So long and thanks for all the fish

     Looking out at the stars at night I begin to get a feeling of how small and insignificant we are.
I have tried and failed to fully grasp infinity.  Think for a minute on what that word means.  No end.  There is no end to space.  Let's define space as the area that encompasses all that "is".  Space is infinite.  Scientific theories suggest that our universe is a "bubble" and that there are many such bubbles that populate space.  Vast empty areas of nothing and universe bubbles populate an area that has NO end.  There is a point where my mind can no longer envision what that means.  It is there that I start to believe in a higher being.

     Arriving at this point in my thoughts I start to look at what a "God" would have to be.  If we combine science and religion we get a being that created "something" from "nothing" and started our universe with a "Big Bang" (I have too many quotations so I'm going to drop them, they are just my way of showing that I will use a term even if I don't agree with it or it's a borrowed idea).  In order to do this God would have to exist somewhere in the nothing that was before everything else.  Perhaps alone, perhaps with others, this God pointed to a spot in space and began everything.  This being would have to be all encompassing and nowhere.     How did this being come to be?  What necessity bring this being into existence?  A pure energy being?  Matter and energy?  Another dimension?  Something completely undefinable by what we currently understand?

     Remarkably, I don't have a huge difficulty accepting some form of this argument.  I get locked up when I contemplate why this being would purposefully create us and have a vested personal interest in people.  Let's assume for a moment that this being created everything.  Not just our little universe but every universe out into the infinite.  I'm not sure anyone can truly imagine the scope of that endeavor or what scope we are really talking about.  We arrive back to looking at the stars.  I was in the Navy, and at night in the middle of the ocean the amount of stars you can see is truly amazing.   We are to believe that out of all these billions of stars we are the only planet that circles one of those stars that can support sentient life.  Not only that, but we are to believe that the being that created all of this created us and now takes a personal interest in our lives.  This is admittedly a narrow representation of the religious precept and religion may not actually present that we are the only sentient life but I have heard enough preachers say something close.

There are trains of thought that indicate there must be a higher being because we question our existence.  I think this is flawed logic.  I'm sure there are people that can successfully argue this point, but then there are people that can argue any point and get you to believe them.  What usually happens is the person trying to convince you of the existence of God or defend their own belief turns to Faith.  It comes down to Faith for them and this is an unassailable end game.  Faith is defined as " firm belief in something for which there is no proof".  So you end up with the unenviable position of continuing and possibly insulting or belittling them or dropping the discussion.   Anyone attempting to get further will hit this same wall over and over.  There are very few people that can discuss religion and all that I have found eventually drop to Faith.  This is understandable because by definition there can be no proof.  I have no problem with people believing in God or any higher power.  I do have a problem with the undeniable fact that Religion has become a business.  Why would this higher power possibly have any interest in what you do with your money.  He wouldn't.  Tithing and giving to a church or religious leader is purely a creation of man.

    Belief in a higher power?   Maybe.

    Belief in man's ability to turn a profit on peoples insecurity?  Definitely!