A.  Skepticism

Theoretically, human faith, logic, and skepticism can all be manipulated beyond human comprehension.  So why should we trust our minds?  This is a kind of nihilistic question, and it often feels ignorant of experience.  By contrast, it feels honest to say that people observe the power to think and tinker, and because humans did not create this world, the Authority that did is showing us something.  For an interesting way to verify skepticism objectively, read, There's Nothing Random About the Universe, by Jeffery Meiliken.

Who would ever assume humans can prove the nonexistence of aliens capable of fooling us about existence?  Consider hypothetically what aliens could orchestrate through mind control… it is theoretically unlimited from our limited perspectives.  When faced with this classic ‘alien powers’ example, we are required to fix our minds in one kind of thing - uncertainty, doubt, speculation, human incapacity to answer - skepticism.   So in this example, we find yet another proof that we cannot define “God.” 

Should we therefore strive to remain impartial to everything, so that if humans are ever confronted with something perfect, we’ll be more likely to know, and gravitate, and yield to the perfection observed? 

When a person cannot logically determine an ultimate answer, he must decide whether he will endeavor to apply another tool capable of seeking the ultimate answer.  So, where man’s logic falls short, many people embark on the life-long process of conditioning their minds around the conclusion that faith can prevail, because faith’s circularity is peacefully complete, whereas the process of logic seeks to rely on ever-changing evidence to explain the unexplainable (which would be illogical). 

My own conclusion is that there is a logical way to approach faith and nihilism, and an illogical way to approach these ideas as well. Practically, my common sense tells me to simply avoid crime and be fair and humble, and try to practice love appropriately.

When a man believes that faith is accomplished through love, and that God is love, he will give freely his faith to God.  He may even accept messengers. Unfortunately, there is a certain part of religion that asks people to follow a dogmatic path of abandoning logic to find truth, under the auspices that this will help them achieve faith, and therefore love, and therefore life. How do men draw the distinction between ‘belief’ and ‘fear of non-belief?’ From one perspective, you can perfect faith in ignorance, but not logic.  Have you ever heard a preacher tell you that if you follow your own logic you are not in the life, as the life is light, so you’re in darkness?  It may seem to make sense as it is dark inside your skull, and ‘what company does light have with darkness?’  However, why not ask this – what company does light have with the illogical?

Religious people often condition their minds toward faith that the highest authority over man is the omnipotent God they are capable of imagining.  As for me, I think mankind will find itself called to answer a more specific question - who can save mankind?  And given all the evil in the world, one might logically think the ultimate Authority would indeed come to save us.  You might even say that the worse things get here on planet earth, the more likely we are to believe that whoever saves us is someone important.  And an analogous phenomenon - ‘the greater the forgiveness, the greater the love.’

I would think that even the ultimate Authority of the universe would question whether it too was a created being.  And if so, then this Authority could theoretically manufacture injustice in the universe just to see if there were a greater Authority willing to intercede.  Scary!

Now imagine you had the keys to undo all of creation - not only all that will be, but all that ever was.  You second-guess yourself before pulling the trigger.  You question whether the injustices in the universe are outweighed by the worth of the moments of joy that can only exist through tenuousness.  You doubt your own power to destroy everything, because once you do, you have no way to verify the job is complete. Indeed, you would have to have faith in yourself to do the job.  Almost hoping you lack the power to erase everything, you rationalize that if everything over which you had the power to erase were actually only a fiction, there would be no injustice.  Indeed, if you did erase all the fiction in the world, all that would be left would be reality, such that you would only succeed in erasing the only escape from injustice.  Feeling overwhelmed, you decide to play some music.

B.   Logic

Many readers of the above section may comment, “So what?”  Perhaps you’ve experienced many of these same nihilistic thoughts yourself, and you know them to lead nowhere.  With that said, allow me to add that even though humans may lack faith, we do seem to have a decent grasp of our own ability to recognize burdens and benefits in both physical and conceptual matters, and so we stand at least a chance to gravitate toward a benevolent provider and feel good about our choice, or at least feel good about the risk we took even if it turns out we later feel we made the wrong choice.   

