In response to a discussion topic about ‘Is There No God?’ on the forum of the Church of the Younger Fellowship, which is a Unitarian Universalist spiritual community and worship space designed for UU young adults from all over the world, I wrote the following reply which I thought was quite interesting:

I […] do not believe in a God that interferes or intervenes with our world, with this universe we live in. I believe the universe was at one point switched on by something based on a set of rules that I like to call science. And in my life I hope to be able to reveal more of those rules as an astronomer. Not because I want to break the rules, but because I feel a lot of things are more beautiful when we know how they work.

I don’t know yet what I want to call this ’something’ that switched on our universe. The word ‘God’ still has not so good connotations with me, but neither have I found a better word. ‘The interdependent web of all existance’ sounds pretty nice to me, as it does not assume to be male, female or even an entity.

Now that I’m thinking of it… I believe this is partially why I liked the Star Wars movies… ‘The Force’ is a really good comparison with my views on ‘God’. Something ethereal and not scientific that provided the first breath for our universe and in which we are now soaked.

My objection with the ‘Star Wars’ movies would be however that I don’t believe that anybody can ‘use’ this ‘Force’ (nor would I believe in a ‘Dark Side’). It defines us and holds us together, but it doesn’t change us this way or that way, and neither can we change it. So, I guess […] I don’t feel that the universe responds to us or we respond to the universe. […]

For me ‘The Force’ is a bit like neutrinos … There are billions of neutrinos flying through us every second. Yet we don’t feel it, it doesn’t change us, and neither can we change them. They’re too ethereal. Yet without neutrinos, there would be no sun, no light, no universe. For me, ‘God’ or ‘The Force’ is even more ethereal than neutrinos. To put it mathematically: “‘The Force’ is the limit of this extensive substance with its etherealness going to infinity”.

Hmm… wait… that doesn’t work. ’cause the limit of etherealness going to infinity should by definition probably be ‘nothing’, no? Haha, interesting… I’ll have to think about this some more…

What I am still unsure of is whether or not I believe there is a heaven… The only three possibilities I feel comfortable with is that either there is no heaven, we are already in heaven or everyone goes to heaven. Maybe with time my views will lead me to either of those possibilities.

Anyway… that’s how I see ‘God’ right now… My religious views are still very much prone to change though, being still on the very start of my religious journey.