ExJW Quiet Activism: Is there a God?

This is the age old question of the universe. Is there a God? Why did he/she/it create our universe? Ask 10,000 people these questions and you will get 10,000 different answers. Yet this time of year, we think about God and humanity and that since there is so much suffering on the planet, many choose to not believe in God and everything was put here by chance via a Big Bang Theory or evolution or whatever belief system makes you feel comfortable.

No, I am not an atheist, agnostic, creationist or any kind of ist or ic, but believe something did put us here on this planet for whatever reason, and they are long gone conquering other worlds. I am pursuing a spiritual existence, not a religious one, and have a concept of heaven or wherever we ascend after death. Since no one knows any absolute truths about the afterlife, choose what makes you happy. But this planet of ours is too perfect in how it works for some Higher Being to not have set it all in motion. One slight hairline distance off course would send this planet into a freezing nightmare or a fiery furnace and snuff out all life in an instant.

A humble person cannot think all the beauty around us and perfect rotation of this planet, the way the ecosystem works, the perfect system of rain, sun, wind, oxygen, how our bodies function, on and on, was all by chance and it wreaks of a fearful person who wants no responsibility for their life now on this planet and no responsibility towards anyone else. They may feel that it's all for nothing, all chance, so let's eat, drink and be merry while trashing the planet or its inhabitants since it all might go away tomorrow and nothing matters anyway.

Surprisingly, Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) believe this too but in the opposite context. They feel that because they believe in a God they call Jehovah, that they too have no responsibility towards this planet and its inhabitants that it's all up to Jehovah to fix any problems on this planet, whether it's maintaining the environment or providing a better future for its people and animals. They are pacifists that go door-to-door in a preaching work to distribute their own literature and to gain recruits, or to warn people that Jehovah will soon destroy them in a global Great Tribulation leading to Armageddon where every non-JW and their Bible studies or their kids [depending on what the JWs believe as the responsibility of toddlers, whether they will survive Armageddon on mom and dad's coattails is up in the air]. Yet these pacifists do not blink an eye with killing themselves or a loved one that needs a life-saving medical blood transfusion since their God Jehovah is a blood-thirsty being that demands your life, and Jesus' blood sacrifice means nothing, but us humans have to die for Jehovah too. It's a hate-filled belief system that I left and want nothing to do with again. I know, you say religions incite wars and violence too, but I choose to not join other churches either.

However, since the JWs teach an anti-Christian belief system, when people leave the organization, many fall into non-belief, that there is no God, the Bible can't be trusted, it's all man-made stories since that is how you were programmed once you leave the JWs, to deny Christianity as a whole. Mainstream Christianity basically is all the same, the teaching that Jesus died on a cross not a wooden stake, that maybe there is a triune God where Jesus said at John 14: 8-10 that if you have seen him you have seen the Father. So JWs are purposefully anti-Christian to draw you away from the Scriptures or other ancient texts. So when you leave the JWs, you are already programmed to not believe in anything.

Once you decide to leave the JWs, you find you have no real Bible knowledge since the JWs draw you away from Christianity. If you can recognize this early on in your recovery, you may find a way to still have a belief in God and Jesus and find hope that this world is not doomed to destruction and that only JWs will be saved, or maybe there is a Higher Power that is in control and we are all spirit beings having a human experience.

I found a YouTube video that helped me with this subject. It is from the British comedian Russell Brand. He provides commentary on every subject imaginable and also provides help from addictions of any kind, not just certain substance abuses, but it can be related to any type of addiction. But he clearly provides examples of why he believes in God, maybe not strictly the God of mainstream Christianity, but I will summarize his statements here.

Russell mentions Stephen Fry, the British comedian, commentator, writer, and activist, and he is a famous non-believer in God and points out all the atrocities of this world and why any loving God would allow all the suffering so it proves there is no God at all.

Granted, we don't know why but it seems that we are all under a microscope and God is watching what we do and say and how we act towards one another since he is making all things new, a new heavens and earth where we shall all reside after this life is done [my thoughts, not from Stephen Fry or Russell Brand].

