In the beginning, there was … what?

I find it particularly interesting that people who are most adamant about the non-existence of God are the ones who often most strongly support Christian values while opposing the religious extremists’ views of exclusion.

One of the quotes that gets thrown out most effortlessly comes from former Democrat President Jimmy Carter, a deeply religious man, to dismiss the views of some Republicans.

Yet, the same people who trot out that quote, in effect to criticize the rich for not letting their wealth trickle down, are often also the most opposed to the belief in God. They are also often condescending to people who use religion as a “crutch,” often implying they’re less educated than those who put their faith completely in science.

I’ll counter Carter’s quote with the thought that if you support the idea that the strong should do everything in their power to support the weak and downtrodden, then stop saying you don’t believe religion has a role in society, because you do.

I’m of the belief that theories are theories and faith is faith, so whether you have faith in the creation of the universe by God, or in the belief that it all started with some massive explosion (and what of the mass that exploded? Where did that come from? But that’s another post …), you both believe in something that can’t be definitively proven.

The argument that science shows that this “Big Bang” was likely to have happened (even though nobody was around to witness it) is equally and as inconclusively dismissed by the “God made it so” thinking that there are too many things that CAN’T be explained scientifically.

The idea that something that can’t be explained renders it not feasible, takes us back to the basic notion of evolution –that something has to come before something else. And as you go farther and farther back, those “somethings” are eventually going to be broken down into a “nothing.”

And isn’t that what religion in effect says? In the beginning, there was nothing.

So in the end, and faced without definitive proof, you have to have faith in the beginning of your thread of arguments. And faith is what religion is. You believe something just magically appeared out of nothing and started the evolution of the universe. We believe God came along and created that something out of nothing.

We’re really on the same page …