Episode 1
Change Your Life One Letter at a Time:
What Begins with B – Believer
A believer is not caught up in the craziness of the world because he/she has establish a foundation to Live BRIGHTLY. Set a trajectory for your life and empower yourself to get where you want to go by answering the question, what do I believe.
Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven, Matthew 5:16.
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About This Episode
What you believe impacts how you make decisions, how you view others, and many other things.
Changing Your Life One Letter at a Time: What begins with B – Believer best defines individual believers on a quest to live life brightly. It involves all of life. The podcast narrows the large idea of what individuals believe into two divergent concepts. We will look at scientific evidence and psychological responses historically to negative human behavior.
When you can determine what you believe and begin to study the benefits and consequences to those beliefs your future becomes clearer. Laying a strong foundation as a believer settles nagging questions. Will this person be a great marriage partner? Does this career advance my value as an individual? Is it important for me to be involved in current social issues? Clarifying beliefs sets a trajectory which will attract others with similar ideals. Shortened show notes are below. To get the full story listen to the podcast here or your favorite podcast platform.
Believer Show Notes
Welcome to living brightly with Elayne Cross. Here at living brightly we endeavor to help you live out your light brightly. What do I mean by that? Matthew 5:16 says, ‘let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven’. Letting your light shine is what we talk about here at living brightly. What you believe is really the key. Beliefs are the first place to start and the cornerstone on which you build your worldview. The big picture is about connecting the dots of how history interacts with the choices we make today. Then how those choices will plays out in the future.
Do You Believe Everything Will be Okay
What you believe is true, you hold as genuine, or real. When I was a child and a storm would come with thunder and lightning I would be filled with fear. As I grew, I began to understand not every thunderstorm is really a threat. Thunderstorms are not really anything to worry about, unless the tornado warning system goes off.
As a child in fear of thunder, I would climb up next to my mom on the couch. I would try to push behind her on the couch to get as close to responsible. In time, I just wanted to sit next to her to feel a little more physically safe. Children believe that mom can protect them. A tornado may come take the roof off. Parents can’t say definitively whether a tornado will hit the house or not. We don’t know the end until it’s over, but we believe everything’s going to be okay. Therefore, we tell our children it’s going to be okay.
Our presence will help them work through the storm that is raging. If, heaven forbid, a tornado hits, parents do what is necessary to stay safe. Mom will help guide the children to safety. No, parents are not always successful. But, we know as adults if we start to panic in front of the children, it is over. First, we have lost our bearings in our own belief that everything will be okay. Secondly, we have created chaos and fear in our children. Consequently, we have allowed panic and fear to become the dominant emotion and focus instead of staying calm, staying in peace, and trusting everything will be okay.
Spiritual Side of Beliefs
Beliefs have both a physical and spiritual element to them. When we are afraid, we want to believe that we are safe. We want to feel safe physically. We want shelter when it’s cold or rainy outside. Even a barn, shed or lean-to in the woods makes us feel a little safer than being out of the elements. The spiritual part is the part in our soul. Despite how it’s going to transpire, within us we can believe it is going to work out.
Beliefs go further than just a childhood storm. When people get married, they believe they will have a great life together. Together they will work to do their best raising children while loving and honoring each other. Whatever storms will come they will work together and work through it. They believe they are better as a married couple then as individuals. People say they are not getting married until they are financially stable, finish college, or get that great job. I disagree. If you know what you believe. You are looking for someone who has the same worldview based on similar beliefs. You can do more and be a better person as one married to another.
If you put money in your retirement, you invest in the stock market. Doing so, you believe that in time that money will grow. Whenever you’re ready to withdrawal that money there will be more than when you first invested it. There are no crystal balls that will guarantee you will double or triple your money but we know it is a great place to invest your money.
Those are spiritual beliefs. Believe that the stock market will earn you some extra money. Believe that being married in a committed monogamous relationship makes you a better individual.
Who is Galileo
It is easy to just ask if you believe in God but goes a little deeper than that. There many of people who don’t believe in God who believe in freedom. You can be an atheist who fully believes in freedom and individual responsibility. If that is you, you can live brightly. The similarities of believing in freedom and individual responsibility creates a connection that is necessarily. If you believe the government should have greater power, authority, and control over your life than you, you are doomed to darkness.
Are you the zookeeper or the animal?
Beliefs land you in the zoo. What you believe determines if you are the zookeeper or and animal.
