Whose God is it, IV: My God is ...

Taking our inspiration from the struggle to survive which is our birthright as a life-form, we can enjoy the ecstasy in the act of creating new possibility, assured that we have participated consciously in the cosmos—now an eternal fact—and that its future will be a product of this present time and space … and us.

We have made our mark. It cannot be erased.

I am continuously confronted by the question: What do I believe?

For the past couple of years I have described myself as floating around in the atheist-agnostic-pantheist range of the Belief In God spectrum, without experiencing any great angst about not narrowing it down to specific tenets, but I have come up with four.

First, I believe I experience a transcendental reality. This means that I am part of something bigger than myself. It’s not just my imagination. Do I know this for a “fact”? No, but I accept it as the basis for what I do. It works for me.

This reality extends in both space and time from here and now.

Second, I believe that what is here and now came out of (was produced by) what was the here and now immediately preceding it and in turn produces what immediately succeeds it.

Third, if a given set of conditions produces a given result, the same set of conditions will always produce the same result. Conversely, if a different result occurs then a different set of conditions produced it.

Fourth, there is no reason to think that the Second and Third have ever not been true.

That’s it.

Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say? I would. However bear in mind that the binary system of on and off is the ground from which computer systems grow. Is the universe (what I define as the material part—characteristics?—of the cosmos … which is another topic entirely: universe/cosmos) simply combinations of positive and negative?

What gets interesting for me is discovering why what was produced by a given set of conditions was, in fact, produced by that set of conditions. If we can figure out the multi-threaded pattern of the past, we can by inductive reasoning reach conclusions about how things work and apply our knowledge for own purposes.

But then we have to take responsibility for our actions.

The awesome responsibility of being on the leading edge of the cosmic cycle in our very small corner of the universe … staring at the void straight ahead … can be frightening, I know from past experience.

But taking our inspiration from the struggle to survive which is our birthright as a life-form, we can enjoy the ecstasy in the act of creating new possibility, assured that we have participated consciously in the cosmos—now an eternal fact—and that its future will be a product of this present time and space … and us.

We have made our mark. It cannot be erased.