It’s also been occurring to me that an all-providing heavenly parent would logically be the most likely candidate to receive faith and love from humans.  The archetype fills fundamental roles: creator, resource provider, educator, protector, enforcer of justice, and offeror of parental love.  As humans, many of us are fortunate enough to know the experience of having caring parents as well as being a caring parent.  This experience, along with a sense of the blessing of free will, can help open up our hearts to the possibility of a “parent” coming along, giving us milk and cookies, and telling us that we are their child, and we are loved.   Is holding on to human skepticism worth rejecting the opportunity to have a relationship like that, even if it is ultimately with an alien?  To the extent we have free will, we may have to make this choice someday.

Humans gravitate toward resources.  If a living thing, or even a corporation, gives us valuable resources we tend to respect and honor it.  And when those resources are withdrawn, we also withdraw.  This archetype dates back to the ancient agrarian societies who worshipped fertility gods. And it continues today, as many choose to give their allegiance to whomever gives them resources, such as the U.S. government, McDonald’s, family, charity, and so on.

Often times we see destruction as the opposite of resources, even though the earth shows us that sometimes the best way to replenish  fertility is with a flood, volcano eruption, wildfire, etc.  In the Book of Revelation, it is said that many will curse the one who brings destruction and punishment upon the earth, and these men will not repent. Revelation 16:9-11. 

C.   Faith (and Research)

By one view, the ancient and literal bible describes a powerful race of advanced beings in the universe who created earth and go by the name Elohim (Alhym).  In this view, the Alhym kingdom would be what is popularly referred to as the kingdom of heaven.  But the bible also describes something called the heavens of the heavens, so its beyond me obviously.  See e.g., 1 Kings 8:2.

In another view though, the Father’s power is more fundamental to physical creation (even universal creation) by way of an ability to control physical and conceptual phenomena like time and math.  See e.g, There's Nothing Random About the Universe, by Jeffery Meiliken.

To help illustrate the use of names in the bible (by way of analogy), I am Greg the human.  I have relative authority over my daughter, Colette the human, and even less authority over my wife Monica the human.  Indeed, she has some authority over me too.  I think the Alhym with authority over all of us is YHVH the Alhym, the same Alhym who rescued the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery.  If I send my daughter on a mission to another planet to educate the creatures there about earth and agriculture, my daughter might tell them that she is doing the work of her father.  Likewise, YHVH’s son Yahshua (also transcribed: Yesu, Yashayah, Yahuwshua, Ieueshuo, Jesus, Immanuel, Yeshua) may have come to earth on a specific mission (narrow path) from his father, rather than a mission to explain everything to everyone. John 16:12; Matthew 15:24.

As far as I can tell, the literal bible and other ancient texts do not refer to the Elohim race or any individual Elohim as ‘God’ or ‘all-powerful controllers of the universe.’  Rather, the bible says the Elohim enjoy a mighty kingdom that includes authority over at least some planets and stars and heavens.  I read that El Elyon is translated to mean “the most high El,” which I suppose would make him/her/it/them the ruler of the Elohim.  The scriptural evidence is inconclusive to me.     

It appears the ways and means of the highest Alhym are staggeringly supernatural and conceptual (i.e., making love with celestial stars).  I just don’t know, but I imagine that if earth learning and survival is my example, then I should approach the Alhym carefully, respectfully, and with an attitude of compassion.  I think it would probably amount to undesirable pandering if I just bowed down to someone I could not identify and didn’t understand.  So I suppose I prefer to just watch, listen, and think.  The example set by the messiah is pretty compelling though, so I try to follow that example and still retain a degree of logical skepticism.  My life is highly imperfect.

