Here I am with a subject that has always fascinated me, this used to keep me awake for hours when I was growing up. You know when you are a kid you always get some instruction in religion, in the Americas it is mostly Christianity, in my case at home there was none of this, but we did go to a school that was an English school in Tegucigalpa and it was run by Mennonites, so we had one hour of Bible class first thing in the morning.
I just spent two years there and then we moved to Utila, an island on the north coast of Honduras, the people here are mostly descended from people who came over from England, from the Cayman Islands or from Jamaica, logically they were, at least a vast majority protestants, this is really not a large number as at that time the population of the whole island was slightly above 2,000.
Now I remember there were 4 churches, Church of God, Methodist, Baptist and Adventist, and all of them had Sunday School and I went to all of these churches as I have always liked to know what is happening. So I really had a good idea about religion and I used to read the Bible. At home my Mother was and is a Catholic my Father was an atheist.
I had problems sleeping in those days from when I was about 10 to about 13, I would just lie there thinking about the universe and time and eternity. And I would just think OK, so the universe is finite but what is there beyond the place where the universe stops existing? If time started at some moment what happened before this moment? What does living forever mean, wouldn't a person get bored of living so much? Well eventually I disciplined myself to not think about these sort of things because it used to scare the crap out of me.
But then I started hearing about this Big Bang theory about how the universe was created when a very dense and compact amount of matter exploded and started expanding and the universe was created. Again I started asking myself, Ok, so this happened, but then before the universe was created matter already existed so there is something wrong with this idea, if something existed it probably had to be created.
So I have come to the idea that there is a creative force, I don't know if it is a God or a force or even if it is sentient but this force creates, and has always been around and will always be there. I think this force is outside of the constraints of space and time and is above any type of physical laws.
So I don't really think this force has much interest in each one of us, it just creates and its creations just evolve, we might be able to tap into this force and good things come of this, but I think mostly we are created because this force is also evolving and everything it creates helps to increase its knowledge.
I don't know what type of thinking this is, I have come to this conclusion after reading a lot, and I mean really a lot, thousands of books, I am not a master at anything but I have read so much that I do know a lot on a lot of different subjects. I do not think I am right, perhaps I do have some ideas that are good, and I also think all ideas are valid, this subject is very prone to be conflictive and the best I can do is have my ideas and at the same time respect and not discard any ideas other people have. Because in this area nobody really knows what the truth is.
I'm going to guess that I was about 8 or 9 when I had my first realization of the concept of eternity.
It scared the holy living crap out of me, too!
I would lie awake night after night, you know that time when all is quiet and there is nothing but your thoughts, and that thought would shove its way into my consciousness and terrorize me.
I am Italian living in America, so my concept of time is not understood by my neighbors. Isn't it amazing how something seemingly simple like time can differ so greatly depending on the culture? And religion... I was raised Latin Roman Catholic but studied theology. As a result, my belief system is an eclectic mix of a number of belief systems. I do not believe God is an old man in robes with a white beard, but I do believe there is a magnificent creative force with intelligence. I'll tell you why.
When I started focusing on my writing as a career, my mind opened to a myriad of ideas and realities. When I write a book I create characters and give them names, physical descriptions, hopes, dreams, flaws, etc. Kindof like a baby. I tell them what to do and shape their lives. But something strange and beautiful happens somewhere around the middle of the book.
My characters, my babies that I created, are now "older". And just like adolescent humans they start to make their own decisions! They begin to set the path they are on in the book!
I have tried to make their decisions for them- to write the way I had envisioned and make them do what I had wanted in the beginning when I thought up the book. But it's unnatural and it just doesn't work. They literally take their own steps on the path of their choosing, and I've learned to just allow it to be. And I love it!
It's an amazing phenomena to be a part of!
I am the creator of these "people". I start off when they are young and new with hopes and dreams of how they will turn out and what they will do and say and how they will act. But they form their own "free will" and do their own thing.
Because of this phenomena I know there is a force greater than myself. I know there is a creator.
And because of all of this I believe, down to the very core of my cells, that the universe, our reality, has no limits.
:)
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