A reason to try and stay healthy by going for a walk and staying on my diet even when I feel crappy and it is raining out.
A reason to smile and see the positive.
A reason to love the lovable and the unlovable, especially when it is me.
A reason to believe in the impossible!
Watching movies there usually is a hero that can fight bravely and lead others into battle. What reason do I have to become a better person by showing compassion and sharing what I have with others. I do not need religious authority to force me to live an ethical and moral life because I believe like
the optimism of Confucian philosophy that people are essentially virtuous; except to the extend that they have suffered evil influences in their lives.
On the other hand there is a selfish gene that can take over my mind and I can reason my right to have want I think I need even when it robs some one else.
The reason that I believe the Bible contains words that breath new life into me is because when I have found that I am too stressed or too tired I am inspired by a simple word of scripture. I am inspired to believe there is a reason for the way things happen and that as I learn what I am meant to learn I will find life has a deeper purpose that renews my courage and strength,
Many words have been written and there are many reasons for why we believe what we do. If one looks at the life of Richard Hawkins one can see many reasons for his critical stance on religious belief. He makes some valid points but he has not really searched out what Christian faith the benefits of faith only it's negative influence. So it is a controversial but the value is in helping us see the negative in religion.
There is a reason that humans have wanted to believe in a God; one that manifests love, wisdom and creativity, that makes the life I live now important because there is a soul within me that is wanting to be loved and to be loving.
Is there a mysterious force that cheers me on and helps me to climb to the top of the mountain step by step? Not to be admired or worshiped by others on the path but to achieve my own goals of being the best I can be.
There may be a reason to believe that we are psychosomatic unities and that the "soul is the form ( the information bearing pattern) of the body. That pattern will be dissolved at my death with the decay of my body.
Yet it seems to me to be a perfectly coherent hope that the pattern that is Me will be remembered by God and recreated in some new environment of His choosing in His ultimate act of resurrection."
"Beyond Science" by Polkinghorne
2 comments:
In my view, if you change religion from a worship of popes, (and imams, and rabbi's, and bishops, and monks), if you change it from a worship of old books and dogma and rules, and you turn it into the search for the shape of God, then the criticisms of peoples like Hitchens, etc., melt away.
There is something to be learned from every religious tradition. There is nothing to be worshipped in any religious tradition. Religious rules and hierarchy are, as Jesus demonstrated time and time again, the enemy of the search for the shape of god, not its home. Hierachical religion is, perversely, pagan.
Love,
Rick
That is what I was trying to say.
A honest person will have trouble with religious authority, scientific dogmatisum, and the written word preached by theologians.
But the point was that I feel it is important to try to understand what we believe and why by reason and with faith!
love mom
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