Proving God

You know, I had one of those interesting thoughts the other day. I think the reason religion and spirituality are so alluring is because they satisfy and define unknowns. What happens when we die? Do we have a purpose? Who put us here? Why do men have a choice to act positively or negatively? Why do we even have the option to ponder about such abstract concepts?

I mean, there are no “logical”, “provable” explanations for any of these issues (so far). So religion and spirituality reverse engineer creation and answer or address these human concerns and us being human, we are comforted by that sense of knowing. It’s like we feel more connected to life or complete because we allow ourselves to believe that all the parts and pieces are in place.

So is it the mere belief of completeness that acts as the key to spirituality? I mean I could teach my child that this computer is god. It created us and the world and we will return to it when we die. If the child intently believes that, they may feel complete. They may live a longer, healthier, natural life because of the chemical effect that feeling of completeness and harmony has on their body, but does it matter if what they believe is necessarily true?

Humans have always scrambled for something to worship be it an idea, idol, or their source of food (i.e. Native American Buffalo gods are important deities). So perhaps the nature of our mind is simply wired to find such an association and satisfy that craving. I mean, it is really hard to determine if our beliefs will have any overarching impact on the world outside of our own actions stemming from our spiritual ideology.

Using myself as an example, I tend to think balance plays a key role in the governing of universal forces on a grand scale. Although I can’t prove it to be 100% and absolute, I feel that when I do something “negative”, something “negative” happens back to me and the same holds true if I do something positive”. Of course there is no way to accurately prove this, because sometimes the negative or positive feedback may not appear instantaneously.

At times it appears to work like a cosmic credit card, storing my Karma points and dishing out justice and mercy based on my collective karmic history. If I charge a small negative action today it might be concealed by a greater positive payment. If the negative charge was a bit too large, I may incur fees on that and still reap the benefits of the positive payments I made. I’m not even going to get into the complexities that interest might bring. Though just for a fun second, imagine if the universe had its own interest rate hikes based on a larger flow of positive and negative “markets”. That would mean there would be times when your negative actions could really bust you and other seasons when you get rewards and bonuses just for making your regular positive payments. (Ha! That would mean I have an A+ credit rating, universally speaking heh heh heh).

This is all just an analogy of course. The point is, in my mind I have it all worked out. I have taken the time to consider many variables and somehow devised this system that explains “most” of what takes place in my life. So to repeat my initial question, does it matter if it’s true and how could it even be tested, proven, or disproved in anyone else’s life outside of my own?

There are many theories around that attempt to explain this perspective. One is solipsism. It basically states that reality is subjective and that you are everything there is. There is not even a way to prove that anything else really exists. The twist on that is Panpsychism or the idea that everything—including you— is consciously one and the same; a sort of schizophrenic organism full of amazing contradictions and harmonic subtly. Crazy.

If you’d like to explore some of the prevailing theories around, here are a few interesting links with more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism

-Kaz