The Church of Digi Version 1 Digital Ebola The Church of Digi, is a joke among myself and a few of my peers. This is not meant to replace any known form of religious text, nor is it to proclaim myself a messiah. I am insane, not crazy. =) What this text is, is how I feel about religion at age 25. The current date is Wednesday, March 13th, 2002, and I am currently sitting in a Network Operations Center for a Fortune 1000 company. While I watch various monitors and tools, and analyze traffic from network intrusion devices, my mind tends to wander. I have finally decided to bring these wanderings to text form, so that I can share what I feel, to the rest of the world. Think of my ramblings here as GNU God. First off, I would like to state for the record, that I am not baptized in any religion, and I do not attend church on a regular basis. The most church I can stand is for weddings or funerals. I have attended church before for service, various types actually, and I feel that it's not for me. People usually ask me what religion I am, and I usually reply that I follow my own beliefs. This usually brings about some discussion, and sometimes attempted convertings to bring me back into the fold. These attempts usually fail. These people always ask me: "Do you believe in God?", and my answer is Yes and No. I believe there is a higher power, some form of creator, but I am not sure if its "God" as most people see God. I kind of see this creator as a person that is a maniac. He sees all, knows all, but basically he is debugging code. Maybe he has divine coffee or something to keep him (or her) going. People like to think of this being as a person, my thoughts vary from person or type of force, if not a being that switches forms at will. I believe that this higher force created the universe. I do not really believe he created the Earth specifically. Nor do I quite follow the Adam and Eve theory. I believe that this being fired off the big bang, and thats how it all came about. There is scientific evidence that the Big Bang did happen, and I do believe this being abides by the laws of Science. I cannot work out in my head if the being created the Scientific order and follows them as a general rule, or if Science was there before the being. I look at this whole concept as a type of programming language. "The Being" or "HP" (Higher Power as I will now call it) can create the programming language, can tweak it in places, and even add to it, but still he has to abide by the syntax. I believe the syntax is math/science for this application. Now that we have established my view of God, and my view of initial creation, I can move onto what I think of the Christian bible. This is another question I often get. I look at the Bible as historical fiction. It's like a fish story. You had a bunch of people out in the middle of nowhere, adding to this story through spoken language and many translations for years, before being written down. After being written down, it was translated and edited many more times. There has to be some inconsistencies. Do people question these things? No. They take it all on faith. Let me rant about faith for a bit. Christian religions typically do not like people that question things. They say: "take it all on faith". If you have faith, you can get into heaven. You are saved. I was born with questions. I question everything and everybody, which is how I learn. I do not have faith in anyone, except myself. So, I have a couple of points to make towards this end when people compare what I believe to common Christian religions. IF mankind is made in God's image, (I believe image as in having the mind to have free will), THEN by asking these questions, we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. Your God made us to have faith, but he also made us to have free will. I use my free will to ask questions, because that is my nature. This is not a bad thing. I have faith in myself, that according to Christian religion was made in God's image, so in essence, I am having faith in Him. Of course, I stated earlier that I do not see God as most people see God, I see God as HP. Free will is why we are here. I choose these things. I choose to lead my life as I see fit, without jumping through hoops for a church or a god. I don't believe in sin really. I do believe that there is a difference between right and wrong, good and evil. I do not believe in confessing these things to a mortal man, when the HP knows what I have done already. I see people starve for their religion, or sit to the east, or sit to the west, or stand on their head... and then I see a church behind them that will critique them if they do not do these things properly. It's kind of funny to me, because I see religion as a 1 on 1 thing, You and the HP. I don't like organized religions for the simple fact that they get in the way. People are very judgemental. For anyone that says otherwise, please allow me to remind you of various burnings, drownings, excommunications throughout history. Salem witch trials is a good specific event to remember here. I also find organized religions to be very bloody. Crusades, jihads, inquisitions, trials, even missionaries had wiped out entire cultures, just to propogate their beliefs. This bothers me. I care less if you think what I think. I am writing this to share with anyone that wants to read. If you like it, thats great, if you don't, thats fine too. This is what I believe, and that is that. I am not going to conquer your family to promote my thinkings, nor am I going to run door-to-door. The people that do those sort of things generally disgust me. People use religion as a way to judge others, to make themselves feel good. Or they will use religion as a means of control. What gives a mortal man the right to tell me what is a sin and what is not? I know in my heart what is right and wrong, I do not need to have a bunch of hypocrites trying to judge me. People have died for my way of thinking, or for questioning. I, myself, would probably have a better life if I gave in and attended church. It's amazing how people open up to you when play their game. This is not my game. I am often asked by my family if I pray. Sure. I pray. Not as often as many people. Who do I pray to? Well, I guess the HP. Or anything else that is actually listening. When I am at the point to pray, I am looking for a solution that I cannot find with my own resources. I believe in myself, and I believe in exhausting my own resources before calling in any higher power. Why? Well, if the HP is truly a mad coder type of guy, he is wayyyyyyy too engrossed to debug Digi's life. Plus with the amount of people that are constantly whining to him about every little thing, I think of this as one less brick on his load. Yes, mom, I do pray. Just not often. What about heaven and hell? Here we go. Do I believe in heaven and hell? Well, I'm not sure. Both seem to be very boring. To me, I guess both could be a form of hell. One on end, you have eternal happiness, and one the other eternal pain and suffering. Face it, if you never had both, you would never know if you were alive, or existing. I do believe in past lives. I think, which each life you live, there is something you have to learn before moving on. I do believe in a grand order of things. I guess you could call it fate, but there is something that we are each here to learn or do. Like a river, you are caught in the stream. You can stop for a bit, go side to side, but never upstream, and always in motion towards the final destination. I look at death, as a transition. It's certainly sad and a time to grieve, but its also a time to laugh. Time does not stop when someone dies. You would think it would, but it doesn't. That person is not truly dead, they are just transitioning to a different place. I do not think you go directly into the next life, but rather you hang about, maybe in a heaven or hell type place. For a little while at least. Somehow in the middle of all of this, I managed to get Karma in. I am still not yet sure of how Karma truly affects the long term of our souls existence, but I do know for a fact that it will affect the short term. I do believe in Karma. I am sure that if the rest of the world did too, there wouldn't be quite as many problems as there is today. It's such a simple concept, even the Christian bible touched on it some... Do unto others... very similiar, in my opinion. I try to not do things that affect my Karma. I try to treat people as I would like to be treated. Granted, this doesn't always work, but it is something to strive for. There is no way to truly avoid tarnishing your Karma. It bothers me, about humanity, that people can avoid thinking about right and wrong. When I say right and wrong, I am not saying what is against the law or isn't.. I am saying laws that are common knowledge, more instinct. You should know with your soul that it's evil to kill someone, or to rape someone, or to abuse someone. People still do it. People abuse and persecute other people everyday. I would like to think we have advanced as a civilization, but we really haven't. The concept of racism, for example, really sickens me. To abuse someone based on a trait that they couldn't even control, is senseless. They are still human, no matter what color or race they are. People abuse women, because they are women. All humans, are equal. Period. Humans are created through the same basic means, and brought in the world by the same basic means, so really, what is so different? Difficult concept for most people to understand I guess. People need to get along or at least tolerate each other, because we are all living life. We all have feelings, we all have struggles, and while struggles may vary, they are something we all face. I think if you believe in yourself, and treat other people how you would like to be treated, you can go a long way. I don't know, I am tired, and so I am concluding this paper. These ramblings are just how I feel and believe. I know alot of this could be worded better, but this right from my brain to the keyboard... YMMV. =)