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On FaithFaith Is Hope Backed By BeliefFaith is required in our daily activities. Faith assumes the Sun will rise tomorrow or the driver next to you will not suddenly swerve into you. Faith is hope backed by belief. Faith in these everyday things appears to be taken for granted while our doctoral and religious faith is compromised by our science. Education and knowledge are the bane of faith because the more we know about the world the more complicated and complex our faith has to be to survive our reasoning. It was much easier to believe in a supreme deity when we believed this world was less than 6,000 years old; the Grand Canyon only 4,000 years old. The wear and tear of the Earth in such a short period of time made miracles more believable. It was also easier to believe in the importance of us humans when we were the center of the universe. But science interferes and says the Earth is at least 4 billion years old and the Earth is not even the center of our own galaxy. Simple things like age and location change our perceptions and challenge our faith and beliefs. Faith was much easier when the Sun rode the sky in a chariot, when Gods lived on Mount Olympus, when a solar eclipse was a mystical experience. Now that these things can be scientifically explained or understood, faith and belief must encompass more complex equations to still find a deity within these experiences. Faith was easier when we knew only one church, one doctrine, one dogma. Faith was easier when knowledge and science was believed to be contained in one sacred book. Faith was easier when we knew so little about ourselves and our universe. Faith was easier when knowledge was limited by our community and all else was hearsay or heresy . Faith was easier when we were ignorant of science and its possibilities. For faith to survive it must be transformed; faith must seek a more complicated, complex deity. This deity can no longer sit on a heavenly throne but must be more encompassing as our knowledge of our universe grows. Our universe is no longer one small rock with pinpoints of heaven’s light in its sky. The Sun no longer dies each night to be reborn each morning. Sacrifices are no longer required to cause the Sun to shine, the rain to fall. Faith was much simpler and easier when all of these things were personally controlled by our deity and required our assistance. Now we know the winds, tides, and the Earth’s path through space are controlled not by whim but by understandable and repeatable laws of nature. Laws that have been fathomed by our limited minds. Miracles have been replaced by science but science makes a poor religion. To recover our faith we must rediscover our deity. We must remake this deity not in our own image but in the image of the universe. This deity must not only be religiously acceptable but scientifically possible; this deity must expand our knowledge instead of limiting it. We need a faith that challenges science without limiting its curiosity For our faith to survive we need a deity for this age. What was acceptable 1,000 or even 100 years ago can no longer survive the scrutiny of this age. The image of our deity must be universal instead of tribal and Earth bound. We need a deity that can survive whatever science reveals without demeaning our intellect or our reasoning.. Our deity must be greater than the grandest scientific theories. Author: Don Miller
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2004 Articles |
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