Michelle's corner

To me, religion and belief have been a journey of decades, talking with a number of scholars throughout my ponderings.

To put it bluntly, I have come to believe that organised religion is the antithesis of freedom of religion; as they tell you what to believe and how to believe it. If you refuse, then you're ostracised from the club. I didn't find much freedom in them.

Combine that with Darwin whose work was a discovery of what was already there; documenting how the world actually works. He didn't dictate what he found... the world was already working that way all along. Trying to discredit Darwin's work is trying to ignore the realities of nature itself.

Many high achievers in the world of science are religious people; which all leads me to conclude that if you believe in a god and want to read the word of god, then you don't read scriptures written by the hand of man... you study the word of nature that is written all around us. If anything was written with gods authoritative hand... it's the very world we're standing in.

Further to support this is the fact that over the years, scripture has had to be re-interpreted to match the truths of nature that science has discovered. This is happening more in our modern age than ever before.

That's what I'm finding in the Dalai Lama's words so far. He isn't preaching a belief, but an observation of science; of using the tools available to understand the world as it actually is. I'm finding comfort in the Dalai Lama's encouragement of connecting with nature and using science as the tool to achieve this goal.

Some of what was written in early scripture is understandable as an explanation of what was initially discovered, in a world where our modern scientific equipment didn't exist. He isn't preaching to me, but encouraging me to open my mind and look around.