WW 9/27 God is not Necessary

A lead-in statement for the WW 9/27 article was (to paraphrase) that "God was not necessary for the creation of the universe. Scientists have a routine for catching attention by making strange statements that they cannot backup except by using phraseology that no one understands; including themselves. Stephen Hawking suggested that only scientific laws were needed to create the universe. He did not bother to tell us where the scientific laws came from. He did not because he does not know. What he stated was an assumption (belief on his part). He cannot prove himself right, nor can anyone prove him wrong. However, the statement serves an important purpose, i.e, to keep himself in the public eye and possibly help secure his position at the university where he lectures.

I can also make a statement, not as strange as Hawking's, that can catch your attention, and also have a meaningful proof. The statement is "We are all accidents".

Each of us today have a direct ancestry extending back several thousand years which would total over a thousand persons for just 10 generations. Each of these persons came to many forks in the road of life where they had to choose which path to take. At any of these forks where the choice would lead to a different mate, the subsequent future descendants would be different persons because of the different DNA combinations. Another way of stating the case, multi-millions of young men were killed in wars before they sired families. If the wars had not occurred, multi-millions of their descendants would have been born. Restating this thought; bullets, and bombs are not selective in their victims, thus the survivors in many situations were determined by chance (in other words, no one could say what caused the bomb fragments and blasts to hit specific persons). Bombs were not dropped to hit specific individuals, nor was artillery aimed at specific persons.

One could state that God directed the gunfire, however that constitutes belief, not reason. I think my logic is stronger than that of Stephen Hawking, a world renown thinker.

WW 9/27 God is not Necessary

WW 9/20 Young People Faith Practices

In reading the Wired Word of 9/20 regarding faith practices of young people, the criticisms made of young people seem to me to be just about the same as the criticisms that can be made for their parents and other adults, for tfhe most part. Religion is definitely on the back burner and generally practiced on a "feel good" basis.

I expect that the tests offered by the authors for 1) giving 20% of one's income to the needy and 2) putting oneself at personal risk in faith practices are passed by few adults.

On the other hand, the "feel good" practices probably are much more acceptable than the radical practice of suicide bombings by the Muslim fanatics against the infidels in their countries..

WW 8/30 - PROBLEMS WITH PRAYER

The text enumerates a variety of facets regarding individuals communicating with God, ranging from boredom with the subject to working in the garden. One not touched upon, is the misuse of prayer. An extreme example of this is the zealot who believes his own convictions to be those of the Lord, such as the suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan who no doubt think they are doing the Lord's work, having been instructed to do so by their religious leaders. I guess that as the bombers are making their final runs they are praying to God that they be successful in their efforts.

There are those of us who go through the motions of praying for guidance while continuing to do what we planned to do all along. Quite often that is called evidence of "successful prayer"..

There is the joke of the preacher who rushed in through the door of his house yelling to his wife to start packing while he prayed for guidance as to whether to move nor not.

And then there is the problem of unanswered prayer. The trite explanations that God always answers but: 1) sometimes the answer is "No" and 2) God answers but in a manner that is not recognized by the beseecher, do not adequately address the problem of "Why". The anguish of parents over the sickness and possible death of a young child is an example. I am sure the Lord is capable of making an unmistakable response, even to weak believers. It would appear those are the very persons that need clear answers.

Often we trivialize prayer by partaking in it while thinking of something else - a sort of rote or habitual thing, or we ask for action on sweeping general requests, or it is part of a ritual.

I am not about to show my ignorance by defining what prayer is, or should be. If I knew that, I probably would not be writing this critique.

Henry Jones

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