Selfishness Continued

In my last post I discussed selfishness in the context of a mom who was all caught up in herself and her loss at not being able to attend her sons marriage in an LDS Temple. There was another part of the story that I forgot to mention. The parents of the bride, who could enter the Temple and attend the wedding, chose not to attend.They were willing to miss their daugther's wedding because they considered the feelings of the groom's parents. This selfless act stands in contrast to the selfishness of the mother of the groom.

Selfishness

Selfishness is at the root of many of our society’s problems. We have become a people obsessed with self. Everything is about me. Don't offend me. Don't take away my programs. Give me health care. Take care of me. I deserve to be provided for even if I don't earn it. Me, me, me.

I picked this topic today because of an article in the Arizona Republic about Non-Mormons not being able to attend Temple weddings and the heart break that comes from it. The article discussed a mom whose son joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and who was going to be married in an LDS Temple. Since she was not a member of the LDS Church, she could not enter the Temple and would not be present for the marriage ceremony. She was devastated and could not believe a Church would prevent her from attending her son’s wedding. She was complaining about everything she would miss. It was all about her and how hurt she felt because she was going to miss out. Not once did it mention that she was happy for her son. I wonder if she even considered that this is what was making him happy. If she had been able to put her son first and not been so selfish thinking only of herself, she would have been able to support her son and joyed in the occasion instead of brooding over everything "she" was going to miss. How sad for her.

Besides this, if she would have taken the time to learn and understand, she would have learned that what happens in the Temple ceremony is nothing like what she wants for a wedding anyways. The ceremony in the Temple is simple and sacred and does not have the pomp and circumstance she is longing for. The celebration she wants can still occur afterwards at a reception. They can enjoy all that she is longing for in the reception, without the alcohol, of course.
Anyways, the point is that selfishness is the cause of much of our issues. If people could stop dwelling just on themselves and start thinking of others, much would improve. There is a bit of a paradox in this. The more you put others before yourself, the happier you will be. Funny how the result everyone is seeking for in their selfishness can only be achieved by turning away from self and serving others.

Not just a religious preaching blog.

I know the first two posts are on religious topics. While this may occur frequently, I do not intend to blog only on religious topics. It just happens that the first thing I wanted to respond to was about religion.

Why so many religions?

As a follow up to my last post it may be prudent to discuss why there are so many religions. If, as I asserted before, there is only one truth, why are there so many religions? This question cannot be answered by common sense alone until we have a basic understanding of some fundamental truths. I will start with these basic truths, then the answer may be discovered with simple reasoning.

As there is a Supreme force for good, or a God, there is also a source of evil; the classic struggle of good versus evil. This is not a literary creation of a simple tradition but is based in eternal truth. This force of evil stands in opposition to God and desires the destruction of everything good. It desires everyone to be miserable because it is miserable. This force is known by many names such as Satan, Lucifer or the devil. He is real, just as God is real.

So, with this key understanding of a force opposed to God, we can deduce why there are many religions. Satan will use any means available to prevent us from finding God and His eternal truths. Because, if we can find God and His truth, we will find joy, happiness and peace. Satan does not want that. So, he employs many means to deceive us.

One of his best tools, and working well on anyone skeptical of the truth that there is a force of evil, is that he doesn't exist. If he can convince you that there is no evil then he has no need for any additional deceptions. If you don't believe there is any evil, then you cannot believe there is any good; for how could one exist without the other? And if there is no good, why would there be a God or any need to seek him? Life must have no meaning other than to just live for yourself and the day.

Another common tool that Satan uses is to provide counterfeits of things that are good. He uses half-truths to deceive those who are content with a little of the truth but unwilling to make the effort to find the whole truth. If he can provide something that looks appealing with partial truths, he can prevent us from finding the original. One of the results of his counterfeiting is the existence of many religions. There is one true religion that contains all of the truths of God and His plan, but with the existence of many, it is difficult to find it.

