That Question
Tony DeLorger © 2016
Not knowing how to answer, I went silent, pensive. For what can one say to accommodate both science and religion in conceding creation is not a point but a continuation. For science may theorize a big bang, yet what existed before it and who created that? Perhaps we are incapable of understanding, intellectually inept, science marking a line that is as far as it can go and religion built on speculation and faith.
The Hindu’s believe that creation is an ongoing process not marked by time, but in fact what we associate as God is perhaps time and space itself, that energy that dictates all else. Hindu’s have many gods, each a particular attraction and purpose for each of those who choose to follow and worship, yet underpinning is the understanding that our souls live many lives or incarnations, each one closer to perfection until we need not come back and become pure energy, as God is believed.
Single deities are many, yet those religious belief structures vary with each religion in origin and culture, yet they all offer the consolation of afterlife in some kind of conscious state approximating a heaven, where we are joined with our family and ancestors to then live on eternally. From our earliest beginnings burial rituals suggest this very fact of one day being together again. Most religions also believe in ‘the end of days’, literally the end of the world and the judgement of all souls by God, determining our acceptance or rejection into heaven and therefore eternal life.
The Mayan culture did not believe in end of days, despite the controversy of they periodical end of calendar on December 21st, 2012, rather the calendar goes on indefinitely and apocalyptic beliefs were more about spiritual enlightenment, than end of the world.
The Muslin culture believe a final battle between good and evil will be fought in a non-strategic village town in central northern Syria, and many now believe that radical Islam and American troops will decide that final battle in the near future. Yet all these predictions of apocalypse that have been around for centuries, have not come to fruition thus far, and unless we blow up the planet, humanity will prevail until our sun dies, many millions of years from now.
So how does one know the unknowable? How can we measure an infinite microcosm/macrocosm, and worse, can we ever begin to find out, before we too find a resting place, and discover what is in store for a soul after the loss of this flesh and bone vessel we inhabit? All religious beliefs are speculation, they cannot be anything more, no matter how much faith we invest, and we can never know precisely until we are dead. The question is do you believe in the continuation of life, the soul shedding skin to aspire further into the infinite possibility of being?
The details of specific beliefs are really unimportant as is the details of scientific discovery, for we common folk, and perhaps all I can do is have an open mind, and when someone asks me that question, I would probably say all this.
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I don’t bank my life or death on any religion Tony. Being obligated to follow a particular religion in order to have my soul saved has always left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I’m at peace with my maker whom or whatsoever it should turn out to be. I would like to think that my journey never ends. I couldn’t have learned it all in just a humans years of living on earth. Even if I lived to 100 years. That’s simply less than a ripple in time. But I must say it’s going to be real interesting when I shed these bones and skin and step over to the other side, don’t you think? What a brilliant study here Tony. You captivated my attention and interest in all categories. WELL written
Thanks Vincent, it is the eternal question, what then, and I guess we’ll just all have tpo wait, as death will tell us the truth. Cheers!
That certainly is the eternal question, Tony, and you expressed your opinion very well in this “epistle.”
Much appreciated John, pleased you appreciated my thoughts. Cheers!