Answers Are hard To Come By

 I think, therefore I'm confused

The Life And Times Of Brian Waddington

 
This is the winter of my life. I don't get out as much as I used to. Which leaves me more time to ponder. I wish I could say that pondering has brought me answers, comfort, serenity? But I can't. What it has brought me is fewer answers than I started with and more questions.

I realize that I'm not the first to look at such questions. There have been enough books and papers written on these questions to consume anybody's reading for the rest of anybody's life. That doesn't make my questions any less real to me.

The most complex question I ponder is why is the world in such a terrible state. I have found over the years that the Christian answer of original sin and the devil made me do it less and less appealing. Historically original sin came into being as a way to subjugate a very powerful portion of the population. What better way to control the women then to turn them into the very vessels of sin and corruption. My grandmother on my mother's side taught me very early in life that my choices had real consequences. She'd hold the wooden spoon in front of my face and say you want this across your backside boy? I could either behave properly or get a spanking with a wooden spoon. My choice and my consequences. After my grandmother's teaching how could I believe the devil made me do it or to put it another way, oh it's not my fault I'm only human, was a legitimate excuse?

Believing as I do that my actions are decided by myself and that they do truly have consequences, I found it a very short journey to believing in the principle of karma. I am the way I am because of the choices I have made. Not the choices that somebody else made, not the sinful inherent nature of women, but simply my choices create my life. For a certainty it is a little more complicated than what I've just described but the basic idea of karma to me seems to answer the question of evil and corruption in this world. It also puts the blame exactly where it deserves to be, on me not on some mythical or real devil, but on me and every other Being.

Part of the complex question why is the world in such a terrible state is the question of is there really an all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving God. I struggled with this question for a very long time. I considered all sorts of variations on the theme and none of them were satisfactory.

All of the answers that I could find ended up with one major problem: if there was one God that was the creator God and that without this creator God nothing was created then God created evil. Not a God I choose to believe in or worship.

But I have always believed in math. I'm not very good at math but I do believe that it is a way to explore the truth of where we live and exist. I realized that if math can conceive of an infinite progression and regression of numbers, it was possible for me to believe in an infinite progression and regression of existence. For me, there is no need for a starting point and no need for an all-powerful, all-knowing creator God.

I continue to ponder. And the more I ponder the more my questions change. I am fairly certain that there will be more blogs like this one. 

Brian