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Dear Vega,
I don’t know who to believe anymore.
Let me explain, I have always been Catholic, a practitioner until a few years ago, and I placed utmost trust in my unshakable faithbut some time ago my almost 13 year old son asked me: “Mom, does God exist?”
I said yes and he replied: “How do you know?”.
Taken aback, I replied that it was time Religion and Catechesis had already been explained to him and I don’t need to repeat it, and that in any case we must have faith because God sees us and helps us, and if we pray we feel him inside and comforts us.
He looked at me pathetically and contemptuously told me that he doesn’t believe, as all his friends don’t believe, except the Muslim ones. We ended the conversation with the excuse on my part that I had things to do.
All this made me reflect, and with a bitter taste in my mouth. I am not a theologian but an employeebut I understood that my faith was born from habit, from a certainty instilled as a child by my fervent Catholic parents, and that it has always been a parachute in moments of discouragementbecause I was born a believer and I never asked myself questions.
In short, a comfortable and always available refuge.
Now times have changed, the sermons are almost always the same and they take it for granted that God, the Holy Spirit and all the Saints of Paradise including the Angels are there, they see us and protect us.
But the times do not say this, if we talk about mercy and protectionthe times tell us of eternal ferocity on a global level and evil inherent in man, and of the usual misery and misfortune of the least of the Earth, and of increasingly richer rich people, who say they are very religious.
Not to mention the scandal of pedophile priests, which I hope Pope Francis faces with determinationbut it was a further reason why, at least for now, I no longer attend Sunday Mass.
My partner doesn’t believe and gets by very well without faith, even though he respects mine, but he’s not a great conversationalist and we’ve never thought much about it. He doesn’t even believe in marriage but he still allowed my son to do religion and attend Catechesis at the oratory.
I don’t think my son’s doubts were prompted by my husband, he would not be able to argue why God should not exist.
But going towards old age, even if far away, I think about death and instead of strengthening my beliefs I am having more and more doubts. And this scares me a lot. Fear of losing faith.
Beatrice
VEGA ANSWERS
My dear Beatrice, I’ll give you some good news straight away: according to recent scientific studies, believing and praying (and consequently also going to church) makes you live about fourteen years longer; therefore, she will have plenty of time to grow old peacefully thinking about your faith.
Even having doubts is good, because they make you think, and Deep thinking keeps the brain awake and this also extends life. Furthermore, to have faith it is necessary to ask ourselves why we believe.
Whether God exists or not I don’t know either, there is no certain answer except from listening to the heartunless you blindly believe in them revelations originating in the Bible and the various texts to follow, who contributed to strengthening the already crowded ranks of Saints and Prophets.
A text that has certainly contributed to improving the world is the Gospel, which was an important antidote to the Bible, which it basically is a book full of apparent contradictions and potentially dangerous for those who do not have sufficient culture to interpret it in a less lethal way than can be understood in its strictly literary meanings.
The same thing goes for the idea of whether God exists or not.
This existence can be explained or denied both from the scientific point of view and from that given by internal belief based on revelations that are not/or tangible from an empiricist point of view.
Let me explain better, even if I consider you to be a person of fine intelligence but don’t think of me as a theologian: a person can feel God within himself and draw fruit from the indications or supposed revelations that this inner voice provokes in his intimate morality.
Same thing goes for a person who firmly believes in revelations proven only from a real and scientific point of view, because it will be more difficult to have this inner voice as it is overwhelmed by the voice of reason.
This certainty, however, is not entirely clear, and for various reasons.
Let’s take the easiest and most current one: The Jews. They consider themselves the Chosen People (and IQ has recently been broken down into creative, emotional IQ, etc. don’t despair…).
This kind of intelligence from origin it would explain both many of their ability to impose themselves from a financial and technological point of view and the reason for their millenary persecution.
Science explains this elective cognitive ability to the fact that always, unlike other religions, they have a moral and religious obligation to learn to read the Bible.
Intellectually I believe that this was the case a huge gap from an intellectual point of view worldwide.
If the same thing had been imposed on Christians or other religions we would not have had a world in which the Jewish people alone at one point held a large share of wealth and knowledge compared to the rest of the populations, with all that has resulted and which unfortunately continues, in the incapacity of other peoples who remained intellectually blind due to not having a mass culture, even a rational one.
Culture that would not be based on promises told by others based on revelations that only a select few believe they own it.
At the same time science proposes some empirical results that have put those who lived in the absolute certainty that God does not exist were in doubt.
Let’s take the God Boson for example.
After, (but also before in reality, predicting the result) the Geneva experiment which sanctioned its very exact measurement (it is called God’s purpose) for many it represented the idea of the existence of something superior that regulates the Universe.
The FiQuantum physics has led to a further collapse of certainties that there is no Universal Order but only a chain of physical events that occurred by chance.
Personally I like to think in my imagination that God is essentially within us, perhaps as the Higher Quantum, which connects those who want good and those who want evil, making love the great Net that saves us and makes us all part of a universal plan.
Universal yes, but I don’t believe in the enormous Ur-computer imagined (and they would love it) by some tech geniuses, who believe they are the new apostles.
This is because, logic dictates, to the original Creation of the World a machine governed by us certainly did not contribute, as much as we may venerate it from a technological point of view, such as the computer, simply because someone had to generate it, anyway. Make it the Genesis.
I like to think of the opposite the true creator of the modern positive connection was Jesus.
And it’s no coincidence that Steve Jobs is compared to the Christ of the New Ageeven if from a purely functional point of view despite everything it has done to improve our lives he remains little more than an altar boy, at most a Deacon.
Vittorio Marchi, great scientist and quantum physicist, when asked what is behind it the creation he replied confidently and decisively: The thought. Coming from a Normal quantum scientist you can even believe it.
I am prescribing it for your son, and don’t be scared by his age, young people are more curious than they seem:
– Confortably Numb by Pink Floyd and Starway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin “Kennedy Center Tribute Edition”. These pieces will make your son understand how Angels exist. Yes, if they exist.
Furthermore, but initially only for her, I prescribe:
– Antonino Zichichi. Because I believe in Him who made the world. Between Faith and Science.
– Christopher Hitchens: God is not great. How religion poisons everything.
If you wish, the two books will be made available to you in our editorial office.
Serves me right
VEGA
