Dear God, an Open Letter

By Martin A. Moe, Jr

Do you believe in God? If the answer is Yes, you probably haven’t really thought much about it. If the answer is No, you probably have thought about it a good bit, but may be rejecting a cultural construct as much or more than the presence of a supernatural deity. I’ve been thinking about it for 60 years and I still have many more questions than answers. Some questions have answers and some do not. Some questions have answers within our physical reality, and some questions require answers from the supernatural reality, if it exists, that created the universe, our Earth, and humanity.

Should you care about what other people believe and what their religions say they believe? In the past, maybe not so much, it used to be a big world. Now the world is not so big, there is not much space between cultures these days: the natural resources of our world are diminishing rapidly, our environment is changing rapidly, and our populations are expanding rapidly. I think it is very important now, at this flash point in the history of our species, for us to ask questions about what we believe and why we believe it. This is important because the beliefs of our religious cultures affect the governance of nations, and the influence of those beliefs may greatly affect the future of humanity on our Earth. In most situations and in many countries, openly questioning the veracity and authority of God and religion often results in marginalization and banishment from decision making positions.

So, yeah, this is a very big deal, and I’m certainly not the one to competently explore it, but I have a lot of questions and I have to try. And there is no more knowledgeable entity to ask about these things than God, if he/she/it exists. So I’ve written a series of letters to God to express my doubts, my views, and my ponders on God and religion in our society today.

There are seven letters, ebooks actually, one for every day of the week that God created. The topics I explore in my questions and conversations with God are the timeless, universal ones: Sunday, Belief/Disbelief; Monday, Our Fragile Earth; Tuesday, Freedom and Religion; Wednesday, Perception of God, Faith, Skepticism, Demons, Angels; Thursday, Biology and Evolution; Friday, Sex and Gender; and Saturday, Religions, Origins, Belief, Doubt. These ebooks are not comprehensive, scholarly works, mainly just the pondering of an aging marine biologist. This is the first ebook letter to God, hopefully you will find it interesting and thought provoking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin A. Moe, Jr
• Release date: Jan 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9780939960149

Martin A. Moe, Jr

Martin A. Moe, Jr. is a retired fishery biologist and marine fish aquaculturist. He holds a Masters Degree from the University of South Florida in zoology and marine biology. His career includes ten years as a fishery biologist with the Florida Marine Research Laboratory where his primary research was on the biology of the red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico. Moving into the aquaculture of marine fish, he then developed the basic technology for the culture of pompano and many marine tropical fish, clownfish, gobies, and angelfish, among others. He has authored many scientific papers, popular articles, and books on marine aquariums and marine biology including a basic reference on Florida spiny lobsters. He and his wife, Barbara, founded Aqualife Research Corporation in 1974 and Green Turtle Publications in 1982. He is currently a member of the Florida Keys Sanctuary Advisory Council and an adjunct scientist with Mote Marine Laboratory. His present research is on the culture of the long-spined sea urchin, Diadema antillarum, the keystone hervibore of the tropical Atlantic coral reefs, as part of several coral reef ecological restoration projects.

Book preview

Dear God, an Open Letter

Sunday, Book 1, Belief/Disbelief

By Martin A. Moe, Jr.

Dear God, An Open Letter

Sunday, Book 1, Belief/Disbelief

Martin A. Moe, Jr.

Copyright 2013 by Martin A. Moe, Jr.

Smashwords Edition 2013

ISBN-13 978-0-939960-14-9

Digital edition

Green Turtle Publications

All rights reserved

Author contact: [e-mail]

Preface

Note: This preface is repeated in each Dear God, an open letter ebook to establish continuity between volumes.

Do you believe in God? I don’t, but it’s complicated. And it’s also complicated for those who believe, because there is so much that one has to believe, or at least account for; and one should, if one is honest with one’s self, have a reasonably accurate idea as to just what one believes, not what one recites, but what one really believes is true, and they should know why they believe it. If one does not know exactly what and why they believe, then they are simply a member of the religious herd following a cultural meme, reciting meaningless words, counting beads, wearing special garments; practicing a culture and not a religion. And that’s OK, family and culture are important and sometimes keeping doubt and question under the radar and mentally compartmentalizing religion and real life is the most comfortable, and sometimes necessary, path to tread.

