How I Evaluate Religions
Does it make sense?
A patient was excited about a preacher. She shared the message with me. I said, “That doesn’t make any sense.” She said, “Does it have to make sense?” I replied, “Maybe not. But if it can, why not let it?”
We spent the next 15 minutes or so talking about my version of Christianity. I saw her again about a week later. “Remember our conversation last time?” I nodded. She continued, “I went home and told David I just had the most beautiful conversation with Dr. Bob. He said, I can tell. You are just glowing.”
Our conversation was based on my experience. The first question I ask, Is there a spiritual realm?
I found my answer while reading In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, by John Gribbin. The book is an attempt to explain quantum mechanics. Gribbin gave the question physicists have been ducking since Newton: Is the universe determined?
To be determined means that the universe could be predicted. If we knew the position and velocity of all particles in the universe, the future position could be predicted by Newton’s Laws.
I reviewed Newton’s Laws of Motion. The first law is inertia - a body remains at rest or in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.
I have a body. Where does the force come from to cause it to move? There are two choices. If the force comes from the environment, then the environment controls my body. If I have free will, meaning I can choose my actions, then I must be able to generate a force to cause my body to move. There must be a spiritual realm.
Of course, I could be wrong. If I am wrong, we have no free will, and all of our arguments are both futile and inevitable.
Some will quickly point out that the universe is not determined. It is random. That is the point of quantum mechanics. However, randomness doesn’t give us free will either. My argument remains.
If there is a spiritual realm, that could lead us to accept some form of God. The next question is - Why were we created?
The answer to that question came during a group meditation. Several people had come to my office for a spiritual discussion. During a silent meditation, I was conscious of being in a place like a fog. There was no sound. Nothing to see or feel. No senses at all. It was very relaxing and peaceful. Soon, I was bored.
Imagine a creator with no creation. How boring! The universe was created to relieve boredom.
The next revelation came while playing the card game solitaire on my computer. My son was playing Super Mario behind me. I could see his image as he was Mario. He seemed to be unaware of being Matt. He was in the monitor, jumping and running to play the game. Matt was playing a game. I was playing a game. God is playing a game. The Game of Life.
With that as a starting point, we look for rules of The Game. Every religion should be teaching rules to help us live a better life. That is what I’m looking for.
You may be wondering what I told the patient. The life of Jesus was a demonstration of what we could do. You could feed thousands of people with a few fish. Want to see it? Jesus showed us. You could walk on water. You could heal the sick. You could kill a tree with a few words. How can you do all of those things? Because you and Jesus have the same father.
My patient then asked, “Why did Jesus die?” I told her that he did not die for our sins. It was the final demonstration. He came back from death to show that death is not the end. There really is a spiritual realm.
That is an introduction to what I think about life. As I look at different religions, I’m looking to compare what they teach to what I just said.
How about you?