Friday, March 16, 2018

God and Truth: A Moral Question


I’m writing this essay because I had just finished taking a course on Ethics, and I was interested what people thought when it came time to talk about Truth. It seems that when it comes to God and Truth, people tend to get a little squeamish. I started out with asking three simple questions, and the first one is am I a religious person? If there was incontrovertible proof that God existed, would I want to know? The last question is would I share this knowledge with the rest of the world?

Before I get into this, I just want to point out that this is just something I wanted to share and is in no way meant to offend anyone of any faith. I enjoyed getting everyone’s input on the subject and thought it was worth writing about. It sounded easy to answer at first, but then I really thought about the last two questions. These were very difficult to decide on, especially the third one. Before I answered them, I asked around on social media and random people around my university to get a better idea of what people believed and how they respond to questions about God.

I got 48 responses total, so I don’t know how adequate that is for a real scientific study, but it suited the purpose for my essay. Most of them were Christian and 30% were of Jewish and Islamic faith. Out of all the responses, 75% of the responses were from religious people and the rest were either Atheist or Agnostic. Things got interesting when I asked the same two questions that I was stuck on. 90% wanted to know if God existed just out of pure curiosity. Those that didn’t want to know believed that the knowledge of God’s existence would destroy faith and spirituality.

When it came to the final question, Half of the people interviewed said they would share what they’ve learned with the world, 19 of them said no for various reasons, and the rest were undecided. The people who would share said they would because they believe it would put an end to certain questions and the world would be better for it. Those that said no believed it would bring mass hysteria to the world, people would get hurt or worse, and extremists wouldn’t believe the truth anyway. The ones who didn’t decide believed it depended on whether God did or didn’t exist in the first place. After taking all the information into account, here’s what I wrote down.

I’m not a religious person, but would I want to know whether God did or didn’t exist and share it with the world? The answer to both these questions is yes. I agree that the answers may not be what I or the world wants to hear, but we have to know. I agree that there would be consequences for “blowing the whistle” on these questions, but I believe that’s in the short run. I truly believe in the long run, it would be accepted eventually. My excuse for believing that is death; we all grow up learning we’re going to die someday, so do we worry about it?

No, we accept it, cry about it for a while, and in some cases, use it to motivate us to leave behind a life we can be proud of when our final moment comes. There would be some who refuse to believe it and that’s fine. The fact is, if I had knowledge of our existence, then it should be shared because we have an obligation to answer some of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves. Questions like, “Who we are? Why are we here? Where are we going?”

What people do with the knowledge is up to them, but if the proof is there and it answers some of the questions we ask ourselves, then I have a responsibility to share it. I know some people say people could get hurt, but in all fairness, people have been hurt for religious reasons for centuries. But this is just my opinion and how I answered these questions based on what I heard. I know the truth is terrifying, especially when it answers questions that affects us in physical and spiritual sense, but I believe when the proof is there, then it should be shared. I invite everyone to share their answers to these questions, all I ask is please be respectful and thank you for your input.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Lady With the Golden Hair


Hair as golden as the sun
 and lips as soft as pillows.
Eyes that are windows
to the gates of Heaven.

I would love to be lost
in your paradise.
I wish I could taste your cherry lips
and drink the juices within them.

Whenever she walks into a room,
the sunlight seems to dim.
When you open your mouth and sing,
you can make an opera silent.

With a simple touch of kindness,
you made a statue break out of his shell.
His blood raced through his veins again,
and his eyes filled with salty tears
at the sight of your smile.

I live today because of you then.
I go on now with the thought of seeing you again.
To hear your sweet voice call my name
and send chills through my body.
To feel the embrace
that can only be described as love.

Till I see you again,
my lady with the golden hair.
Love, Your Statue

From Madness in a Recession, available now on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Recession-Anthony-Labson/dp/1495967875