Russell talks about Joseph Campbell, a cultural mythologist, who stated that all religions are true in that they are metaphorically true. Religion is an attempt to explain the unknowable. The same way science is an attempt to explain the unknowable. Science can explain the mechanics of the universe, the mechanics of biology and anatomy, but can it ever explain the why? Why are we here? Why is all this happening? What is the reason why we are here. What is the nature of the universe?

I thought those points made sense. Science cannot explain the "why" of anything, just explains how things work yet science cannot create life. Yes, they can create certain strains of bacteria or plant life and interbreed animals to develop knew breeds of dogs or cats, but not from the dust of the ground can they create a human or animal yet believe everything is just chance with no meaning, so why bother. Why have any motivation to do anything? Which is why you see groups of people doing nothing but existing.

In a book called Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza, MD, it addresses that creation has flaws in its doctrine and in received physics. In the last few decades there has been discussion of a basic paradox in the construction of the universe as we know it. If the Big Bang Theory had been one part in a million more powerful, it would have rushed out too fast for the galaxies and life to have developed. If the strong nuclear force were decreased by 2 percent, atomic nuclei wouldn't hold together and plain vanilla hydrogen would be the only kind of atom in the universe. If the gravitational force were decreased by just a hair, stars including the sun would not ignite. These are three of more than 200 physical parameters within the solar system and universe so exact that its strange credulity to propose that they are random even if that is exactly what standard contemporary physics boldly suggests.

Terence McKenna, an American ethnobotanist, said that the perspective of contemporary science is that give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest. That free miracle being the universe sprang into being with these exact rules that are required for life and consciousness to exist. Russell Brand [in his commentary] believes that what Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Jainism, etc., are trying to do is to make sense of our position, our perspective as wake, conscious sentient beings within the infinite.

Russell says he believes in God and that his understanding of God is that his consciousness emanates from a perspective that passes through endless filters, the subjective filers of the senses and his own biography choosing what he likes and doesn't like, what he wants and doesn't want, what is good or bad. But behind of all that, there is an awakeness and awareness that sees it all, and its in Stephen Fry, in all of us, an interconnectivity. None of us can know if there is a God, but we do know there is an us. None of us can know if there is a wrong or right but we do know there is an us.

Stephen Fry believes we should abandon God to be free yet Russell believes the opposite, that we should embrace God to be free. Not embrace dogma or doctrine but look at what is in religion even conventional religion has beautiful thoughts. Stephen Fry brought up the story when Jesus told the scribes and pharisees that wanted to punish an adulterer by stoning her, which was the law of Moses at the time, that Jesus said that he who is without sin to cast the first stone. So there would be no judicial system if we followed God.

Russell brings up the opposite point of that Biblical story. Jesus was saying that the pharisees thought of themselves as perfect and without sin, so why were they condemning a woman who had sinned. So how could you apply that judicially with contemporary times. Well, you could say that when you are condemning murderers to acknowledge that within us all is the capacity for evil. I think this fact makes us take a step back and look at the root of evil, how it develops in some people and not others and we can influence people for the good of society.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian novelist, believed that the line between good or evil runs not between nations, religions, continents or creeds but through every human heart. So when you are judging the worst criminals possible, to acknowledge that the thing within them that has manifested this negativity is also within us. Our first duty is to negotiate the negativity within ourselves and if we can successfully negotiate that, then we can create a better society and know how to deal with the negative elements of society.

I believe the sentiments of Russell in that we are temporary manifestations of something greater, something timeless and spaceless and absolute. Every dogma including science has tried to explain this and has failed. We can contribute to the good of others and help alleviate suffering.

To see the full video on this topic by Russell Brand,

click on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Run1jpZvS4&list=PL5BY9veyhGt4wDkOHf2UU-xIUInj3ZPs2&index=4

I think as we head into this holiday season, we should be mindful of our thoughts and actions and realize we can influence this world for the better, and not give up on the hope of a Creator of all this. Don't cop out as they say, and think your life doesn't matter, when it matters a great deal. Why do atheists procreate? What's the point? Why is it so important to leave a legacy on an earth that can be gone in a second based on mere chance, maybe on another Big Bang explosion. Because someone has a master plan for all of this, there is God within us and something greater than us does exist, not a Big Bang theory of random acts of nothing that mean nothing. Nothing is random my dear friend. You matter and we all matter on this planet and our actions now will impact future generations.