Essay for
July 2009

The Missing Link
(Is there, or is there not, an entity referred to as God?)

At their foundation, there is no difference between one who believes in a living God, an agnostic who denies the possibility of a God by not being able to prove it, and an atheist who refutes God exists, as he/she cannot witness such a being. All three positions rely upon belief, so at their foundation they are identical. However, what is held within each foundation varies drastically and that variance governs how each lives their life.

Those that hold, maintain, or believe that God is very real have a moral code determined or decided upon by an authority who represents that belief. They rely upon the moral code to form their ethical positions in daily life. They have something to stand-upon, providing sure footing within the slippery domains of relationships and commerce. The moral positions and ethical stances create a directional focus, allowing one to move through life upon a solid base, and normally within a group of like-minded individuals. If the belief is never questioned, one's internal life is relatively secure, even if there are raging storms without.

An agnostic is a fence sitter, as he/she is not a believer, but equally not a true disbeliever. That particular foundation can establish a pattern of being perpetually indecisive. The neither here nor there pattern can have a disruptive affect upon one's life, as it can make any form of commitment difficult, if not trying, leaving one in a perpetual limbo of insecurity or unsettledness. An agnostic may be a fence sitter, but an atheist is a true disbeliever: a polar opposite to a believer. An atheist tends to forget that his/her position is just a belief that no God exists, while denigrating those who have a belief in God, but cannot recognize the hypocrisy of their stance.

The link between a believer, an agnostic, and an atheistic, is that all three are founded upon a belief, making them surprisingly similar, with each projecting a logical thought-form to uphold their differing position. This brings this little essay to its title, The Missing Link. What is the missing link binding all three beliefs? Their dissimilarity potentially makes them into warring factions, while their indirect similarity is rarely, if ever, discussed. Even if their similarity - all based upon a belief - were discussed, each would still hold onto the content of their belief, creating insurmountable barriers as each would uphold their belief as the correct one, with the other two being misguided or just plain wrong. To discover the missing link, rather than focusing upon the content dissimilarities, focus instead upon their similarity, which is the belief: not upon the content of the belief, but upon the ability of each to have a belief.

That ability, amongst many other things, is what separates humans from the animal kingdom. Humans have this wonderful ability to hold and maintain a belief. Meaning, we have the ability of unrestricted thought and by that thinking, accept or create a belief. On the other hand, animals are limited or restricted to reaction only: they cannot think they simply react on an instinctual level that is security focused, normally fostered by memory. Where does this wonderful ability come from, or how can humans think and animals cannot? They both can see and know what is seen but animals can only react to the knowing, whilst humans can manipulate that knowing in any manner they wish through thought. So how do humans have this wonderful ability and animals do not? It would be an interesting planet if animals could think and process information like humans can, but they cannot. They are perpetually limited or restricted to reaction only, whereas humans have the freedom to manipulate information and everything within their environment, which is all accomplished through thought. So, where does this wonderful ability to think, and so create or accept a belief, come from?

To appreciate the answer to that question, it is firstly important to appreciate infinity. Initially, it may appear to be a connective-stretch, but there is a definite correlation. Infinity is without end, and our universe exists somewhere within it. It has been suggested that our universe began with a big bang and all the elements to create that event always existed within infinity. When the correct convergence of elements aligned, the big bang occurred, which began the formation of our universe.

The size of our universe, compared to infinity, would be less than the size of a grain of sand. If you could place the same 'grain-of-sand' amount of infinity in a sealed jar and come back a few trillion years later, what would you expect to find? A jar filled with suns and planets, with one planet populated with people, buildings, cars, and pollution or, just a jar filled with infinity. If you said a jar filled with planets, suns, and people you would be prone to be of an agnostic or atheist persuasion, which is a belief. If you said a jar filled with infinity, it would indicate you have retained an ability to think and have not subjected that ability to being restricted within illogical thought. An agonistic or atheistic belief is illogical because our 'grain-of-sand' universe cannot simple appear out of nothing. Even if all the elements of our universe always existed, they would still require a catalytic force to initiate that big bang. In addition, the same force must establish an energetic direction of how the universe unfolds. If there were no direction for the 'big bang' to follow, the resultant universe would resemble a chaotic shambles. A belief in God is a belief in that catalytic force, which is logical. How that catalytic force is perceived is causation for multifold divisions within various societies. However, the force itself is indivisible. Human thinking creates the divisions, bringing us back to the human ability to think.

How can thinking arise out of elements that apparently formed the universe? Or, can a rock think? Your ability to think is an indicator that there is something greater within infinity than just the elements that form our physical universe. What is so great about that ability is that it is left to oneself to figure it out, indicating the degree of freedom each of us have. The absolute freedom is your individual free will that allows you to take your thinking anywhere at anytime. The disappointing part of that freedom is that it also allows us to subjugate it to a thought-form of our own making, binding us to the thought-form, which is subjugating our free will to a self-created or accepted mind-object, by believing in its reality but that reality is self-created or accepted.

Real reality is your ability to form a belief by thought, using your unrestricted free will, and that ability and freedom cannot arise out of rock no matter how eloquently it can be demonstrated that it apparently did. It is illogical, creating a false mind-object that some individuals believe, directly subjugating his/her free will to within the borders of that now controlling mind-object, establishing an illusion that he/she is free of the restriction it creates. The reality is that that individual is living within a self-created prison telling everyone who will listen that he/she is free. It is a delusion controlling an illusion, indirectly and sometime directly, attempting to imprison others by inducing them to join their imprisoning-belief using flawed, but seductive, logic that the universe has no catalytic-force and everything just happened by accident. With no design or direction the universe, animals, and humans just mysteriously self-created. Is that proposition logical or illogical? Are you willing to use the freedom of your free will to think expansively or are you going to allow your thought to trap itself within the borders of a belief mind-object. That is the joy and opportunity of life. You have the ability to do either, and no one anywhere will interfere with that choice. Many may try, but the decision is ultimately yours alone. You either choose to think logically or illogically, and that decision affects the remainder of your life, as the thinking ultimately is used to accept or create a moral code that is used for ethical stances within daily living.

So what is the 'missing link'? It is an experiential understanding of the catalytic-force that initiated our universe. Belief in that catalytic-force, or disbelief in it, is just belief. The 'missing-link', by its nature, requires an experiential understanding of that Force. That understanding can never be experienced with mind-objects that bind you within themselves, no matter how good those mind-objects are, or how secure they make you feel. The universe is unlimited and for you to resonate with that limitlessness you also must be unlimited or unrestricted in your thought-forms, which is freeing your free will from its self-imposed imprisonment within those mind-objects. Then, you are in a position to directly experience what others only believe or disbelieve. Belief in that catalytic-force points the direction to follow, but if you take the pointing as what is pointed at, you have missed the point.

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