Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Beyond The Mirror – A Bill Allin Column

May 4, 2007

What Is The Truth? (Part 18)
by Bill Allin

[Caution: What follows may be offensive to some people because it is based on fact, reason and probability, not on an established belief set (religion). If you are offended by anything that does not support your belief set, you should choose to not read this article.]

Wrapping It up

In this final part of the What Is Truth? Series we will look at what you can use to guide you in your search for a belief set you can use with some comfort, as opposed to one that may be imposed by sources you find it difficult to agree with. It’s a bit long because it includes many aspects and matters for your consideration.

In order to make sense of religion in general, we need to study several of them, with special emphasis on their common elements.

We need to decide how we each fit into the grand scheme of the universe, both in this life and in any future existence we may have after the death of our present body.

We need to be at peace with ourselves when our choice is made, without feeling that someone influenced us to make the choice we did.

We need to teach others what we have learned. One of the difficulties we have today is that the people who are most at peace with themselves and others, who know how they fit into the infinite and perpetual universe and who feel secure in the knowledge that they know the meaning of life are reluctant to tell others because they fear great resistance.

We don’t need anyone to tell those who are already committed. Proselytizing missionaries around the world have done as much harm as they have good. We need to tell those who want to listen, who may be prepared to change their minds when they learn more.

We owe it to others to help them to reach the position we have achieved ourselves, provided that they want to listen. If they don’t want to learn what you have learned, then you will do harm by trying to convince them of anything.

There are more people ready to listen out there than most of us realize. There are always more people seeking answers than there are people who are prepared to guide them to achieve their own answers.

The evidence for the existence of God is overwhelming. Atheists and agnostics simply have not taken the trouble to consider what is around them, to try to imagine how everything we know could possibly have happened by accident here on earth, but nothing much else happened elsewhere in the known universe.

The most brilliant, diligent and knowledgeable scientists of today don’t have more than a basic grasp of how the human brain works, how the human immune system works, how the various networks of genes in the human genome sometimes work together and sometimes in opposition to produce the beings we are. The science of psychology is little beyond the witch doctor stage of development, with little provable progress over its century of existence. Humans alone are so complex that it renders the possibility of an accidental universe absurd.

Science may be able to answer "how" but it cannot answer "why." Even the laws of physics have no need to exist in a universe without order and design. We should expect chaos in a disorderly universe, but our universe is anything but chaotic, event hough we understand very little of it and how it works.

We know that if you accept that God micromanages our lives on a day to day basis, playing a role in everything we do and caring for us every minute, then we must accept that God also causes disease, misfortune and other forms of tragedy. Just as people who take responsibility for some worthy project must also take responsibility for its negative consequences, a God that cares for us every moment must also prevent us from becoming ill, getting dismisssed from a job or becoming severely depressed because we can’t manage our lives.

The devil, like so many aspects of religion, was a human invention for which there is no evidence. To argue that the devil fights with God, but also that God is almighty and omnipotent, is illogical. The only way that an almighty God makes sense is for there to be no devil. There is no evil except that which is wrought by humankind.

We have seen that God cannot help us unless we are prepared to help ourselves. That applies at an individual level as well as on a global scale. In other words, God won’t prevent greenhouse gases from poisoning us and causing us innumberable diseases and afflictions if we aren’t prepared to help God by doing what we should. Similarly, God will not make you happy unless you help yourself and learn how to be happy.

When searching for an organized group with whom you share spiritual beliefs, be organized. You don’t need to attend a service of every house of worship in your city to learn how each works. You can phone different places (not on their day of services—look in the Yellow Pages) and ask what they believe, what the relationship is between members of the congregation, what the preferences of the clergy are and how a stranger may be expected to be treated if they showed up for service unexpectedly.

During your phone call to a place of worship, ask them what kinds of people would not be accepted as members of their religion. Ask what kinds of people may not fit in well with their particular congregation. These questions will reveal not only important information to help you choose, they will also reveal the biases and prejudices that could be warning signs of a place you want to avoid.

One of the key functions of organized religion has always been a social one. When the people of a congregation socialize well together and welcome strangers as potential new friends, you have a good beginning toward finding a group with whom you want to associate further if they share similar beliefs with you. Look for a group that socializes beyond regular services. Those situations will help you to make friends within the community fairly quickly.

You can be a good person without belonging to an organized religion. Organized religions have their own self-appointed power structures and hierarchies which, like political parties and industries, will do anything to continue to exist and to grow. Join one if it benefits you. If you find the right one, you will be better able to serve your community in ways that will help everyone, not just yourself.

"The beauty of believing is that it relieves the believer of the burden of thought. Believers are inoculated against infection by ideas contrary to their own."

- Scott Gardiner, King John Of Canada, 2007

Whatever you choose to do with respect to your spirituality, don’t give up your right to think for yourself. It’s what makes humans special, at least the ones who do think for themselves yet can still live and work together with others.

In the final analysis it doesn’t matter whether Simcha Jakabovici found the bones of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem or not. It doesn’t matter if the prophet Mohammad founded a religion of peace or became the first role model for terrorism. It doesn’t matter if Abraham would have killed his son Isaac in a fit of mad delusion (or sacrificial rite) or not. It doesn’t matter if The Buddha was Prince Sidhartha or someone else.

It doesn’t matter what garb you wear when you pray, what rituals you follow, what book you deem holy or what names you give to the most sacred members of your religion.

What matters is how you live your life. Whether you live to benefit others and advance the cause of humanity or life a life of selfish greed where what you want from your religion is benefits for yourself. Whether the world is a better place because you lived or it’s a little more sour and bitter.

If the love of God makes you feel good because of what you have received, then you are as greedy as the rich man who has a better chance of passing through the eye of a needle than making it into heaven.

If the love of God makes you feel good because you have helped others to lead better and healthier lives, then you have made a difference. Then you are worthy.

God may be many things, but there has never been any evidence in human history that God supports greedy or self-centred people. Every bit of evidence in science and religion says that the worthy person must be a giver, not a taker, a helper, not someone who is forever helped.

Do you wonder what the purpose of life is? If so, then you have not been a helper and a giver to others. You have been a taker who questions how you can get more. You can’t take more, you can only give more.

The purpose of our existence (in God’s image, remember?) is to assist with the progression of humanity toward something better. God can’t do it alone because we have free will to use as we choose. Only we can do our part to make humanity better or to destroy it. Or to let others destroy it.

We humans have been given special talents. With them come special responsibilities. If we do not use our talents to improve the conditions of life on earth, then we will become extinct in the next massive natural disaster like the ones 65 million years ago and 225 million years ago.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what you can get from God and from the world, ask what you can give to God and to the world.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems,' a book about real and inexpensive solutions to personal and community problems most people think are inevitable evils of modern society. They aren't. We just have to look in the right place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Contact author Bill Allin at turningitaround@sympatico.ca