Two people today started semi-serious conversations with me about God. And then, Erin wrote about it. If I belived in signs, I'd think maybe someone was sending me one. The first conversation started when Sarah (a different one) asked me about the movie "What Dreams May Come." ...I told her I'd hated it, and she was shocked for about two seconds and then she asked me if I believed in God. I said no, and she asked if I believe in heaven and hell. I said no, and she said I would've liked it better if I believed. Then later, Sara (yes, another one. No H this time, see?) was in my room and we were looking at art on the internet and she wanted to see a picture about the blinding of Samson and I asked her, "the blinding of who?" so she told me about Samson who was supposedly blinded by this lady named Delilah, but in the picture I saw Delilah just stood there while a couple of guys did the blinding part, so I don't know how that worked. But anyway, Sara ended the story by saying, "It's in the Bible." and I said, "That would be the reason why I've never heard of it." (Really, the only Bible stories I know are the Christmas Story (which I found in a story book when I was 10 or so. I hid while I read it, because I thought my mom would get mad if she saw me reading something about God.) and the story of Noah's Ark, which I just kinda picked up along the way.) Anyway, then Sara said, "You aren't Catholic?" which I thought was a strange question, since I know lots of people who aren't Catholic but I'm sure they know who Samson and Delilah are. But I told her no, and she started this little speech about how she didn't think people need to be religious, only spiritual, and how she worries about people who don't believe in anything. She said she doesn't know why they're living if they think "the light just goes out" and she doesn't care if you believe in Rah the Sun God as long as you believe in something... and basically I got the impression she thought people should be spiritual. I sat there grinning thinking, "Hi, have you met me yet?" but not saying anything. Anyway, because people keep asking me questions that they normally never ask and because I don't really have any answers, my views on God: Basically, I have none. God (or any kind of higher being) is something I just never think about. I know people believe in God, that's fine with me. I have problems with people who say their God empowers them to hate other people, because I think if there is a God there has to be more love involved than hate, but mostly I just don't think about it. I do know that I don't believe in a God who had a son named Jesus who wrote a book called the Bible. That doesn't really make any sense to me. And I know I don't believe in any all good, all knowing, and all powerful being. Maybe a being that is one of the above... or maybe two. But not all three. Because a being that knows everything and could do anything about it and is good enough to want to could not exist in my world. Because no matter how long you talk and how hard you try to convince me I will never believe that an all-good creature would do terrible things for "mysterious" reasons. Besides, if there is an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing sort of being, I could never forgive it anyway, so I'd rather not know about it. Believing in a being like that would only make me angry, to a degree that I just could not deal with. So, if there is a higher being, I think it's something that creates but doesn't intervene. It would be okay with me to believe in something that put me here and will take care of me when I leave here, but just lets me be while I'm here. I could deal with that and it might make my life easier to believe in that. But faith is just not something I do well. I've never had faith in anything, if by faith you mean "unproven belief." Everything I believe has either been proven or is ready to be proven wrong. I don't think there is anything in there near the surface that I haven't questioned twenty times over, and occasionally something will come along and shatter a belief I didn't even know I had, and that's okay. My beliefs don't generally take much pounding to shatter. I think I read somewhere once that all major religions involve some sort of afterlife. It doesn't really matter if that's true or not, since all the ones I can think of off the top of my head do. I don't really believe in an afterlife, either. I certainly don't believe that there are bad people who do bad things and end up in hell suffering for eternity. To me, that just seems like a threat to keep people from doing those things. Like when a parent tells a kid that if they don't behave they'll call the police and have the kid taken to jail. The police wouldn't really take the kid to jail, but the kid doesn't know that, so the kid behaves. Besides, I don't believe in bad people. I believe in crazy people, and people who don't know what they're doing, and in people who do bad things because they don't see any other options, and people who've been brainwashed into believing some things aren't bad. But I don't believe anyone is born bad, and I don't believe anyone will be punished for eternity for bad choices. More than anything, if there is a divine being, I believe it has to be just. I basically have no problem living my life not ever thinking about a God. But when I do think about it, I think that I could believe in a God that created the earth and let it go from there. I don't really believe that it happened that way, but I don't really believe it all happened from evolution, either. I'm sure scientists could come up with some kind of hypothesis as to why hyacinths developed, and I'm sure it would make sense. But I don't really think hyacinths exist for any reason other than to make people happy. And the evolution of plant life doesn't know a thing about making people happy. ~me (in case you're wondering- someone asked me to put an e-mail link in my entries. I try to remember.)