| January 2006- A Fresh "Ism" I was recently asked to share my beliefs... And so I took a few moments to decide what they were. My faith is centered on people and the connections between them. I believe in being a good person to those around you and to the earth. A man creates his own redemption and no holy man or deity can grant him that. The ideas of Fate and Predestination are disappointing, and I do not believe in them, but I do believe some things are meant to be. The afterlife is uncertain, so I live as if this is the only life I�ll get, no second thoughts, no regrets. "I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations." - Berlin speech of Albert Einstein Having been raised Catholic for 17 years, I am largely ignorant of Eastern and Nature-based religions but actively seek to learn more about them. The more I learn, the more I agree with some of their tenets over the West�s Judaism and Christianity without wanting to rejoin myself to any organized faith. There is no Right religion nor is religion wrong. It is a very good thing for very many people and gives them strength and hope, which are never poor attributes. I, on the other hand, choose to think for myself. I feel a connection to and have an obsession with the stars, and if there is an afterlife, I hope it will be as one I read in a fantasy novel. We will have no bodies but only an awareness and be out among the stars. We will be everyone and no one, not ourselves as we know now. We will watch galaxies birth and die over and over and all at once. Time will flow forward and backward and allwards and continuously. We can watch the galaxies and see every happening down to the smallest life form. I don�t actively believe this one, but I dare to hope for it, so moving was the description I read. Think freely and discover your own truth. That is the greatest gift to yourself in this life. |