So I was talking with some close friends on Second Life about well, the meaning of the life, the universe and everything, (and 42 wasn't even mentioned!) But well, what it came down to was me actually trying to write down some of my thoughts on religion and 'stuff' that, up until now, has only been jumbled up in that mess I call my head.


[u] God is not a jerk[/u]

My own personal belief, is that I don't like a lot of the Old Testament things. I just can not believe that the person who started it all is truly the gigantic jerk that the Old Testament seems to suggest. I do, however, believe in the majority of the New Testament, I believe there is a lot of, well I guess you could call it 'universal truth' there. Good Samaritan, love thy neighbour etctera. I believe those sort of things are the 'lessons' we should take from religion and Christ is simply my preferred textbook.

This goes hand in hand with my belief that no matter who the guy(s)/gal(s)/person(s)/whatever are in charge, they're not going to chuck 90% of humanity who has every lived ever into whatever the chosen name for the 'bad place' is when they die. I just honestly don't want to believe the 'Creator' is just that mean.

[u]Danines Theory of Free Will.[/u]

"The way I figured it was. Each person has their own path, with all these branching routes that are decisions/choices. They can step on whatever one they want. Paths cross over with other peoples, walk alongside, which is how you get love etctera However all these billion and trillion different paths all millions and millions and millions of years later eventually lead to one destination that's 'gods plan'. You've got your own choices, you can make up your own mind, but eventually everything will 'work out'.

The way that God comes into it is that he's looking from above some kind of super infinite complicated map of all these paths. He knows where they all lead - he can tell the results of every choice. This means that he can even come to help us at times as a conscience for example, "you can take that route if you want, but I don't think you should. It will all work out for the best anyway but you'll be in for a tough time / cause a tough time for others now." However, it is still ultimately our own personal choice. And even if we screw up and don't listen to our conscience or do the 'right thing' everything will still ultimately fall into Gods plan.

So this, in my mind, reconciles the fact that there's 'free will' but God is still all knowing.

[u]Life [i]IS[/i] a crap shoot - with a twist[/u]

This was another big set of thoughts I had. Life actually is in many ways a crap shoot. But, the difference is, the 'dealer' (pretty sure that isn't the right word, but oh well), is actually on YOUR side and to top it off, he can pass over some loaded dice to help.

There can be random, unfortunate events in life, but when it comes down to it, when there's something really important at stake, He'll make sure things work out ultimately for the best.

[u]God does not work in mysterious ways[/u]

I believe God works in Natural ways. The planet (and universe, and potentially multiverse) is complicated. Any combination of factors can happen at any time and cause any number of things to happen that might not happen under any other conditions except those specific ones at that specific time. Yep it's the whole butterfly thing. I believe, that aside from conscience, this is pretty much the main way God helps us, and relates to that whole loaded dice thing. I will quite happily accept the Scientific explanation (I am a Biology graduate) for pretty much everything (and can get irritated by those who just say 'science is wrong', however that doesn't mean that it's devoid of God. If you're dealing with an infinite intelligence just because the line of causality is really really really really long (like of a lot of dominoes) doesn't mean that there isn't someone at the start of it. It also, incidently, doesn't mean that the dominoes didn't just eventually fall over themselves. - They might have, or they might not.

That's faith. Or at least, mine.