To improve his plan, Satan is also working to discredit religion altogether. Haven't created his counterfeits, he can then use them to deceive many others by making religion look bad. He makes it appear to be the enemy of peace. We can see this in a couple of fashions. First, since the differing religions are teaching different beliefs, how can any of them be right? For elaboration on this, see my previous post. Second, if he can have religion appear to be evil he would have a great victory. How many atrocities have been committed in the name of religion? Too many to number. And why has this been done? Because religion is bad? No, because Satan wants to discredit all religion to prevent us from finding truth and God.

Satan's plan is very effective today. There an many people who decry all religion because they have been convinced that religion is evil or that it is misleading its followers. Every religion that has commits atrocities or that promotes discord and contention has done so at the bidding of Satan. This is very important to understand, because without this key of knowledge we could be left to believe, as many do today, that there is no true religion.

However, I assure you that there is a true religion. I promise that there is a religion that truly preaches and practices principles of good. There is a religion that preaches and embraces peace, love for our fellow man, service and charity. It is a religion that expects is followers to think for themselves and learn for themselves of the truths of God. It is a religion that Satan does not want you to find because it brings true joy, happiness and knowledge. Satan has done much by way of counterfeiting and discrediting religions to hinder us in finding this happiness.

In summary, I have presented the key of knowledge necessary to understand why there would be so many religions in the world and why many have perpetuated violence and cruelty throughout the ages. This key is that there is a force of evil opposed to all things good.

Do we just blindly believe in God?

I read a post by someone on an online article about James Cameron harping on Glenn Beck. Somehow, the chain of comments focused on religions. This individual posted a message in all capitals (I suppose to seem more adamant) decrying all followers of any religion. The gist of his post was that all religions are bad and that anyone who believes in one is naive and just blindly following myth and superstition. He urged all religious people to just THINK and free yourself from the oppression of religion. OK, so let's think and apply some simple logic and common sense do determine who is really naive and needs to think through his beliefs.

Let's start with the assupmtion that all religions are the same with naive followers. While it is true that many people have had some bad experiences with religions and their practices, the conclusion that all would be wrong based on a select sample is not valid. It not anymore valid that saying all apples are rotten if you have only seen a batch of bad apples. However, the fact that there are differing religions and bad experiences with them merits further investigation as to why.

To answer that, we need to get down to the very basis of religion. The basic belief of any religion is that there is a Supreme Being or Essence that represents all truth, power and morality. So, what we really need to determine in this argument is if there is a Supreme Being or God. We'll get to that later. For the sake of the current point, I will take the position that there is an ulitimate, final source for all truth, power and morality; in short, a God.

With God as the source of all truth, it follows that all truth must be consistent in one whole. However, any thinking person would realize that not all religions have the same beliefs. How can there be only one truth, but many religions with varying beliefs about that truth? The only conclusion is that not all religions are correct. It also means that only one religion can be correct and that would be the one that contains the one truth. If only one can be correct, then that means there are many more that are not. This leads many people today, such as the poster mentioned earlier, to believe that all religions are false and that the people who follow them are just naive. It's not that all religions are bad, the person just hasn't found the ONE religion that contains all of the truth and thus can provide the good and fulfillment that religion should provide.

Now, again following my position that there is a God and one truth and one true religion, it would make sense that they most important thing we could do in this life would be to find that religion. Nothing else in life could have as much import or meaning as finding our God in His one true religion so that we can receive the true joy and blessings that are available to us.

So, lumping all religions together and saying they are all wrong just doesn't make sense. In fact, the only thing that does make sense is that there is one true religion and the others false, or at least not fully correct. Many religions may have part of the truth, but it's obvious that they cannot all be right because they have differing beliefs. So the conclusion must be that there can be one good, true religion even though many seem wrong.

Of course, to make this argument, I had to take the position that there is a single, Supreme source of truth; a God. The poster obviously did not believe in a God or he could not reasonably beleive what he stated. So, we needed to visit the basic belief in God.

