There
is a strong predilection based on my everyday life to think that
everything must have a cause. All throughout the day my manipulation
of things within the environment that impinge upon me reinforce this
predilection. I put water on the stove, turn on the burner, and
eventually the water boils. I feel dirty, so take a shower and feel
clean. Thus most everything that I observe in my daily life has this
cause-effect relationship. I am hungry, so I eat and am full. I can
presume also that on a biochemical level beyond my knowledge or
understanding also cause and effect relationships are going on
following a meal. Therefore I have a very strong predilection to
assume that most everything has a cause. This strong belief has lent
itself to assumptions of cause-and-effect when it is really no more
than an association of one event with another. This leads to false
conclusions about cause-and-effect and, in extreme cases, the belief
in superstition and magic. It also is possible to rely on the God
hypothesis – any occurrence for which I have no ready explanation I
can attribute to the acts of God. As a believer myself it can appear
threatening to my faith to mention God, magic, and superstition in
the same paragraph. Is my faith no more than an attributing to God
phenomena not otherwise readily explainable? This of course would
make for a shrinking God since as more and more causes are eventually
discovered in the natural world the need for God becomes less and
less.
The
reason that my faith is not shaken by the latest explanations of
cause-and-effect is that I believe humanity has a purpose set by God.
It is not interesting to me to speculate on whether God was the
ultimate cause of my dropping a glass of water and breaking it this
morning. This trivializes God. Foundationally religion is about fully
vetting the nature and disciplines of love. There is a deep
conviction that eternal principles of love do not reside merely
within the glands of Homo sapiens, but in the divinity of the
Godhead. I share with many others the firm conviction that it is
unwise and dangerously arrogant (whatever the facts of the case) to
fancy otherwise. My belief is that if humanity were totally to
disappear from the universe, God and the principles and disciplines
of love would continue to reign eternally.
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