Satisfaction Guaranteed, Part I

Well, that title makes no sense at all.

Except for one thing.

There's no pleasing everybody, is there?

Lol. Some people complain posts are too long, some find them too heavy, some say that I am "succumbing to the populist blog trend" - or something along those lines.

Welll, time to set the record straight.

Firstly let's look at the title of my blog. You see, this blog was created with the intention of observing the reading culture of people today. Do people enjoy light insightful posts? Or some mumbo-jumbo? Or some really eccentric idea? Or deep spiritual thoughts?

And it seems that the result so far is: To each his own.

But anyways here is today's thought of the day:

Agnosticism.

There. Deep enough for you, Mr. "Succumbing to populist blog trends"?

Lol. Kidding.

Umm, anyways agnosticism, the belief that there is a God, but having nothing to do with Him. Basically it's a "I know you're up there but I dont bother you and therefore you dont bother me" kind of attitude. Sort of.

Also called the fence sitters, the group of people between atheism and theism.

Well, if they were fence sitters, we would need a very big fence. Because there's definitely a lot of them. Especially of people I know. People who believe in a God, but nothing beyond that.

I find that notion quite stupid. Sorry if that came across as insulting.

Let's use an illustration I saw on a video.

Imagine that all that is is in a box. We call it the cosmic cube, and in it is matter, energy and spirits. A physicist would tell you that in the physical sense, there is only matter and energy. And for those of you who believe in spirits, which I believe most do, we have therefore included the spirits.

Now where does God fit into that picture?

Some put him in the box, as a spirit. We therefore get our bear-gods, or monkey-gods, or whatever, which really are just matter-spirits.

Most agnostics place him outside the box.

Now this comes the crucial part of the illustration. We put God outside the box. What is His relationship to that in the box?

I won't have enough time to explore all the angles, and therefore this approach is not definitively complete, but let's give it a shot.

Some believe he created the cosmic cube. Some believe the cosmic cube and God have just always existed. This second view actually doesnt make sense, because if history stretches back to infinity, we are therefore living in the infinite future, and all that time-scale stuff just falls apart, and therefore there must be a definite beginning to the finite object. As the cosmic cube is finite, it must have come into being at some point. Applying the same logic to God, as he is the embodiment of infinity, the eternal Being, there's really no need to pinpoint his start and end.

Anyways, regardless of whichever people feel is true, here's where things begin to differ. Some people believe that God is not only outside the cube, but he is present and inside as well, in a two way relationship. He hears what we have to say and sees what is going on from the outside, and acts inside the cube. This two way relationship makes the most logical sense. Because let's look at the alternatives.

The first alternative is that God is looking and observing the cube but does not bother to act within the cube. Now, if you think hard about that, that would make him an irrelevant being, because if actions are only going one way, from the cube to God, but nothing is coming back, it would make logical sense to disclude him from everything.

The second alternative is that God is blind, a frantic director who has lost control of his set. This means God is involved in the cube, but is so utterly bewildered that he's not really observing the whole cube is he? Because if he was, then he would see everything, beginning to end, and everything should be within his control. Therefore, this doesnt seem to work either, because it reduces God to being within the cube, and not outside, and he's then no better off than being another spirit in a pantheistic world.

Well, what is the conclusion of all this? I know I havent really covered all my angles, but after all it's only a blog post. Yet, it seems that a lot of logic seems to be pointing towards the fact that not only is God outside the cube and in total control, but He is inside and working amongst us. Now, if we take that view - of course this assumes that you do believe a God, a bigger eternal entity exists - we are forced to make a decision. Either choose to ignore this fact, or deal with it. That if God is not only in control of everything but is amongst us and active, then how do you relate to Him?

Because the consequences of not deciding this are huge, as we shall examine in the next part of my series of thoughts over the next few days. We may ignore His presence, His sovereignty, but where does that leave us? Until tomorrow, this is all from me.

Oh yeah, one final unrelated thought. Was browsing through the online economist and came across this. Pretty funny, the opening paragraphs. Hope the ISA don't show up at my doorstep tomorrow.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8362605

Well, happy reading!