The poster and atheists take the position that there is not a God because you cannot see Him or touch Him. They believe that anyone who believes in God is just naive and blindly following silly traditions. This simply is not true. While it may not be possible to scientifically prove there is a God, I contend that this is necessary in His plan and not need to verify His existence.

First, let's just apply reasonably thought as the poster suggested. If there is no God and Supreme Creator, all that we know on this earth would have to be explained as a random accident that just happened to present all the right conditions to end up in a planet that can support life. And then, all the right conditions just happened to occur that would allow life to begin AND all the right evolutions would have to occur to bring us to the extra ordinary consciousness and abilities of human beings. The odds of this occuring randomly are astronomical. The time it would take for all of this to happen randomly would be far more than the billions of years of the earths existence. The only thing that make sense is that there is a Supreme Being that coordinated the conditions so that they could occur as necessary to provide a planet that can support life and to lead to human beings. In short, a Creator and a creation.

However, this is not the only nor the best evidence that there is a God. And if this is all we had, I would concede my position. What we have that assures us of the existence of a God is faith. Now, the poster and his kind would say, "I told you, it's just blind belief." Again, that is false. Faith is not blind belief. Faith is based on evidence. Faith is belief in evidence that is not seen, but most assuredly is felt. This is were it gets difficult for the poster. He has never felt faith and has not comprehension of it. Explaining the evidence of faith to someone who has not taken the time to find it and THINK or ponder about it is nearly impossible. It is similar to trying to explain the taste of salt to someone who has never tasted salt. But, everyone can experience it IF they will seek it and ask for it. This is the poster's problem. He is comfortable in his non-belief and probably afraid of the truth if he were to find it.

Faith may be difficult to explain without a common frame of reference, but there are analogies that can help us understand that it is possible to believe without seeing. Have you ever seen the wind blow? No? But you have seen the trees sway in the wind. And you have felt the wind on your face. Have I ever seen God? Maybe not, but I have seem evidence of His power and felt the assurance of His presence.

Have you seen oxygen? Probably not, but you now it is there because you can breath. Now, you may say, but people have seen oxygen molecules using scientific equipment, so we have witnesses to support our "belief" in oxygen.

This brings us to another point. I believe not only that there is a God but that He is a loving God and wants what is best for us. That being the case, He would not want to leave us here blind and not knowing Him or why we are here. To that end, He has communicated with men and women on earth through His voice and through angels. These people have even more evidence of the existence of God through visual and physical proof as the scientist who uses equipment to see oxygen molecules. These people are our witnesses to the truth about God. Many of these people are known has prophets and have recorded there testimonies in sacred books we call scriptures. How do we know there testimonies are true? Faith.

So, it all comes down to faith. So is faith just a blind belief in silly traditions as the poster would have us believe? I think I have made my case that it is not. And I promise you that there is a way that everyone can know that it is not true. Everyone can receive the assurance that comes with faith and experience this evidence of things not seen. But, it does not come free. You have to want it and seek it. If you really want to know, and I assert that there can be nothing of greater importance in this life than to know, you must approach God in prayer and humble ask if He is there. But, I warn you, if you do, with real intent and in sincerity, you will feel something in your heart and mind that you may have never felt before. You probably won't understand it at first, but it is the seeds of faith. And then you will have experienced the evidence of faith that is the foundation of all of our belief in God.

Common Sense

There seems to be a lack of common sense in the world today. There are a lot of disputations, offenses, law suits, bad legislation and just plain bad judgement these days that could and should be prevented by just using common sense. I used to be of the opinion that everyone had some level of common sense. However, I have learned that there are many with no common sense at all. So, I wanted to create this blog as one person's attempt to apply common sense to situations, events and comments that I encounter on a day to day basis to try to help those who are unable to use common sense themselves. Unfortunately, experience has also taught me that many people still won't get it even after it is explained in simple, common sense terms. But, I can still try and hope for the best. So, we'll see how this blog goes. :-)