written by the winners, and rewritten by the rulers, there has to be some merit on studying history. Not everything can be wrong. "Where could you ever possibly find God in history?" you may ask. It's not all that far-fetched an idea. A lot of things can be found in history that are not known, just because few care to know them. I don't really know where to start, so I'm just going to make random points.

: . : For some reason, people have come to view Jesus as some kind of fairy tale figure over the past 50 years, which is entirely false. Sure, not believing that he was God is fine to begin with, that's a matter of belief (or so we'll see), but to believe that he never even existed is incorrect. It is historical fact that the man Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph and Mary, was born somewhere around 2005 years ago (around 3-5 BC). The whole BC/AD thing (Before Christ, After Christ) thing was set as a general before and after. Although, lately secularists have pushed to change the standard to BCE and CE (Before Common Era, After Common Era). The common thing means absolutely nothing other than getting Christ's name out of things, and trying to rewrite him out of history. The years are still based around his birth. The very fact that our years are based on this guy's birth says something for his reality. Also, under closer inspection, the rise of Christianity caused much of the division that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman empire, for the century or so, tried to erase his name from the history books, and killed anyone who stood up for his words. They burned anything that even mentioned him, and tried to rewrite history. It didn't work. The fact is, he was around, and it's only the western world that has started to disagree. Who he was is what I will allow you to debate. Mohammed (the man who founded the Muslum faith) said that Christ was just another prophet, like himself. The Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism say that he was just a great teacher. Now, in a much more subtle, yet much more effective way than the Roman Empire, the western world has begun to rewrite history again, and remove Jesus from the books. This is why the New Testament of the Bible is about the only source from that era that still speaks of Jesus. Not because it is a fairy tale, but because it is simply a collection of letters that followers of Christ wrote to each other, and were just about the only documents the Romans didn't erase. Since there were so few of them left, just about all of it landed in the Bible. So, who was he really?

: . : Well, the fact is, you have two choices in the end. He was either a total lunatic, or he was the son of God / God incarnate. Here is why. He was a great teacher, he had a lot to say, but the catch is, everything that he said came back to his teaching that he was the son of God. It's a pretty big claim, and you just can't give any of his teachings worth unless you let him be the son of God. And if you don't, he was just a crazy man. Which was he? It's up for you to decide. So, what does this mean, anyway? It means that most of the New Testament of the Bible is at least loosly based on truth. Now, what about the Old Testament? Let us see about that one.

: . : Now, if you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say Old Testament and New Testament, I'll explain briefly. The Old testament was the part of the Bible finished around 400 years before Jesus (BC, or BCE, depending on your preference). The New Testament is the part finished around 200 years after Christ (AD, or CE, depending on your preference). The Old Testament, as you might have guessed, is really old. Some of it is really really old. Now, it is not assumed that it is old, just because it is called the "Old Testament", and as a matter of fact, it hasn't been called that for a very long time (in comparison to its overall age). There are several reasons to believe that the Old Testament is very old, but I will only discuss two of them, for the sake of space, and for the reason that this page isn't the only thing I do with my life.

: . : There has always been a deep contention between the Muslums and the Jewish people, and this contention does have a reason, not just specifically racism. The reason may have developed into racism, but that wasn't the root of it. Of recent days (much more recent than I will be talking about soon), the Muslums built the Dome of the Rock on top of the Jewish temple mount, in the place of the temple. While this was a typically not nice thing to do, they claim it is rightfully theirs, even though the Jews have had a temple on it, in the past, since around 500 or 600 BC. The greatest area of contention is an argument over which nation it is that God favours. Several thousand years ago (and this event is recorded in the Bible), a man named Abraham lived. He had two sons (at least to begin with) named Isaac and Ishmael. These names are slightly different in Muslum texts than in Jewish texts, just because of translation differences, but the similarities are there. Now, in Jewish history, God told Abraham to choose Isaac as his heir, as the heir to the people of God, wheras in Muslum history, it was Ishmael who was chosen. They both believe that they are the chosen nation of God, just because of this historical blunder. Both nations try to trace their lineages back to Isaac and Ishmael, and although it is obvious that they really did decend from them because of historical evidences, it is somewhat appearant the the genealogies are incomplete. These two nations can both trace their history back to the days of the early Old Testament. Whether or not you believe that is up to you.

: . : The second evidence of the oldisity (my word, no one elses) of the Old Testament are the Dead Sea Scrolls. You may have heard of these before. Between 1947 and 1956, caves were found in the hills of Qumran, on the edge of the dead sea, and in them were many Biblical texts. The settlement of Qumran was essentially a monestary, and is recorded in history books to have been in existance between around 150BC to 65AD. In these caves were found sealed jars with scrolls in them which dated back to the same period. These scrolls contain many of the texts which we call books of the Bible, and even more texts of various other histories. Obviously the Old Testament has been around for at least 2000 years. Whether or not you believe it is 2500 years old is up to you (some of it is actually around 3500 years old, but that's another story).

: . : So, what are we to gain from this article? The fact that Jesus, the people mentioned in the Old Testament (Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael), Mohammed the Prophet, and Buddha were all real people in history. Whether or not you think their teachings are believable is up to you, but you cannot deny their existences. Every man (it's a generic term, always has been, always should be, it means everyone, but don't get me started on that) believes in something, whether it be his fellow man, general progress of society, the God of Israel, the God of the Christians (which is, evidently, the same God), the God of the Muslums, the extra human realm of Mahayanna Buddhism, or in a small wooden statue on your coffee table, you have the obligation to choose which one of these beliefs you think is correct. If you do not, no matter how small a chance you may, as of this moment, see any of them to be useless and vain, miss out on the very meaning of existence. Not only that, but on a chance for eternal life.

: . : I, personally find Christianity to be the most historically accurate, and spiritually evident. If you find my thoughts to be in any way intelligent, why not check it out. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Find God, while He may be found.