Posted in Life, the Universe, and Everything

Here are my answers to JJ's The Scale of Doubt Quiz

1. Do you believe that a particular religious tradition holds accurate knowledge of the ultimate nature of reality and the purpose of human life?

I believe it is possible, but I don’t know if it actually exists or how to determine which belief is the correct one. I am attracted to the LDS Church because it seems more rational to me than other religions, and it does not require me to be blindly obedient, but encourages exploration of various doctrines as well as personal revelation. I think all religions hold some truth, and perhaps that the LDS church holds a bigger share than others.

 

2. Do you believe that some thinking being consciously made the universe?

Jury is out on this one. The numbers don’t work for me either way, and I struggle with the pre-existence/spontaneous existence paradoxes. I consider the “real” answer to this question to be irrelevant to both my eternal salvation and to my daily mortal existence. I therefore look at the question as an academic exercise rather than something I need to resolve one way or the other.

 

3. Is there an identifiable force coursing thought the universe, holding it together, or uniting all life-forms?

This is actually two questions for me. Gravity is certainly “an identifiable force coursing though out the universe, holding it together.” But I don’t think that’s really the question. Do I think there is some sort of force in the manner of Star Wars that connects all living things? Yes, I do. My experience of this force, however, comes from non-religious as well as religious settings and cannot be ascribed to any particular religious group, view or doctrine. I believe this force is a part of nature, and is subject to discovery and examination by science.

 

4. Could prayer be in any way effective? That is, do you believe that such a being or force (as posited above) could ever be responsive to your thoughts or words?

Again this is two questions: Is prayer effective? Yes, I know this as a certainty, but I believe this effectiveness is not necessarily dependent on the existence of deity or anything else supernatural. Do I believe there is a deity? In certain meditative states, I have experienced a “being” that I can talk to, and that responds to me, but I can’t determine if this being is a product of my imagination, an internal representation of something outside of me that I have anthropomorphized as a mechanism to utilize the information I receive from these conversations/meditations, or if it is something else. I tend to favor the latter view, but I don’t need to resolve the question.  

 

5. Do you believe this being or force can think or speak?

My experience and perception of a “force” linking all life together is different from my perception of a “being” that hears and answers prayers. This being is definitely able to communicate with me.

 

6. Do you believe this being has a memory or can make plans?

Yes

 

7. Does this force sometimes take a human form?

Again I need to distinguish the “force” from the “being.” In my meditations, the being always does. In the physical realm, I don’t know, but believe it possible.

 

8. Do you believe that the thinking part or animated force of a human being continues to exist after the body has died?

Yes.

 

9. Do you believe that any part of a human being survives death, elsewhere or here on Earth?

Yes

 

10. Do you believe that feelings about things should be admitted as evidence in establishing reality?

Are we talking about emotions or some sort of intuitive impression that could be considered “revelation” by some? Assuming the second, I admit these “inspirations” all the time when making personal decisions about reality, but I would not expect – or want – them to be admitted in many external forums.

 

11. Do you believe that love and inner feelings of morality suggest that there is a world beyond that of biology, social patterns and accident — i.e., a realm of higher meaning?

Yes and no. I think there is a reductionistic explanation for theses phenomena, but I don’t believe this explanation necessarily eliminates the higher meaning, or completely accounts for the phenomena.

 

12. Do you believe that the world is not completely knowable by science?

Yes. I believe that science, by its very nature, cannot answer all of our questions. I also believe that when the limits are pushed to extremes the science will always find that prediction and measured actuality diverge.

 

13. If someone were to say, “The universe is nothing but an accidental pile of stuff, jostling around with no rhyme or reason, and all of life on earth is but a tiny, utterly inconsequential speck of nothing, in the corner of space, existing in the blink of an eye never to be judged, noticed or remembered,” would you say, “Now that’s going a bit far, that’s a bit wrongheaded”?

No. The statement is one of many valid conclusions that can be drawn, but it is not the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. That said, I don’t agree with the conclusion; I do not believe that the universe is an accident.

 

Using JJ’s grading scale, and counting qualified yeses as yeses then I qualify as a believer. Exactly what I believe in, however, is still an open question, so I think a more accurate description would be to say that I am open to a number of possibilities.

 

I found the exercise interesting in that I found myself not "doubting" as the name of the quiz implies, but checking to see if I was open to the concepts the questions asked about. There were no absolute yes or no answers.