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Part One
I was pondering the meaning of life the other day. I do that sort of thing a lot. I try to just open my mind and let it wander through ideas and thoughts and generally accomplish very little. I was trying to imagine IF we are not just a random accident of existence and there is indeed a creative force that you might wish to call a god, why did that creative force make us?
I wonder, are we seeds? Little bits of that creative spirit allowed to separate and grow slightly and temporarily apart from that which for a moment offered us freedom. If all are created by one force then why are some so evil. What place does evil have in the great plan? IF there is aa devil he was created as he is by that same force.
It is hard to figure out how if the creator is a caring god why then would he or she create evil? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is the point in being good if the bad people win and prosper while the good struggle?
The story of the garden of Eden is a fascinating tale about morality and the place that good and evil seem to hold in the world. You know everything was pretty great until God created the serpent and turned it loose in the garden. If that tree was so special why put it where people could get in trouble in the first place? Why send the serpent to talk Eve into eating that forbidden fruit? So many questions…
I let this all simmer for a while and eventually started seeing possibilities. Now understand, none of this is offered as facts or anything more than a random thought of a hint of a possibility. Imagine creating a world in your mind and populating it with dolls. The dolls would do anything that you wanted them to do but ONLY the things that you made them do. This is the world that is described as the Garden of Eden. In order for the creator to bring the dolls to truly being alive, they had to be able to do things that it didn’t dictate.
The story of Adam and Eve is very much like the story of Pinocchio. Once ALIVE we didn’t always only do the things that pleased the creator. It is a catch 22 situation. In order for people to be more than just empty dolls, we had to be able to do all things both good and not so good. To some extent without evil you also wouldn’t have anything that was good either. Good and evil are mostly just perceptions based on a point of view.
If you are walking down a road with no side roads and a huge fence on each side of the road are you one the “right” road. In order for you to be on the “right” road, you need to have choices of other less “right” and “wrong” roads and then choose the “right” one. (That gave me a headache!)
In order for you to have a good life there need to be points in it that are not so good so that you can be aware of both the good and the bad. This is why you so often hear of people that are wealthy beyond all imagining that have kids that seem to be miserable and rushing into misery and death. If you are poor or normal middle class with more bills than funds a lot of the time you would imagine that with all that money that they couldn’t have any worries.
To an Islamic or Jewish person eating a ham sandwich is evil. IS it evil for a gentile? Is eating ham inherently evil or only to those that decide to follow that particular belief system. OR is it all stupid and never evil for anybody and just a silly superstition. Perspective!
“Thou shall not kill!” and yet any group that follows this and refuses to defend themselves eventually got wiped out by those without this prohibition. You only exist and can follow that rule personally as long as someone ELSE is willing to protect you and if necessary kill your attackers for you.
You might even say that good is things and actions that benefit you and those that you care about and evil is anything that harms or displeases you or those that you care about. My daughter will tell you that vegetables are mostly evil!!
The creator placed us in the Garden of Eden…and we were BORING. In order for us to be truly alive and interesting we had to be able to do as WE chose to. The cost of that freedom is the creation of evil and the fact that when we make bad decisions or sometimes just because things happen we will suffer.
At this point to me, things come to a head. Are we nothing more than a plaything for a greater being with no real existence or value or is there a more real purpose? I have decided that both are true. We are of interest to our creator beyond just a temporary distraction. I think that we are a creator in the making. Not us as individuals, rather us as a single combined entity.
We individually are like cells in a body. Once the creator “released us from the Garden we began to take control of our reality. In order for us to be free and to grow it/she/he (Ish) mostly let us go with only occasional nudges in direction. Think of how a good parent raises a child. Once you let them out of the playpen you have to let them experience and learn some of the hard facts of life. Hot is more than just a word that is synonymous with no for example. Eventually, it is the hope of every parent that the child will grow into and become a competent and successful adult.
We are “becoming” and a part of that is a spreading ability to do more than just wander around in this one reality. We are “becoming” able to adjust our environment by force of will. Prayer is basically a person trying to change their reality by convincing a greater force, Ish, to do it. You can by force of will modify your reality. Reality is outside of time and space at a point where all times and spaces are congruent and one. The thing is that at this point I and we are also the same thing. As we learn to access that point we will more and more be able to control our reality. In the end we will realize that “In the end” and “in the beginning” are mostly the same thing.
