Religions is a very big concept, we all know it. But strangely, it became controversial too, since we are acting like fanatics of our religions, rather than believers. Putting that weird behaviour aside, in this post, i will talk about how can we believe in a god, rather than trying to prove god. Because when you look at the terminology, god can't be proven or disproven. I have written about believing before. But as far as i see, almost all of the humankind agrees on that humans are not good at self-control. So i would say this consensus is enough for me to believe in a higher power. But for you, this whole post :)
You would probably need a reminder for a god or a superior power at the first place to start believing. Maybe someone can tell you "bad things will get you to a bad place" or "there is more life other than this life" or "things have to be created by some power" kind of things. These are basically statistical intuitions for you. These are just convincing arguments for you and there is no reason to be convinced by them. So starting to believe in a god with these piece of statements are kind of illogical. God would have another ways to make you believe, right?
Then you dive into layered information. God has literally all of the information and god is kind of the information itself. If you start by accepting a higher order power, you also accept that you have definitely less information than that god, never equal. So we can say god is like the top of the pyramid. Otherwise, a semi powerful god is kind of contradictory. But how small are we compared to god?
Since god created everything according to our understanding, the next layer of creations would have less information and a smaller will and power. They might be what we call angels and also devil. After that, according to our belief, humans are created to be tested against devil, because devil claimed that it has more power and will. Then humans must be tested in an environment, which is a universe kind of environment. But then we have very limited knowledge and will in the universe, that is kind of unfair since devil has power over our urges. So we need to be reminded of god and be reminded by god. But having a direct knowledge and information about god basically discards any aspect of test, so there must be some messengers that we call prophets. And those messengers can't have direct knowledge of god and they may be reached by angels. After all this, you have a logical order of 1 god and other low level of creatures.
This whole thing requires an initial working system. That can be Adam and Eve, or maybe even a bunch of unrelated people, since 2 person situation creates some sort of incest relationship. Those people can have the basics of living knowledge by god via angels and can have basically the most primitive way of living in this world. But then you wlll talk about evolution and say there were creatures before humans. In this kind of thinking, you may have to believe that any kind of bioecological process is driven by god, to yield into Adam and Eve or others. Human brain is not just "more complexity". It has layers of different sort of intentions. Downgrading humans into advanced animals is one way to produce an excuse to disbelieve god.
But even though some people, some messengers, can have substantial information about god, people are prone to mistakes because of devil. We know this happened a lot of times in history. People find excuses to live for their comfort and by their urges. Many different societies had many different ways of diverging from the path that goes towards god. Hence we have a rich history of religions. But actually, we don't have multiple religions, we only have 1.
What we call "religion" is a set of rules set by god. Which can technically be only 1 set of rules, which is focusing on god's will. Since we believe in 1 uniformal god, the main set of rules are simply about acknowledging god and trying to be a good human. (Yes i know, good and bad is kind of subjective sometimes, but the intention to seek good is the key here.) But because of devil's interference, we have multiple kinds of religions through history. Devil successfully divided us apart by using our own lack of self-control and critical thinking. We are divided into groups and assumed our way is right and others are wrong. Which is an idiotic behaviour since we have very limited knowledge compared to what is really out there, as i mentioned before.
What do you expect god to be? Actually does that even make sense? Your expectation is based on your limited understanding. The only logical expectation of god is god being a good intentioned entity. Because otherwise, a bad god contradicts the concept of god, but feel free to think otherwise. When you expect god to have some properties or some behaviour, you are basically speculating on something you lack the true knowledge of. That is why, a religion is mostly about accepting god, rather than questioning god.
We people look for convenience and it results in a convenient god that we expect. And we also expect to live by our rules instead of god's since it is also convenient for us. Well, this is sort of illogical because it looks like you are inventing your own god, just like you invented separate religions. Again, the concept of god is basically the unquestionable thing and you can't assume rules.
