Dear old and new friends,

     Americans of means are diligent to eat healthy foods, and grocery store shelves are loaded with all variety of food options displaying large labels that read Natural. Yet to date there are no regulations regarding what can be labeled as natural. So a fine reading of the labels on products is necessary to avoid unhealthy foods with lots of fat, added sweeteners and artificial coloring or additives.

     Would it not be wise to also be seriously concerned about what is in the creed or creeds in which we believe? A remarkable reality is that your daily life reflects what you believe; yes, be you an atheist, agnostic or a believer! Among the variety of today’s creeds are: I believe the goal in life is to get rich…or to be successful…or that being prosperous is a sign of God’s blessings. The creed of the majority of Christian believers is the Apostles Creed which is typically recited robotically without asking if one honestly believes all that is being proclaimed. Catechism doctrines are useful teaching ways to explain countless centuries of accumulated beliefs, but they shouldn’t eclipse an original, natural creed.

     A “natural creed” contains no dogmatic assertions, morality laws or stale old beliefs of former ages. What kind of creed doesn’t contain dogmatic beliefs? Albert Einstein, himself an agnostic, gives us a clue when he said, “The most beautiful emotion is the mysterious. To sense that behind everything we experience there is something that the mind cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly; this is religiousness. Those who cannot wonder and stand in awe are as good as dead.” A natural creed is a primitive response to mystery, to that which is better than us and bigger than anything outside of us, that’s so good we don’t even have a name for it. Experiences of such awesome mysteries would include a star-studded night sky, feeling the mesmerizing power of ocean tides, being in love, and the uniqueness of a human face, even one’s own.

     The religion of a “natural creed” is simply an indestructible living trust in a personal God. Its morality is a personal response to being loved by a gift-giving God applied to all situations. A natural creed’s prayer is not futile SOS attempts to contact God but living aware/awake and responding to the abiding Holy Presence in everything. Its credo is that the Kingdom of God is here, not in heaven. Eternal Life isn’t something to come in the future, it has already begun for us. Surely, such a wonderful natural belief is free of doubts and uncertainties. No, since doubt and faith are two sides of the same human experience.

     This being the mid-point in this Springtime of the Spirit, consider setting aside a sufficient period of time to look honestly at how you live your daily life. Since it mirrors your creed of beliefs you can see what you really, truly believe.

 
                                           An Indiana News Item
 
                        A second-grader at an Indiana public school was
                        “banished” by his teacher after telling his classmates
                        he didn’t believe in God. The 7-year-old was forced
                        to sit by himself during lunch for three days and not
                        to speak to other students because his teacher said
                        his views on religion had offended them. His parents
                        have filed a lawsuit
 

Dear old and new friends,

     Reading the above news item, it seemed to me that the young 7-year-old student’s atheistic belief was far more disturbing to his teacher than to her students because of the way she responded. Why did she impose the severe three-day excommunication, including speaking to his classmates, unless she “feared” he might evangelize them?

     Not surprising his second grade classmates were offended when he told them that God didn’t exist. According to Dr. Justin Barrett of Oxford University, “Children are born believers in a supreme being (God) and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination. He further states if a group of children were abandoned and raised alone on a desert island they would all believe in a God. So the young second-grade atheist’s disbelief must have come from atheistic parents who either enlightened or robbed him.

     Scholars believe from their research that children have a predisposition to believe in a Supreme Being/Creator since they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose. As a result, small children resist the idea of evolution and are believers in creationism. Believing in a Supreme Being, depending upon the circumstances of your birth and childhood, may be addressed as Allah, Krishna, Yahweh or God. We enter this world believing in God, which isn’t the same as having faith in God—which is trusting God. From our education in Christianity we acquire faith…and with it fear! It’s a dreaded fear of God, of offending by sin and being tortured in Hell’s raging fires.

     In life’s progression then comes the radical earthquake of adolescence’s passionate sexual urges, the embracing of evolution and the radical expanding of one’s frontiers with the infinities of the Space Age, not to mention today’s Internet and the array of technological marvels. Meanwhile, the majority regardless of their graduate and post-graduate degrees lack any education in religion and theology, so their basic understanding of God remains that of childhood or early adolescence.

     At the same time, we are witnessing the slow death of institutional religion as major churches suffer ever-decreasing members and regular attendance at church services. At this moment we are also in the midst of a universal secularism which is a new untried experiment in human history, and only time will tell its consequences. In the midst of this confusing flux, you personally can be struggling whether you believe in or have faith in God!

     In a time of personal crisis, you can pray with faith, calling upon your loving God for help. And when church authorities use man-made doctrines in God’s name to prevent people from being whom God made them to be, you can find yourself to be an agnostic—not a disbeliever, but a holy doubter.

     Basically, religion, like the arts, is an attempt to find meaning and value in this life. So whenever you question the value of religion, briefly recall its purpose. Then wherever you are on your life journey—whether only halfway through or perhaps nearing the end—and you seriously wonder about your relationship with God, find joy and hope in psychologist Ernest Becker’s wise observation, “In our innermost soul we are still children, and remain so throughout life.”