Awakening to a New Consciousness

Believers and Non-Believers

I heard a great quote the other day and it really got me thinking. “For those who believe -- no proof is necessary; for those who do not believe -- no proof is enough.” by Stewart Chase. Having spent a lot of time in debates with people of different belief systems and being extremely frustrated with the absolute intransigence of most people, it occurred to me that this was a quite profound statement. I have never changed anybody’s mind and nobody has ever changed mine. I found this thought extremely discouraging as I am convinced that our only chance for our survival as a species is to find some level of understanding or at least acceptance of each other’s religious beliefs and to stop killing each other in petty arguments over whose “God” is the “right” one.

After much thought it occurred to me that while this quote seems to be absolutely true when talking about people who believed in an exact definition of what God is, it does not take into consideration a third group such as myself which believes that it is obvious that there is some higher power in this universe that is acting outside of our ability to understand it.

This third category, it seems to me, it makes more sense because it allows for the integration of new information as it is discovered. I am glad that I am neither a “believer” or a “nonbeliever”, neither of them are capable of learning anything new. This position allows my belief system to grow and evolve over time. After all, and if you take an honest look at our history this is what has really always happened. Our beliefs about God have constantly evolved from spirits to the gods on Mount Olympus and now into the major religions that dominate the world today.

It seems so obvious, to me, that whatever this “higher power” is, it is so inconceivably (to us) vast that we could not possibly understand everything that there is to know about it. After all it not only created us and this planet and our solar system and this galaxy and all of the billions of galaxies that exist in the cosmos.

It is unfortunate that science and religion have come to be seen as mutually exclusive concepts. It is religion that rejects science because of religions insistence that one must have “faith” without proof. Science however, does not reject the possibility of God; in fact Einstein and many scientists have said that the more they see of the universe the more the they see proof of the existence of God. Scientists, however, do not describe God in monotheistic terms but rather in a more spiritual, higher power concept.
The basic concept of scientific principle is to understand that your current belief system is always a “theory” based on the sum of your knowledge up to that point. The next step in the process is always to, with an open mind, examine every possibility that you might be wrong in your assumptions. A new theory is then proposed, knowing full well that when new information is learned, the theory will be adjusted. This process is absolutely rejected by the formation of religious dogma. Dogma is accepted as the absolute and unassailable truth. Never to be questioned, never be to be amended to be simply accepted on “faith”. It was once considered heresy to believe that the sun did not rotate around the earth. There are countless examples throughout history were dogma was simply wrong and the proponents of dogma simply refuse to admit it and even punished those who dared to speak the truth.

When I said that “nobody has ever changed mine” I meant that no one has ever been able to convince me that open-mindedness and a willingness to examine my own beliefs when presented with new information is not the best path to true spirituality.

My religion is truth.