But still, is god super strict with rules? This is kind of controversial but i wouldn't say so. Because we have very limited knowledge and will in this world, just like a kid. But that doesn't mean we will get away with sins. But to me, after accepting god as creator and owner and ruler, it feels like it is mostly refraining from bad in this world which is more important. Doing good in the name of god can be misleading sometimes because we might have ulterior motives while doing good. But keeping yourself from obeying the whispers of devil is hard and usually free of hypocrisy.
I am not trying to invent or interpret rules here. If we accept a creator and a superior being, we basically surrender ourselves to some unknown. We also expect a reward for our surrender because otherwise it all seems illogical to believe in a god. Even without expecting a reward, we all realize that good is consistent and sustainable, whereas bad is disorderly and destructive and unsustainable. So that is why i say trying to seek good in life and trying to refrain from bad is most likely the basic rules of god.
So to sum up, a god must be some superior being that you can't fully understand or directly connect or witness. Any lack of power or vulnerability of a god is basically logically inconsistent. Also more than 1 god is contradictory because it requires consensus among gods and shows semi-gods are semi-powerful gods. So after accepting a uniformal god, you expect to be guided by god via other creatures and some selected individuals. There can only be 1 religion for only 1 god. Otherwise you are assuming what god expects from you. And after accepting god, the most profound rule of the religion is seeking good and refraining from bad. Then you probably question "what is bad" or "what is moral". I can't help you with that :) But i can infer that god represents good and devil represents bad. The rest is up to your brain. Religion is both a belief system and a lifestyle. I can make sense of belief but i can't speak about lifestyle, that would mean stepping outside of my boundaries.
I have my burning questions too :) For example, i can say time is a perception of our physical form and god has no time and has indefinite existence. But how can we stay in hell or heaven forever? Is it like god has no beginning and end but we have a certain beginning but no end? No idea :)
Another burning question about god: Why are we or beings or devil are created, since god doesn't need us. I can accept god as literally everything or "the thing" or the reality itself. But then i can't understand why creatures are created. God already is everything and god wouldn't need any others for anything at all. But still, things exits :)
One more burning question about god is not mine, but others'. If god already knows i am going to hell in the end, why did god create me? I don't have an answer to that. Because if i say "god is testing you but doesn't know the results beforehand", it contradicts god's timelessness and wholeness. If i say "yes you are meant to be created only to go to hell even after you are given a choice in this world", that is a bully god and also doesn't make sense. Well, in this kind of situation, i ask. Does this question help me in any way? No :) So keep on trying to find good and avoid bad.
One last question that i remember from people. "What happens when a person is born with no knowledge of god exists?". It is like an unfair disadvantage imposed on them by god since they will end up in hell. Well, i guess that is why we have some free will and god is not super strict with rules. If there is a chance that you are never ever reminded of a god, you still have your self-control and understanding of humanity. So again, seeking good and avoiding bad would probably come instinctively and would save you.
This blog post is basically for the confused people. I know there are different kind of understandings of god. I also know people have questions like "why children die if god is good". What i am trying to give you is a surrender based system that you acknowledge your limited understanding and existence of a central authority. This is a logical understanding of believing in a god. Nobody can always tell you what is good or bad or what is morality. But we are not meant to question them. While you are questioning those, the world is getting worse and worse and accepting destructive behaviour as a norm. Bad intentions winning over good intentions is a reason to realize that there must be some sort of higher order. A destructive mindset goes against a logical evolution you know.
God, religion and society is a huge bundle of topics in itself. I can only try making sense of believing in a god. But after that, you think about establishing order in world and things get too complex too quickly. But we can cope with complexity right? Isn't that part of being a human? We have strategical thinking rather than just urges like animals. We have more control on ourselves and that is the result of having a soul. I would say, if you can understand how to be a human, you won't have to understand god. Just like every cell in our body contains our DNA, each of us has to have basics of humanity. But if you think i am only talking metaphorically here, you must take a look at my universe theory with quantum physics too. See you at the next post :)
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