Questioning:
God, Children, and the Golden Rule
“In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And
the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought
her unto the man. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not
ashamed. But
the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, You shall
not eat from it, neither shall you touch it or you die…but she took the fruit,
and did eat, and gave her husband the fruit too; and he did eat…So God drove
out the man and woman.”
-
The Holy Bible, King James Version Genesis
1:1-3, Genesis 2:22-25, Genesis 3:3, 3:6, 3:24
“In
the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness,
and some gas. The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one,’ but I think He must be
a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did.
Then God made the world.
He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve
were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented
yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven
from the Garden of Eden..... Not sure what they were driven in though, because
they didn't have cars…” ("The
Children's Bible in a Nutshell.")
-
Excerpt from a little boy’s Sunday School Bible Verbal Book
Report
Never was I a
child who went to Sunday school on a regular basis. Instead, I was taught about
God by my mother at home. She would read us the famous stories of the Bible until
my brother and I had the stories memorized. Like the little boy who told us
about the beginning of the Bible, as a child I could not completely comprehend
what the Bible meant and what it was telling me, instead I only knew how I understood
the stories.
Growing up as
a religious person in a religious family, I never understood how there could be
people in this world who did not believe in the word of God. To me, God’s word
is law and it’s the reality of everything. People would say things to me like “Well
what if parts of the Bible are just big exaggerations?” They had a point. None
of the stories from the Bible were exactly the same. John describes the
beginning of the world a little different than the Book of Genius. This made me
question if my reality of the Bible being the Word was just some childish point
of view. My reality was then being put into question by how well humans in the
past had explained significant events.
“Well if we
are on a predetermined path, then why does it matter what we do? We aren’t
choosing what we are doing then.” The naysayers of my belief would ask me this
question too, and I guess they had a merit of truth to that statement as well.
Is freewill really free if we are on a predetermined path? In my own twisted,
religious way I would argue yes. Yes, we did have freewill because we were
allowed to sin and that was alright
because it would just bring us back to needing God, which is what He wants. How
we get to God is all up to us and how we use our freewill on our predetermined
path to get to Him.
The main question
I am asked when it comes to God is “How do you know that God is real?” Philosopher
William James would tell me according to his idea of radical empiricism, only
things that you experience can be debated and argue with me that because I
cannot see God and I cannot touch him, that he is not real. (Pigliucci,
Massimo) But I know that my God is real and He is not the only thing that we
believe in that we cannot explain.
In religion
we have something known as the Golden Rule. This rule simply states that we are
to treat other people as we wish to be treated. ("Versions
of the Golden Rule in 21 World Religions.") Nature has its own golden rule too called the Golden
Ratio.
The golden
ratio is a proven mathematical number. Since it can be proven, William James
should believe, but he still would not. According to a professor of mathematics
at Stanford University, Keith Devlin, “we’re creatures who are genetically
programmed to see patterns and to seek meaning...”, but even though the Golden
ratio has the hard fact of a mathematical formula behind it, we still cannot
explain why we find the looks of these art and architecture works more
beautiful than works that do not use the Golden Ratio. ("The
Golden Ratio: Design's Biggest Myth.")
The Golden
Ratio is used in seashells, leaves, flowers, and tree branches and proves that
there is order in nature that is unexplainable. (Dvorsky,
George.) Mathematics can
be defined as an interpretation of patterns and patterns are rational.
Therefore when wondering if there is a rational explanation behind nature, yes,
there is. The Golden Ratio proves it mathematically and God provides it for
eternity.
Now as an
adult, I understand what the Bible was trying to tell me. It was telling me
that through the stories of other people we have been put on a path of
greatness though Him.
God is the
man upstairs that created the unexplainable order of nature and allowed us to still
have freewill on our predetermined path. God and the Bible also lead me to
believe that it is alright to have wonder and thoughts, but it is also alright
for there to be unexplainable aspects of life.
Works Cited
Dvorsky, George. "15 Uncanny Examples of the Golden
Ratio in Nature." 2 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
Pigliucci, Massimo. "The Return of Radical
Empiricism." Scientia Salon. Wordpress, 28 Aug. 2014. Web. 20 Sept.
2015.
"The Children's Bible in a Nutshell." Funny
Bible Interpretation by a Child. From Fatigued To Fantastic, LLC, 2012.
Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
"The Golden Ratio: Design's Biggest Myth." Co.Design.
13 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
The Holy Bible. King James Version ed. New York: Arno,
1968. Print.
"Versions of the Golden Rule in 21 World
Religions." Versions of the Golden Rule in 21 World Religions.
Scarboro Missions, 2002. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
