From Kurt Lockwood:
Here's my two cents...
The universe is a living entity. We are all a part of it. The Big Bang was this Supreme Entity waking up, kinda like when you wake up in the morning and stretch. The Supreme Entity's "body-universe" (also referred to by phyisicists as the "Quantum Field Theory") comprised of everything-the forces of quantum physics, gravity, magnetism, weak and strong nuclear force, etc. He is also light, dark, matter, anti-matter, etc. All part of the entity. After zillions of years, when he learned all that he could from his own form he created life.
When he learned all about life on the microscopic level, he created more complex life forms like the dinosaurs. The problem with the animal kingdom however is that there is no emotional complexity. To wit, there is no murder in a lioness killing a zebra to feed her cubs. So next up is man and to man he gives intelligence and reason, and in that way makes us in his image. Man is the only creature that he can learn complex emotions from such as hope, betrayal, love, sacrifice, etc.
There is a theory popular among astrophysicists today that there are indeed multiple universes, meaning there may be an infinite number of copies of each of us in an infinite number of universes and each version of us makes slightly different decisions in our lives leading to an infinite number of outcomes. Could God then be fascinated by said differences? Does he let us rise or fall on our own merits or lack thereof? Or even if you subscribe to as Keanu said in CONSTANTINE that, "God is a kid with an ant farm." Well, maybe, but like a kid, does he give said ant farm a good whack every now and then? Is there really such a thing as "divine intervention?" Is it like Shakespeare said in Hamlet, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will" ?
I believe God can be found everyday in coincidences. I think in coincidence we see providence. In the movie MAGNOLIA, the film's first fifteen minutes portray three true examples of EXTREME, documented, coincidences that are mind blowing. Watch the stories of those three stories of astounding, true coincidences and tell me there is no God. Coincidence is God at work. It's the tools left behind the mason, the brief flash when we see the puppet master tugging at the strings. Coincidence is like the classic scene in the Wizard of Oz where Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals the man operating the Oz machine, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, I am the great and powerful OZ!"
We are each of examples of extreme coincidence.
I'll explain. The odds that each particular one of us are here, every individual human being living in the first place, the fact that out of the billions of people on Earth our particular mothers and fathers would meet, and out of all the eggs and billions of spermatozoa of our parents, that we particular individuals are what was created, means the odds of just getting born is like hitting the lottery while getting struck by lightning seven days in a row. The odds against all of us even being here in the first place are beyond astronomical. That goes beyond even coincidence, that becomes a MIRACLE. And therein lies God.
Further, onto now the topic of Jesus Christ who was professed as the "son of God." But since, in this theory, we are all made up of God Stuff, then we are ALL, indeed, "sons of God." So why worship Jesus? What was so special about him in particular? Well, in the final analysis, as for me, I do consider myself a Christian. And oddly enough, I found my faith through logic.
It started with a mystery.
And the mystery was that for the life of me I couldn't figure out why Christ made it as big as he has. There are historical records that document other prophets around the same time Jesus was, some with much bigger followings than that of Jesus' small posse of fisherman. Some of these other prophets even are said to have performed miracles just like Jesus. There's even an account in the Gnostic Gospels of one prophet during the time extant of Jesus Christ who could even FLY! (Simon Magus, in Acts of Peter)!
So what was it about Jesus? Why him? Just because he died on the cross? Was it the Kurt Cobain/Heath Ledger hagiography syndrome of delinquent to deity? Now before you say, "Death is a great career move." Well, true, but many of these OTHER prophets were crucified by the Romans as well. So scratch that, too.
More mysteries.
So what was it about Jesus Christ that made him last? For me one of my reasons for believing in Christianity lies with the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud of Turin is a piece of antiquity possessed by the Vatican which is said to be the actual cloth in which the dead body of Jesus was actually wrapped. When an early photographer took a primitive black and white picture of the cloth he saw, to his surprise, that in his picture negative there was a ghostly image of a man, looking exactly as described in the Bible, right down to the wounds of the Roman scourging and of course, the stigmata on Jesus' hands, feet and ribs. There's been some radio carbon dating work done on it that says it's a fraud, not from the first century of Jesus Christ at all but rather of the time of Da Vinci, whom some have postulated may have indeed have been it's actual artist, that only someone of Da Vinci's genius could've created such an early "negative" image.
This radio carbon dating placing it in the wrong era would seemingly kill the idea that it was actually from Jesus. BUT. There's been some debate about whether or not the swatches that were tested from the Shroud were from the original cloth or where it was much later repaired after different fires. Another quick tidbit is that scientists can't explain what makes actually makes the image on the cloth as there is no paint pigment on it on a microscopic level.
Even more mysteries.
This is already a long post (sorry but we ARE discussing religion here) so I won't go any further into the Shroud's many, many mind-blowing features (but I find the topic endlessly fascinating and I highly recommend that the intellectually and spiritually curious to learn more about it, you won't regret it).
I go into all this because I have found that the unexplainability of the Shroud of Turin gives me faith AND marry that to the fact that as I previously noted, that other than the Shroud I just can't explain why Christ made it so big for so long and the other prophets failed both lead me to only one logical answer. To me, it can only mean one thing:
The Shroud is real and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened.
This Shroud actually exists, scientist can't explain it AND Jesus became the most famous person who ever lived in the history of human existence including compared to even today's mega-celebrity status. Not, Obama, not Osama Bin Laden, not even Elvis, none of them even come close to the prophet who became the most famous man of all time, Jesus Christ. WHY HIM??? Because it must've REALLY happened. There is no other answer.
Anyway, since coming to this conclusion, this faith, it would stand to reason that it would be wonderful to follow the church that Jesus founded, the Catholic Church, or even any of the offshoots protestant churches, but I'm afraid the corruption, the crusades, the inquisitions, the witch trials, and the altar boy molestations have totally ruined organized religion for me. But I have come to believe you can be anti-church and still be intensely spiritual.
And as the Bible says Jesus said, "Whosoever shall believeth in me shall be saved."
Well, I believe...
Anyway, that's my two cents...