I was pondering the meaning of life the other day. I do that sort of thing a lot. I try to just open my mind and let it wander through ideas and thoughts and generally accomplish very little. I was trying to imagine IF we are not just a random accident of existence and there is indeed a creative force that you might wish to call a god, why did that creative force make us?
I wonder, are we seeds? Little bits of that creative spirit allowed to separate and grow slightly and temporarily apart from that which for a moment offered us freedom. If all are created by one force then why are some so evil. What place does evil have in the great plan? IF there is aa devil he was created as he is by that same force.
It is hard to figure out how if the creator is a caring god why then would he or she create evil? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is the point in being good if the bad people win and prosper while the good struggle?
The story of the garden of Eden is a fascinating tale about morality and the place that good and evil seem to hold in the world. You know everything was pretty great until God created the serpent and turned it loose in the garden. If that tree was so special why put it where people could get in trouble in the first place? Why send the serpent to talk Eve into eating that forbidden fruit? So many questions…
I let this all simmer for a while and eventually started seeing possibilities. Now understand, none of this is offered as facts or anything more than a random thought of a hint of a possibility. Imagine creating a world in your mind and populating it with dolls. The dolls would do anything that you wanted them to do but ONLY the things that you made them do. This is the world that is described as the Garden of Eden. In order for the creator to bring the dolls to truly being alive, they had to be able to do things that it didn’t dictate.
The story of Adam and Eve is very much like the story of Pinocchio. Once ALIVE we didn’t always only do the things that pleased the creator. It is a catch 22 situation. In order for people to be more than just empty dolls, we had to be able to do all things both good and not so good. To some extent without evil you also wouldn’t have anything that was good either. Good and evil are mostly just perceptions based on a point of view.
If you are walking down a road with no side roads and a huge fence on each side of the road are you one the “right” road. In order for you to be on the “right” road, you need to have choices of other less “right” and “wrong” roads and then choose the “right” one. (That gave me a headache!)
In order for you to have a good life there need to be points in it that are not so good so that you can be aware of both the good and the bad. This is why you so often hear of people that are wealthy beyond all imagining that have kids that seem to be miserable and rushing into misery and death. If you are poor or normal middle class with more bills than funds a lot of the time you would imagine that with all that money that they couldn’t have any worries.
To an Islamic or Jewish person eating a ham sandwich is evil. IS it evil for a gentile? Is eating ham inherently evil or only to those that decide to follow that particular belief system. OR is it all stupid and never evil for anybody and just a silly superstition. Perspective!
“Thou shall not kill!” and yet any group that follows this and refuses to defend themselves eventually got wiped out by those without this prohibition. You only exist and can follow that rule personally as long as someone ELSE is willing to protect you and if necessary kill your attackers for you.
You might even say that good is things and actions that benefit you and those that you care about and evil is anything that harms or displeases you or those that you care about. My daughter will tell you that vegetables are mostly evil!!
The creator placed us in the Garden of Eden…and we were BORING. In order for us to be truly alive and interesting we had to be able to do as WE chose to. The cost of that freedom is the creation of evil and the fact that when we make bad decisions or sometimes just because things happen we will suffer.
At this point to me, things come to a head. Are we nothing more than a plaything for a greater being with no real existence or value or is there a more real purpose? I have decided that both are true. We are of interest to our creator beyond just a temporary distraction. I think that we are a creator in the making. Not us as individuals, rather us as a single combined entity.
We individually are like cells in a body. Once the creator “released us from the Garden we began to take control of our reality. In order for us to be free and to grow it/she/he (Ish) mostly let us go with only occasional nudges in direction. Think of how a good parent raises a child. Once you let them out of the playpen you have to let them experience and learn some of the hard facts of life. Hot is more than just a word that is synonymous with no for example. Eventually, it is the hope of every parent that the child will grow into and become a competent and successful adult.
We are “becoming” and a part of that is a spreading ability to do more than just wander around in this one reality. We are “becoming” able to adjust our environment by force of will. Prayer is basically a person trying to change their reality by convincing a greater force, Ish, to do it. You can by force of will modify your reality. Reality is outside of time and space at a point where all times and spaces are congruent and one. The thing is that at this point I and we are also the same thing. As we learn to access that point we will more and more be able to control our reality. In the end we will realize that “In the end” and “in the beginning” are mostly the same thing.
