Life has been described as “an interruption in eternity ” and has been compared to a very brief, tiny streak of light, almost imperceptible, in one tiny (comparatively speaking) corner of the heavens on a starry night. Zip, and it is gone and soon forgotten, in most cases. Eternity can only be addressed in the present tense. Eternity “is.” It can’t be “was” or it will have ended. It can’t be “will be” or it hasn’t yet begun. Eternity has no beginning nor end. If scientists should find that there is an end to space, like some kind of wall, then the first question would be “what’s on the other side of that wall?”
There are many questions and concerns about life and eternity. Religions have answers, but they are quite different from each other and people become confused and afraid. Most want to hear some answer to the questions of where we have been during eternity, or, more easily phrased, “Where was I before I was born?” and “Where will I be after death?” It is very difficult to think of “not being.” Some say that after death, we just cease being, but most of us, having experienced life, just can’t imagine a state of non existence (we want to know “but what will happen to me?” Not being, we think, is impossible. And then comes the inevitable question “What about before you were born? If you were a being, then where were you and tell us about it.
All of this is quite deep and I can’t answer the questions. These are personal and spiritual (or religious) concerns. Each religion has “the answer” but they are not the same. Our political system should deal with government and worldly, life experience matters. How God chose to create and when is no business of political systems.
Many governments and great political entities have existed in the past and many others have replaced them when they fell, but the one and only God remains the same. Good reason for our founders to separate civil government from religious control and undue influence, and vice versa. For Christians, I recommend reading in the book of Job in the Christian Bible. God told Job to mind his own human, worldly business.
Who cares how long it took God to create the world and how he did it? The important fact is that God created all things. He let Job know not to meddle in God’s business.
Excerpts from Job, Chapter 38-40 (read the entire book) The Lord speaking to Job: “Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundation ? …Who marked off its dimensions? …Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place…? God continues to lay it on Job for being haughty and thinking he knew so much about God’s work.
For humans, this seems to be a message to “butt out.” None of us were there when God put all the wonders and beauties of creation into motion. No human drew blueprints and plans for creation. No human can order the morning or show the dawn its place.
The most ancient recorded history of people who inhabited the earth held their own accounts of creation and most even explained the appearance of God in physical forms. Some civilizations and tribes had many Gods and some only one. Gods’ physical appearances have been represented in statues, drawings, oral descriptions and other forms of art. Hebrew and Christian Bibles seem to show God as an old man with a long beard, in most instances. I wonder how many really believe that there is an old man with a beard someplace in the heavens who created all. Does he continue to age and does his appearance never change. More important, what difference does it really make how God would look should we ever see him?
Governmental Policy should not be based upon human interpretation concerning prophecies of “the end times” and man’s ability to make it happen. God does not need or want human interruptions (see Job, quoted above). God can “jerk the plug” at any time, without checking with Earthlings. Many self righteous, according to Christian scripture, will hear God say, regardless of their telling God all they did for him, “…I never knew you.”
I see the evidence of God each time I open my eyes (and my mind). The living and functioning of living forms. The “miracle” of birth and rebirth (each Spring) when seemingly dead trees sprout new leaves and blossoms, when the barren earth ignites in multicolored patches and when the many living things reproduce new and wonderful living things in their image (especially human beings). I can look at the heavens and the earth at any time, day or night, and see proof of God’s creation whether or not the weather is clear. A powerful storm building with majestic columns of clouds and related beauties including the lightening and winds, the rain and the mighty thunder. Then when it is over, the great storms seem always to leave a clear blue sky, with even a rainbow of color for extra attraction.
