Celestial Quest

Celestial Quest understand, but not a single ―Church‖ leader has come forward to help make sense out of all this, at least in an honest, open-minded, rational, thought-provoking, non cop-out manner. When I raised these questions to avid, ―Bible-thumping‖ church-goers, I either got the stupid reply that we should not question these things, or we should have built the levies stronger, even though God sent the hurricane.

Then, of course, anyone watching TV would have heard about one Evangelical ―heavy‖ who said god was punishing the people of New Orleans for their inappropriate lifestyle.

Then we have certain TV preachers trying to look at the positives in all these horrors by saying basically we can‘t look at things in the short term. In other words, God has a plan for all of us and we just have to have faith and patience. (Tell that to the 250,000 – a third of which were children - who were killed in the tsunami and the 75,000 killed in the Pakistan earthquake.) Also, have you even noticed that for some combative individuals there is no such thing as reason or respect for other points of view. To them it is all a form of competition. They aim to best the other person no matter where the truth lies. I also got the old ―read Job‖ cop-out. It is interesting to note that, in the story, Job actually (unlike the victims mentioned above) ended up with the good life, far more wealth and material things than before. God asked the Devil to zap him. I even find it strange that a ―Loving Father/God‖ would make a pact (to prove a point/sustain his ego) with a cruel ―Satanic Creature,‖ and allow this ―thing‖ to devastate and even destroy the children of god. Would a loving human father ever stoop to this cruelty? The ―Job-ites‖ need to start thinking. It saddens me that we suffering humans can‘t get anyone to help us understand.

Why should anyone even believe in the concept of a ―Loving God‖ if the evidence is otherwise? Then there‘s the outside chance that, since humans are good and bad, and we are created in God‘s image (as stated in Genesis) then, maybe god is both good and bad.

Of course, this does not play well, in light of the ―God of the Gospels.‖ Now if we pattern ourselves after the wrathful/fearful God of the O.T. it would be different. I prefer God of Jesus.

How about we look at some real mind-boggling rationale, (and oh, do I tread on some dangerous waters here). Could it possibly be that there is a distinct separation between the Creative Force (or first cause/seed) responsible for the natural/physical elements (i.e. nature) of the Universe and the God that Jesus spoke of so eloquently of in advancing his beautiful message of love? (Don‘t forget the organized Institutional Christian Church is the direct result of the words of Jesus as set forth in the New Testament, not the O.T. where God was a wrathful, vengeful force.) It might help, if there are any uncertainties about this message of Jesus, that we re-read the ―Sermon on the Mount‖ and his other teachings (e.g. the Parables). (Key tenets of gospels are provided in the Index.) Now, back to the Creative Force mentioned above. The premise is that this source formed the physical elements encompassing the Universe and set the whole universal system in motion. Kind of a grand designer creating a spark or planting a seed, or causing the ―Big Bang‖ as referred to by space scientists and astronomers. For those interested in knowing more about the ―Big Bang‖ theory, as well as the concept of the Black Hole, super novas, dark energy, the following (obtained via the Internet) is provided: In physical cosmology, the ―Big Bang‖ is the scientific theory of the origin of the universe as an explosion of space and matter, starting from an enormously dense and hot state at some finite time in the very distant past. The central idea is that the observed red 63