Arifa asked me an interesting question, after visiting Satan’s Bookclub. Since I don’t really believe in hell, do I believe in heaven?
Arifa: do you believe in heaven? because i was thinking about how you don’t believe in hell…
Jodi: i believe in an afterlife of some kind. but not a christian heaven. per se. what about you?
Arifa i believe in cheese toast which i am having now
Jodi: oh my god! THAT IS HEAVEN! HEAVEN EXISTS!
I never really think about whether or not I believe in heaven. But I guess, if you are looking at a Judeo-Christian definition of heaven, I don’t. It’s such a good story though! Heaven and hell, the war of angels, Lucifer’s fall from grace, which took seven days, I believe. It’s an epically good story! But…
Jodi: it’s like, what is good and what is evil? you know what good and evil are? they are constructs of man. if there is a higher place of existence, it probably does not anything to do with good and evil. whoa. i got kinda deep.
The more I think about quantum physics, which i do on a regular basis, the less I believe in heaven and hell. The more I try to conceptualize being made up of atoms, the less I believe the definition of God that Christianity, Judaism and Islam have come up with. When the reality of our existence is so much more amazing than what they gave us in their holy books. For as long as I can remember, even as a young child, I would stop and think about my birth, the fact that I existed. Once I understood how babies were made, I realized how very amazing it was that I was me, and not someone else. With all those sperm fighting for that egg, I won the lottery of existence. It could have very well been a different sperm that made it there first and POOF, I would not be here. I could trip on these thoughts for hours. Or I would lay on the ground and look up at the night sky. I’d picture myself there, lying on the grass, in relation to my neighborhood, to my town, to my state, and so on until I was attempting to relate myself to the universe at large. And it would freak me out.. what a damn miracle it was. What a terribly unlikely, mathematically impossible miracle it was, that our galaxy existed in this universe of galaxies, that our planet existed among all these other planet with no apparent life on them, how on this planet, there lived a girl in some state – some city, who existed only because one out of hundreds of millions of sperm made it to the egg first.
Which may be why I never took drugs, growing up.
Whoa! This is why I stay tuned to this blog! I am studying for my Masters degree in Religious Philosophy and that is more insightful than the majority of students manage,especially those with the usual leanings.
Oh and cheese on toast is heaven in physical form, a little Branston pickle on top is Heaven + 1.
If you also look at quantum physics, you’ll see that there wasn’t enough potential energy lying around to create the Big Bang, and that there had to have been an impetus for it. Even if we take into account Einstein’s postulate that the universe is constantly expanding and collapsing on itself, each subsequent collapse causing matter to explode back out to create another Big Bang, there had to have been on original flash point for it, and a source of that power.
Also, if you see how the world’s catastrophes were precisely engineered to allow certain species to flourish until there was humanity, with our completely unique concept of regret and full self awareness, you can see that a loosely guiding power surely had to have opened the doorway for our existence. From the perfect atmospheric mix to the way the human spine intricately links together, it’s only the most argumentative person that cannot see the art in the artifice.
But all this, everything we have around us, I believe is merely to allow these bodies of ours to tap into a greater consciousness: A consciousness that is so beyond our comprehension, the only thing resembling it is God. Perhaps that is why we exist: To feed and grow this consciousness for God. Perhaps it’s to serve as a companion to God? Perhaps we’re merely the shell of an egg with our collective consciousness being the offspring? Perhaps our consciousness even feeds into God’s essence directly?
But from what I can estimate, heaven and hell exist in the same way light and darkness exist, or heat and cold: Cold is merely the absence of heat. Darkness is nothing but the absence of light. Perhaps, just perhaps, the perception of Hell is to be farthest away from that which is the creator, or Heaven as we would recognize it.
Then again, I’m a second-rate pornographer who left college without benefit of even an associate’s degree, so what could I know, right?
i think i’m of two minds, actually… part of me thinks like thomas… “well, SOMETHING had to start all this.” but then i start wondering what the heck makes me think i understand what that something is. jodes – you are an enigma to me because your scientific leanings would make me think you wouldn’t believe in things like an afterlife and reincarnation because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for it. i don’t believe in those, but i do believe in God. i still can’t explain why, though, after a whole night of thinking about it except that it’s probably just ingrained in my being raised muslim and all.
oh – and one more comment… about the whole “intelligent design” thing and everything being so well put together. that is not good logic, i think. yes, our bodies and the universe is an amazing thing. that in no way proves that it didn’t evolve to be that way (and the fact that we all evolved together as an itegrated system would account for the harmony of it all and wouldn’t necessarily belie some master designer).
i’m devil’s advocate in pretty much every conversation, so plese don’t anyone take my comments as directly against you. i’m arguing againt myself as much as anyone else =)
I think there’s Something past here, just not sure what.
And the whole egg fertilization boggles my mind. Two minute things can create this chain reaction that creates fingernails and hairgrowth and PMS and asshole cubicle buddies. AND since we’re now officially trying to make a baby, it boggles me further that only 60% of those fertilized eggs “stick” to form said asshole cubicle buddy.
Jesus!
[pun intended]
yeah. when you think of it that way, kay, the evil sales monkee is a precious and rare gift.
bwhahwhahaa!
ok, i had to wait all day to respond to these comments, because i was in training and could not think about it properly. i know i am an enigma to you, fee, in more ways than one. 🙂
i like what thomas said about heaven and hell existing like dark and light. That is about as close as I get to believing in hell. That “hell” is the absence of the next level of consciousness. but i’m not sure i believe that you stay there. i like the idea of reincarnation. i like the idea of a do-over, until you get it right.
i have a hard time saying i believe in God, with a capital G, because there is so much baggage that comes with that. If I say I believe in him, people are already assigning a label to him, one that I am not comfortable with. So I’ll stick with little g, god. Until I can come up with a better word for what I believe in.
I think about these things all the time, have a hard time explaining what I think. Probably because of my upbringing, we were encouraged to look everywhere, to create our own truth. there is no text out there, that explains what I believe in.
it’s hard for me to explain what i believe…or even identify it, really. i’m better at saying what i don’t believe.
i love the idea of reincarnation. it explains so much for me about why people are the way they are.
Imagine we are feeding a collective consciousness; Everytime a new life comes into being, that mind feeds into the consciousness. What if the connection sometimes works more two-ways in some people? We could pull down the fragments others left behind when their connection was terminated. One could even contact consciousnesses that are in the collective, but still cohesive all to themselves. It would account for mediums, memories of past lives, and even the feeling of reincarnation. It would help to explain psychics, telepathy and anyone with an uncanny ability to see into someone’s thinking. Maybe they’re all just hacking into the data stream. Maybe they’re hacking into the very essence of God, and if so, are we all God’s essence?
Then sometimes you need to sit down and pet a kitten into a purring monster, much as I’m going to do now after that mental masturbation.
now see… that’s my favorite kind of discussion.