The Dawn of Time, and a thought on faith/religion....

Some thoughts on Religion, Faith, and the beginning of time. A discussion

Published on May 20, 2005 By ----- In Religion

--1st Thought--

I have never been a "religous" person, though i follow the Buddhist Doctrine, I feel that i might be more 'spiritual' than buddhist, but for right know i will just remain as i am. Some people, my cadet teaching advisor as an example, was shocked when she found out that i was a 'buddhist', and not a...'loyal' christian..., she began to vehemently tell me why it was the correct thing to do,to convert to christianity, at first i was a bit caught off guard, and a little angry, but i remembered some of the principles of buddha,to accept that others might have faiths other than yours, and that you (as a buddhist) should respect that. This is somewhat opposite of how the Catholic church, and a few other faiths view opposite faiths. (the crusades, witch burnings, {some where about different faiths...} ,etc...) I waited until she was finished, then cleared my throat and told her nicely, "I respect your decission to be of christian faith, but i have chosen a different path." She understood, though she still (i believe) secretly was concerned...Its times like this that i thin of a saying that i heard: "Those who are of other faith, however different it may be than ours, are just normal human beings wearing different cloths.We are all out to seek our own truth, whatever it is." --(don't remember the source)

--2nd Thought--

When i hear people say that there is no higher being (or beings) I like to ask them, "Think back to the beginning of time,to the ver first time that time existed, you there? Ok, now tell me, if every thing in our cosmos comes from something or somethings, can you tell me where the source of our universe is? who put everything into motion to which now is now...?"

(Do any of you have ideas...I'd like to hear them.)

Comments (Page 2)

latour999

on May 21, 2005

Might the Creator God not also have a source, a Creator God of His own, that He must worship or renounce, and from which all His Truths originate? Sure.

The problem is in the argument, and that it doesn't stop with the creator's creator. It says first that everything comes from something. Then says that the universe needs a creator. So they put in, say, a god. Now that god needs a creator, and so does that god's creator, and so does god's creator's creator, and so on. So in order for the argument to work, you need infinite creators. Unless you simply say gog, or god's creator, or god's creator's creator or god's creator's creator's creator (or so on) doesn't need a creator. By saying that, you admit that not everything needs a creator, and destroy the basis for your whole argument, therefore making you effectively wasting your breath/typing for the last 5 minutes.

-----

on May 21, 2005

--And this folks is why science and religion don't mix...

stutefish

on May 23, 2005

Personally, I don't think everything needs a "creator", at least, not as we understand "creation".

"Creation" is our word for the process by which things in our reality get started. Every rule we understand or intuit about our universe strongly indicates that creation is the only way for us to get new things.

In fact, our reality itself begins with an act of what we would call "creation" (either willed by God, or spontaneously). But we also believe, based on the rules we've learned so far, that there was a point prior to the existence of our reality, where the rules of our reality did not apply. The pre-spacetime state of the Big Bang, for example.

God may be the source of all our rules of existence, but nothing we know about our rules require anybody outside those rules to follow them. In fact, we should be very surprised if our rules apply at all.

Look at it this way: "creation" is just a word for "state change"--we had nothing, and then we had something. But state changes happen in time. Outside of time, how can we differentiate between "before" and "after"? Things only need a source if they exist in a timeline. What about God, who created time? If He's outside it, then there's no need for Him to have a source, because there was never any "time" before He existed.

Does God (assuming He exists) have an origin? Most certainly. Is it an origin we can hope to comprehend, or define in terms of "before" and "after""? Almost certainly not, at least while our understanding is bound by our perception of time.

And finally, I find that not knowing if my God has a God of His own to worship doesn't actually affect my relationship with Him.

Chakgogka

on Jun 23, 2005

The Buddha teaches that desire leads to suffering, and only by giving up all desires can we achieve enlightenment, peace, and perfection.

'Giving up' desires is not really possible: it soon just becomes another thing to desire. The problem I think is largely one of inadequate (Buddhist scriptural) translations. We're all familiar with "Life is full of suffering'" which sounds rather joyless. It would be better to say that there is a certain 'unsatisfactoriness' lurking in the background of life. Our most joyful moments can turn sour in an eyeblink, because even when things are going well, we might suddenly become aware of how impermanent this good moment is and then become anxious about losing it... Put that way, I think it becomes (almost) banal common sense, rather than anything too 'mystical'.

Desire is a part of life, not good, not bad. But for most of us, desire is followed by 'clinging' in the very next heartbeat - and then we have problems. There's absolutely nothing wrong in wanting and appreciating the good things in life, but a clear-eyed view is soon aware of the moral minefield involved: what will I/won't I do morally to achieve my desires; what anxiety will I suffer in fearing to lose what I cannot permanently cling to; how might this strengthen my idea of my self as totally separate from others and thus re-inforce my cosmic loneliness...

As for Buddhism and Christianity contradicting each other "fundamentally and clearly " (the God, non-God issue, I suppose), I've very much come to the opposite conclusion. Both faiths recognise a numinous dimension: Christianity 'personalises' this; Buddhism doesn't. That's kind of abstract. More practically Christianity shares with Buddhism a belief in a kind of religious dualism - The kingdom of God v. the World; Nirvana v. Samsara, that Christianity does not share with the other Abrahamic faiths. Beneath the doctrinal differences they have a very similar 'feel' to me.

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