And if one does not believe, that can be just as complicated, maybe more so. You may ponder, when the light is low, the house is quiet, and the spirits (if there are any) hide in the deep shadows of the room. You may ponder, is there any fire under all that smoke? Could any of it be real? Could there be a kernel of fundamental truth under the pomp and circumstance, the denial and enslavement of reason, and the absolute cultural and intellectual authority wielded by many religions? Could it be that one little part of it is true and everything else is nothing but ancient and modern human fiction? Disbelief can also be a cultural problem, the intensity of which depends on the religion of the culture and how openly, if at all, one proclaims doubt or disbelief. One can experience extremes from mild admonishment to beheading, so one’s personal beliefs are often kept very private, sometimes so private that they are even hidden from oneself. Albert Einstein expressed it well.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. Albert Einstein

But it is important for one to take everything into consideration and reconcile religion and what you see and know is real and come to an understanding of what you can believe and what just doesn’t make sense. We all have to live in a world with many different faiths and a growing development of rejection of religious faith. There are two extremes, one might be of the inflexible opinion that if my religion says it’s true, then it’s true and that’s that; or anything supernatural simply does not exist, never has existed, and never will exist, it’s all just fable. In between there are just questions and ponders, and I think that a lot of us are in the middle of that pasture of ponders, somewhere between the fence of belief and the fence of unbelief. Some sit firmly upon the fence of their choice and conviction and some are very near to one of the fences but occasionally they run toward the center of the pasture or even past the center and then return to their original position, often without admitting their adventure to anyone; or perhaps they complete the journey to one fence or the other. I admit that I’m firmly in the shadow of the fence of unbelief, and find myself unmoved by the bushels of books that strive to convince the atheist/agnostic of the existence of God, but still I ponder. So I decided to do a bit of research and ask the Ultimate Authority about the conundrums of religion, creation and reality. If I hear back from him/her/it I’ll tell you about it.

It turned into much more of a project than I anticipated. My brief letter became a long letter. So to make it easier to write and to read, I have broken it up into seven ebooks, one for each day of the week. Topic organization is not tight and academic, there is some rambling, but that’s often how letters are written. There is some repetition in the introductions to eeach book, but despite a bit of repetition each introduction relates to the specific ebook.

It is neither my purpose nor my desire to dissuade anyone of a religious belief. If you have a strong and abiding faith in a religion that gives you definition and purpose in your life, that’s a good thing for you. If you want to tell people about your joy and conviction, and urge them toward the same conviction, that’s fine also. Just don’t try to spread your faith through intimidation, coercion, lies, force, or violence (the end does not justify the means), or to use it for exceptional personal profit. After all, as I understand it, the basis of true religion is outflow, not income. As for me, I just want to go on record, for what it’s worth, with my impressions and opinions on religion and many of the topics that are intertwined with religion. I don’t think that it is possible for an average individual like me, or even an individual of exceptional intellect, to digest and make sense of all that modern civilization, in all countries, all religions, all science and all history has to say, infer, and define about what is true and false in the world of yesterday or today. So my effort here is woefully inadequate, but it may be helpful to you when you struggle to make sense of humanity and religion, so take it for what it is, and add and subtract with the depths of your own knowledge, insight, belief, disbelief, experience, and faith. This is the first book in the series below.

Sunday – Book 1: Belief/Disbelief

Monday – Book 2: Our Fragile Earth

Tuesday – Book 3: Freedom and Religion

Wednesday – Book 4: Perception of God, Faith, Skepticism, Demons, Angels

Thursday – Book 5: Biology and Evolution

Friday – Book 6: Sex and Gender

Saturday – Book 7: Religions, Origins, Belief, Doubt

Sunday, Book 1, Belief/Disbelief

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Are You there, God?

Is it True?

Morality

The True Faith?

Prophets, Real or False?

Death and Psychics

Disbelief

Why

A Strange New World

Warand Religion

Do You Care, God?

Introduction

Dear God,

I’ve got a lot on my mind, God, and my years are winding down. You are a vital and fundamental figure