Apr 06, 2014

To summarize what I have been saying, I first acknowledged that If God is Love, then hell can not exist, and that we are wrapped into this cloud of Love all of our life, from before conception to now. But why don't we feel this and why is the world so messy? I responded to that question by stating that if we could live as who we really are, we would know that we are individualizations of God, able to be like Jesus in all that we do. But, we rarely are able to live on that level, as Jesus did.

When trying to understand why our world is so messy, and how is this compatible with the definitive statement that God is Love, we have to try to understand to some degree what is the purpose of our life, why is there such a being as humanity.

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I have come to understand that humanity, that is, Modern Man, is an anomaly. True, humanoids appeared down through the history of our world about 10 million years ago, slowly moving through the natural selection process to arrive at a fully upright being after 13.7 billion years, give or take a hundred million years, to arrive, at about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, to a point where a giant leap occurred, and the first conscious being appeared. I am sure it had no idea that it was different, but it could somehow drastically outthink its compatriots and started to move forward in a unique path. Perhaps there was only one such being. Even though DNA studies show that this being, called Modern Man, was unique in capabilities but still dwelt among those who did not have consciousness, it was able to pass onto future generations the unique condition called consciousness, even though cross breeding with the other humanoids until sufficient quantities of Modern Man were there to form their own groups that became clans. Yes, our DNA contains traces of other groups of humanoids other than Modern Man!

By the way, I have never seen that process satisfactorily scientifically explained, but I am sure it is some place, so these are my understandings based up my reading of archeological findings. These clans or groups of Modern Man arrived at a point that by 50,000 years ago or so they had discovered, and needed, music and art, even at a point that it seems like some type of worship of other beings who were being honored. Also at that time, based upon the first figurines that were figured in these ceremonies, it appears that most of those being honored were female. The dominate male Gods did not appear until relatively recently, 5-8,000 years ago.

What was it that set these humanoids, Modern Man, apart? They asked: Why? That had never been asked before. Even though their existence was very similar to their predecessors, they were the first to ask 'Why'. Why did things happen? By asking why, they could derive new approaches to things and, get more food, find better places to live, and so much more. And even more to the point, they asked Why Am I Here? Thus they turn to gods or some type of honoring outside of themselves to attempt to understand. Consciousness is not just being aware of where they were or doing things to survive, but further: Why this at all? What is that? What is over the next hill? Why? Why? Why?

That is one of the two defining qualities what separated humanity from all else. The ability to ask Why. When this is joined with the the second defining quality, the need to find beauty in sight and sound, raised that new group far above any of their predecessors with a jump that is not explained by normal evolutionary steps, not even what is called the quantum leaps such as going upright. As an example, it took ten million years from the first recorded footprints of an upright creature to reach the Neanderthals, then only a few thousand years to lurch into creatures that appreciated beauty in art, made music, and appears to worship beings. That is not survival of the fittest, but total change in a being to something new. I notice that scientists do not touch this sudden change with a preverbal ten foot pole!

And today we still ask: Why? That question is one of the driving forces in humanity, our drive for answers beyond what we already know. At the same time, we began to appreciate beauty in design, harmony, the glories all around us. We truly had our eyes and ears opened!

That basic question: Why are we here? Do we have a purpose other than living a life in fear of the next bad thing? Why are there devastating earthquakes, why tornadoes, why, as the news is filled as I write this, are there sudden mudslides, why does an airplane filled with people vanish over the ocean, what is the purpose of all these apparently random events? Creatures without our driving sense of “Why” would just shrug their shoulders, find the nearest shelter or cave, and search for food.

It is difficult to answer one of the most profound questions ever asked in a treatise, let alone in a few words. Thousands of words have been written on this topic. But the best I have ever see came from the books “Conversations With God”. Some of this may sound crazy, but I implore any who read this to ponder these thoughts and see if they fit the data of life as it is for you right now. Note I do not ask you to see if they fit what we have been taught, for they do not; but do they fit the data of Life as you live it, and if so, they can lead to wondrous answers to the question that no religious dogma has ever answered: why are things so messy and why is life so difficult at times. My God led me to these answers by demanding (yes, God CAN demand we do something) that I study certain writers in a given sequence, finally leading me to the “Conversation With God” series and pushing me with a force I could not resist to read them.

I have mentioned previously that I had arrived at several of these conclusions from my studies of God and my studies of cosmology. First, If God is Love, there can not be a hell. Impossible. God is Love, not an angry old guy shaking his finger at us from afar. No, God is Love, intimately in and through us, closer than our mother or father or lover ever could be, in our very being.

Then I studied cosmology, including the Big Bang, Einstein's simple equations for all that is the universe, together with particle physics and the the concepts of quantum mechanics and the implications of them.

I had arrived at the understanding of Einstein's great quip “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” As the physicists probed into the nature of matter, deeper and deeper into the nature of electrons, into the world of quarks and neutrons, and into the boundaries of those forces, and realizing that Einstein's equation, E=mc(2), that matter and energy were the same, always, that all matter was energy held in bondage to other forms of energy, forming a relationship that held the universe, and us, yes you and me, together. Then in the field of quantum forces that exist at the level of those energy boundaries, we have come to understand that even the energy boundaries are relationships that form firm relationships together with virtual relationships that fill space and define space. (No, space is NOT empty, but filled with positive and negative energy and virtual particles. In fact, measurements and the quantum mathematics of the universe tell us that they are balanced to an incredible degree, by 10 raised to the 120th power. If it had only been 10 raised to the 119th power, life in the universe could not have formed.)

Relationships defines God. Is God confined to our universe because the universe and God are one? Of course not. After all, the universe is only 13,8 billion years old, and God just IS, not defined by time or space. But I discovered through my studies of cosmology and God that all matter is an extension of God, and we are the “individuations” of God, as Jesus talked about in “you are the branches”. This was confirmed by Book 1 of the “Conversation with God” books in a firm, clearly stated statement by God, now that we could understand this statement because of our understanding of science.

God has shown me that we, you and I, are extensions, or part of, God. Like a branch of a vine, we have only a partial capability of the fullness of God, but since God is infinite, so are we. In mathematical terms, a portion of infinity is still infinity, and in this sense you, I, all seven billion humans, are extensions of God, each a unique flowering of all that God is, with infinite capabilities, limited only by our lack of faith and trust. (“Oh you of little faith, if you had faith of a mustard seed —-” (Matt 17:20))

By acknowledging that I am a branch, you are a branch, each a single extension of God, part of but not all of God, we can begin to approach the “why” of our messy world. This thinking gets to the heart of the reason the universe, and any other universes that may have existed before ours or may exist after ours, are there. The question, once again at the heart of the matter is, Why? Why go to all this trouble? Why does God need, do, desire, this arrangement? What purpose does this serve God, the All in All, the One Being?

The next post will look at God, and what type of God would create this Life as we are living it, with all of our messy encounters and wide variations of understanding (or not) of who, and what God is.

I have other musings on God at my journal on God in Beliefnet.com, under Dave434.