Perhaps YHVH is a son of El Elyon, and it may be that YHVH created earth with other Elohim, including his own sons Yeshua and Satan - referred to as the morning stars.  As far as I can tell, I don’t know Satan, but I’ve read that he has chosen an unrepentantly murderous and vice-indulgent lifestyle, and has been experiencing punishment by YHVH.  In the book of Job (describing events thousands of years ago), Satan was still in good enough standing to enjoy council with YHVH in heaven, but it is said in the Book of Revelation that he will eventually be expelled from heaven after warring with the arch-angel Mika El (Michael).  The gospel gives this analogy - Satan plants seeds of sin, and the Father plants seeds of virtue.  I like the idea that Yeshua/Immanuel (whose transcribed names mean something like Yehweh saves and El is with us) is the messiah for the forgiveness of many sins, and that his father will do justice on earth.

In a nutshell, the creators of earth are powerful and worthy of your trust.  That’s the faith side, but I don’t think it’s a call for blind faith, because we are provided resources and light on earth to see and test evidence. One of the goals of earthlings is to learn from the Elohim, and if you like, strive to gain entrance into their unique culture/kingdom. So this planet is analogous to a classroom or playing field with useful knowledge, resources, protection, and lots of freedom (which evidences our creator loves us?).  And your behavior is measurable, such that whatever you measure will be measured back to you.  This is popularly referred to as karma.

What else might we say the bible adds? Well, although our heavenly father is patient and instructive like a parent or teacher, if you continually and unrepentantly violate any standards he gives you personally (break his key covenants), he’ll kill you or punish you as your covenant requires, because he loves justice more than he loves limitless clemency for his children or creation. Theoretically, this is a good thing because it evidences his righteousness and credibility (or if you prefer – consistent adherence to cause and effect). 

A key point - the so-called doctrine of everlasting hell is a man-made fallacy, and is not part of the literal bible.  Nor is it logical or just.  Click here to read more.  Indeed, many excerpts from modern bible translations can be exposed as originating from religious evil doers trying to corrupt spirituality and gain power.  So it’s essential to be logical, and to recognize your common sense when it comes to virtues here.  The messiah didn’t follow all the bible interpretations of his day, and as far as I can tell, he didn’t teach much about hierarchies among the alhym.  Rather he helped the needy, exposed hypocritical religious teaching by priests (Pharisees), and forgave people.  ‘Fundamentals first,’ you might say. Be a student of that example and see where it leads you - probably a more narrow path than carnal freedom, but ultimately more rewarding if you have some faith you can bring to the covenant.

The literal bible and earth history serve as evidence that no other being has trumped YHVH’s will on earth, and that he consistently fulfills his obligations under the covenants he makes with mankind.  I’m not sure what to make of the destruction of Canaan, but I suppose that if YHVH ever failed to fulfill one of his own covenants, there might be a higher power or being above him who would intercede, but based on historical experiences and records of mankind, it seems to be deadly unwise to bet that he won’t live up to a covenant with mankind.  Thus, YHVH may be the highest power you will ever interact with for this particular sojourn of yours in the universe.

I don’t know, so I suppose either I’m a man of little faith (Matthew 16:8), and/or like a child trying to discover truths without being deceived.  I think a key message of the gospel is that because we are like children we need to trust our heavenly father to lead us to truth, and the messiah is saying follow me on the narrow path.

D.     Concluding Thoughts

Faith and skepticism are like legs that walk with balance on the path of physical phenomena.  Or...

Logic is like your mind and body walking a path, because logic is grounded in your five senses perceiving the world for your brain.  Faith is like the physical reality of the universe creating all paths, because faith is only limited by possibility.  And skepticism is like your focus (eyes narrowing) on the reality of your individual path, as skepticism is limited by impossibility (and conversely empowered by perception).  You might say faith and skepticism are different degrees of perspective, and logic is a concept that treads all perspectives.  Logic and faith in harmony can be a beautiful thing if it focuses your light on good things.  And logic and skepticism can also be beautiful, because without it, your light will be unfocused, and therefore vulnerable (outside of your control).  If one of the primary goals of life is to promote good and avoid nurturing evil things, we must be careful focusing our light.