Reconciling God and Reality

Unfortunately, I'll likely lose a number of you as readers due to the following post, but I must be true to my personal philosophy:

For years and years I'd been, at best, an Agnostic. I'd left the option open for a Supreme Being. I'd never moved into the hard and fast Atheist lane.

But I always asked in my youth: if there really were a Supreme Being, a God, why did He allow so much killing and death and hate and oppression in His name?

Stemming from that, I was a hater of any Organized Religion. Today, even, I hold Organized Religions at arms' length. I am not an attendant of any particular church nor do I hold to any specific level other than that of "Christian." As opposed to Buddhist or Muslim or Hindi or Jew.

I believe that any religion is best held close by the individual. I believe that, when Man becomes involved at an overarching level, there can be amounts of corruption, immorality, misunderstanding. Specifically because Man is involved.

I also have to examine the base tenets of religions. What does the religion SAY and ESPOUSE vs its actual practice?

That question led me to more completely focus on, say, Islam. Due, obviously, to events occurring in the past 20 years. And Islam, I realized, has been corrupted and hijacked and twisted to the point that anything done or completed in its name is likely false and dangerous.

And I finally realized -- as with most any other issue in Humanity -- it doesn't much matter what you say or write; it matters what you DO.

I distilled this down to: DEEDS, not WORDS.

How many people have been killed and injured at the behest of Islam recently vs the number of persons killed and injured by Christianity?

There is no comparison.

However, further, if I were suffering at the point of a disease that could be cured by certain specific-type stem cells I would not differentiate. I would want that cure. I would want my wife, my father, my mother, my brothers to have that cure.

And here I will leave a number of you behind.

I believe in a benevolent God. Not a strictly linear God.

I've gotten to this point because I, myself, have had to deal with my own mortality quite a number of times. In my job, off duty, with my health.

I believe in Goodness, to a degree.

I also believe in Evil. True Evil. True, unexpurgated, raw, filthy, unchecked, naked Evil. I've had it shoot at me and I've shot back at it. I've literally had to fight it, arrest it, see the results of its actions laying in pools of blood and shredded tissue. Time and again.

And I do NOT believe that Man is innately "good," on most any level. Man is constantly challenged. Man has to fight. Man has to struggle against the base animalistic elements of his past.

Evil exists for any number of reasons, not the least of which include 1) It is easy; 2) It is fun; 3) It carries psychological weight and 4) It is mostly unopposed due to the naivete of Man.

There are base tenets by which Man should live. I would include The Ten Commandments.

They are a logical and fundamental way by which every individual should conduct their lives, whether they are adherents to religion or not.

Religion?

I hold my religion closely within my own breast. In my own head. I don't share it with anyone. I don't attend congregations or churches because I don't trust Man. I don't make mention of it publicly. I wear a metal cross over my own chest, around my neck, on a chain, presented to me by a man the likes of which I won't question his duty or diligence because I know from whence he originates. He presented me, in passing one day, with a metal cross blessed by Pope John Paul II in 2004. You know who you are.

I wear it every day. Under every shirt. Few know it's there. But I know. That's all that matters.

It was probably one of the greatest gifts that could have been given to me in a quarter century.

Because I believe in the ultimate posture:

The individual semblance of Man, yes. . .

And the belief in a greater system, a greater power, a greater design.

God.

Because, without God, everything else is just transitory and meaningless.

And there are simply too many wonders, too many glories, too much in the Universe, too many coincidences, too many points of grace to otherwise explain.

BZ