Miracles and Our Future (FINAL)

Prologue:

I have always said that God is my favorite artist. I always say that whenever I watch the sky. It can be so beautiful, watching the clouds wisp like fire as the sunset lights them up in a burning fury of pink, yellow, orange, red, and gold. Right above the blaze would be a deep cerulean that fades softly into a dark blue, and then even darker still into indigo, eventually turning to a stygian black over time. God is an artist that never leaves his canvas. The beauty that is found in nature is something that has been coveted by artists of all caliburs and mediums, but nothing can hold a candle to the real thing. God is the ultimate artist. 

~~~

Now, I really don’t like talking about my religion. I mean, I really, really don’t. But that’s OK, I’ll give it my best shot. I don’t really have much of a story for my religion, because I can’t remember where it started. Definitely somewhere in my childhood, but it happened during the time that I was with my biological mother. That’s all I know, because the rest of those memories are most likely repressed, due to being extremely painful and traumatic. I didn’t have the best childhood. So, back to religion. Basically, I believe in God. I believe in a universal Spirit that I call God. I believe in Jesus. I believe He was a special person chosen by God, and I believe that He died for our sins. Whether He was holy or not, I believe that He still deserves respect and admiration. I choose to worship him as the Son of God, and that is simply my choice. It didn’t start anywhere, there is no story to that. That is how I got my beliefs, and that is how they shall stay. Though, technically, I am a Lutheran, because my father is Lutheran. However, my dad has never, not even once, spoken to me about religion. I believe in Darwinism and everything else that science has to offer. However, I also believe that religion and science can often go hand-in-hand. One night I was talking with my grandfather. We were talking about the beginning of the universe. Both he and I believe the Big Bang Theory. However, we noted that as the beginning of the universe, but what was before that? Why was everything so densely packed? Why did it burst? Where was that threshold? Why was there a threshold? My grandfather phrased it this way: “When you flip a coin, you either get heads or tails. Sometimes, rarely, it could land on it’s side. That’s the result, the effect. The beginning of the universe, the Big Bang, was an effect. Here’s the thing; somebody had to flip the coin.” That is why I believe in God. Is it the Judea-Christian God? Maybe, maybe not. Isn’t that God the same universal spirit that I worship? Maybe. I tend to think so. That God is very much described as the ultimate universal spirit, the Alpha and the Omega. This is why I also consider the Holy Bible to be the central book of my faith. However, I do not, by any means, take the Bible to be literal. 

Because of my scientific beliefs, I have trouble believing that a child named Jonah actually crawled inside of a whale to hide from God and survived. However, I do believe and respect the lesson that the story teaches. This is how I choose to read the Bible. Do I believe that some kids stood in a fire and, because of their faith, were not burned? Actually, maybe I do. Stranger things have happened in my time. I remember hearing on the news that a man, cleaning windows on a tall building, slipped off of his scaffolding and fell 90 stories, plummeting into the pavement... and survived. By now, this man has made a complete mental and physical recovery. On another occasion, my dog, Boomer, a Saint Bernard, was sick, suffering from all of the same symptoms that my last dog, Enzo, also a Saint, died from. The vet had diagnosed him with the exact same heart condition that had killed Enzo. At this point I knew that there was nothing medicine could do, so I prayed. I prayed and prayed and prayed, begging for God to heal my dog. I promised God that in exchange for Boomer’s life, I would go to church on both Easter and Christmas (I strongly dislike churches, so this was a big promise for me). A few days later, Boomer miraculously made a complete and full recovery. It’s for reasons like this that I do believe that there is a God, who still interacts with the world. The Doctor, from the British TV show “Doctor Who” (played by Matt Smith in this case), has a wonderful quote that explains how I feel about my reasons for my belief: “The universe is big, it's vast and complicated and... ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.”

I have always said that God is my favorite artist. I always say that whenever I watch the sky. It can be so beautiful, watching the clouds wisp like fire as the sunset lights them up in a burning fury of pink, yellow, orange, red, and gold. Right above the blaze would be a deep cerulean that fades softly into a dark blue, and then even darker still into indigo, eventually turning to a stygian black over time. God is an artist that never leaves his canvas. The beauty that is found in nature is something that has been coveted by artists of all caliburs and mediums, but nothing can hold a candle to the real thing. God is the ultimate artist. 

Now, I really don’t like talking about my religion. I mean, I really, really don’t. But that’s OK, I’ll give it my best shot. I don’t really have much of a story for my religion, because I can’t remember where it started. Definitely somewhere in my childhood, but it happened during the time that I was with my biological mother. That’s all I know, because the rest of those memories are most likely repressed, due to being extremely painful and traumatic. I didn’t have the best childhood. So, back to religion. Basically, I believe in God. I believe in a universal Spirit that I call God. I believe in Jesus. I believe He was a special person chosen by God, and I believe that He died for our sins. Whether He was holy or not, I believe that He still deserves respect and admiration. I choose to worship him as the Son of God, and that is simply my choice. It didn’t start anywhere, there is no story to that. That is how I got my beliefs, and that is how they shall stay. Though, technically, I am a Lutheran, because my father is Lutheran. However, my dad has never, not even once, spoken to me about religion. I believe in Darwinism and everything else that science has to offer. However, I also believe that religion and science can often go hand-in-hand. One night I was talking with my grandfather. We were talking about the beginning of the universe. Both he and I believe the Big Bang Theory. However, we noted that as the beginning of the universe, but what was before that? Why was everything so densely packed? Why did it burst? Where was that threshold? Why was there a threshold? My grandfather phrased it this way: “When you flip a coin, you either get heads or tails. Sometimes, rarely, it could land on it’s side. That’s the result, the effect. The beginning of the universe, the Big Bang, was an effect. Here’s the thing; somebody had to flip the coin.” That is why I believe in God. Is it the Judea-Christian God? Maybe, maybe not. Isn’t that God the same universal spirit that I worship? Maybe. I tend to think so. That God is very much described as the ultimate universal spirit, the Alpha and the Omega. This is why I also consider the Holy Bible to be the central book of my faith. However, I do not, by any means, take the Bible to be literal. 

Because of my scientific beliefs, I have trouble believing that a child named Jonah actually crawled inside of a whale to hide from God and survived. However, I do believe and respect the lesson that the story teaches. This is how I choose to read the Bible. Do I believe that some kids stood in a fire and, because of their faith, were not burned? Actually, maybe I do. Stranger things have happened in my time. I remember hearing on the news that a man, cleaning windows on a tall building, slipped off of his scaffolding and fell 90 stories, plummeting into the pavement... and survived. By now, this man has made a complete mental and physical recovery. On another occasion, my dog, Boomer, a Saint Bernard, was sick, suffering from all of the same symptoms that my last dog, Enzo, also a Saint, died from. The vet had diagnosed him with the exact same heart condition that had killed Enzo. At this point I knew that there was nothing medicine could do, so I prayed. I prayed and prayed and prayed, begging for God to heal my dog. I promised God that in exchange for Boomer’s life, I would go to church on both Easter and Christmas (I strongly dislike churches, so this was a big promise for me). A few days later, Boomer miraculously made a complete and full recovery. It’s for reasons like this that I do believe that there is a God, who still interacts with the world. The Doctor, from the British TV show “Doctor Who” (played by Matt Smith in this case), has a wonderful quote that explains how I feel about my reasons for my belief: “The universe is big, it's vast and complicated and... ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.”