We Christians take the Bible as the word of God. We all know that God did not write it, but we consider it as the inspired work of many who worshiped God. It was written from the understanding of many people like Moses, and St. Paul, who pursued the meaning of God in their lives.

Their renditions, however, were not from the facts we know today. If either were alive today, I’m sure they would be just as aware of God as they were then, but I’m also sure that they would have a different interpretation of many things than they had then.

Our scientific community has changed its mind on so many things, as new facts have become known. Our scientists today would never throw Galileo in prison for teaching that the earth was round.

I for one do not believe that there was ever a time when the universe never existed. By the same token there was never a time when a God never existed. We teach in Christianity that we have eternal life. Something that is eternal not only lasts forever, but also has no beginning. The realistic fact of eternity is that it has no beginning — and no end. This would seem to imply that human life was everlasting, but not necessarily in its expected form.

Planets may come and go, as may be the fate of earth, but God and life are eternal. Furthermore, as the universe has no limits that we can define, if something can happen once, it can happen two, or three, or a billion times. There may be millions of earth like planets throughout infinity (as far as we know, the actual size of the universe) which harbor life in all of its many forms.

We humans have a temporary life here on earth, with a beginning and an end. As a result we tend to see everything here in same way, that is with a beginning and an end. Then we say we live forever, if we behave ourselves. That is the best we earthlings can say about eternity. We give it a starting line but conveniently assume it has no end. I don’t wish to contradict anyone’s beliefs, I just want to clear up what to me are contradictions about reality.

There is no doubt that mankind is the highest form of life on this planet. I don’t challenge modern Christianity on any score, except that we should realize the great difference between modern man and the man of thousands of years ago. We have been slowly growing over many, thousands of years. In fact most of today’s modern ways have been discovered only during my lifetime of just 92 years. I was born the same year that Charles Lindbergh made the first ever flight across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis. It was a modern, (at that time) accomplishment of unbelievable bravado.

We humans, have conquered just about everything on this earth except ourselves. I believe one reason for this, is that we have been too willing to accept the preaching of our leaders, who too often are politicians whose main purpose in life (regardless of party) is to maintain their positions of power. Throughout history mankind has depended more on his leaders than himself.

We in this country have generally had good leadership, and a good system, but we are becoming overloaded with too many who seek their opportunities for power as above their responsibilities to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the citizenry as a whole.

Scientists used to be mainly atheists. I believe that today more and more are becoming believers in God, as they come to understand more fully the unfailing regulation of the universe. It was Albert Einstein who said, “God doesn’t make mistakes.” The United States of America is one of the richest, most powerful country’s on earth. Humanities future, and further development, depends deeply on the freedoms, and the future of the U.S.A.

May God bless America.

Richard Westlund is a Collins resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com