The argument is life would be more merciful, compassionate, fair, or equal if government did more. But, government cannot do what we individuals must do for ourselves. We see this often in science. Science is always changing based on testable provable facts. Quite a while ago, the majority of the people believe the earth was the center of the universe. Galileo came along and said that the earth was not the center of the universe. The Catholic Church and the scientists of the time called him a heretic.
Galileo simply built a different investigation and discovered that the earth was not the center of anything. Not even the center of our solar system. He was put on house arrest and he kicked out of the church. But, he was right! Seventy five years later Isaac Newton came with better math and physics to prove Galileo was right. The science wasn’t definitive though many felt it was. Galileo had a good argument for his beliefs and of course, the scientists had a good amount of proof for their beliefs. They believe differently. We teach this in science classes because we want future scientists have the freedom to stretch the bounds. To push the limits and prove assumptions.
What is the Problem
We don’t want our scientists in a box based on what we already know. Over and over again we discover what we thought was true, is not. One scientist will say one thing. The world is warming, and humans are to blame. Another scientist will say the amount of change humans actually inflict is minor compared to everything else. The reason we know the science is not decided, is they keep yelling, loudly, a lot. Maybe we are at the point where Galileo is on house arrest. Eventually, math, science, and technology will actually prove one or the other. Who is Galileo? We don’t know.
Looking deeper. If we as humans are that influential in what happens on the earth, we must be to blame. Therefore, are we humans an animal species that has gone rogue? Have we reached the pinnacle of our usefulness? Is it time for us to go the way of the dinosaurs?
Do you believe that primordial protoplasm randomly morphed into some kind of aquatic creature? Eventually, it grew legs, which eventually morphed and changed randomly into man. A slow progression of evolution that led to where we are today, just another organism. An organism with no greater value than a skunk or a cheetah. We may not be able to hold our breath like a whale or run like a panther. Maybe in time we will.
Did random occurrences progress physical organisms? Or are we a unique creation, touched by the very finger of God? Created and placed in this world with the express purpose of taking care of it. Are we more intelligent? Is there something more to humans then a dog, skunk, or whale? Do we just follow blind instincts or something else?
Two Psychologists – Two Beliefs
There were two psychologists who were friends, which were very influential and change how we view humans. As time went on, they ended up with two totally different belief systems. One was Carl Jung and he came to believe that we are both body and soul. His belief that we were part soul came from his investigation into alcoholism. Interesting we refer to alcohol as spirits. Humans can try to fill a spiritual emptiness with it. Unfortunately, the physical human can become addicted. Carl Jung really inspired and encouraged the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous which looked at the addiction to alcohol from a spiritual perspective. Alcoholics Anonymous is a Christian organization. Members admit there is a God (currently Higher Power) in the first three steps. Without addressing spiritual issues, one will never be able to give up the physical need to use alcohol.
The other scientist was Freud who believed that the body was just a mix of chemicals. Believing everything was humanistic mostly from the sexual side. The idea that humans have sexual relations as a very intimate part of the marriage dynamic not dependent on the desire or ability to have children is almost void in Freud’s beliefs. His perspective was more animalistic. Consider one lion and several lionesses. The Lions fight to have dominance of the herd. Finally, there’s only one male for the whole herd. It’s usually always about being in a position of dominance or establishing who would be dominant. Freud is a believer in humans as no different than an animal, a species that was a little further evolve than the other animal species.
The Big Question of a Believer
Just an amalgam of chemicals that by some random act of the cosmos system all these chemicals became a human. That doesn’t fit my belief but I think that’s where belief needs to go when we look at believers. This is the foundation of belief for Living Brightly. Do you believe that we are some random act of evolution or are we a special unique creation of God? That is really, what has to be decided. We have to figure that out pretty early. A lot of people don’t want to deal with the religion of the decision. They want to ignore it and not talk about but we are.
If you take a statistical analysis, the chances are astronomical that everything would fall into place and continue to fall into place. What we know to be the truth about the earth, solar system, and the relationship between the earth and the sun is profound. The rotation of the earth around the sun is so precise, a couple degrees difference we fry half the year and we freeze half the year. There is no life on this planet.
I heard a mathematician explain the idea of randomness. Random events are not isolated the way we think of a random event. We think of it only happening one time and yet in reality a random event is not an isolated event.
How many times have you stumbled up the stairs or seen somebody trip on the stairs? We have all done it. It is not planned, predicted, or expected. We trip. Human’s trip. Every human walking on the face of the earth has tripped on something at least once. That is random. Is everything we see random happenstance or is it meticulously planned and executed?
Randomness
A random number generator will occasionally spit out the same number. Sometimes it will be closer together, other times will be further apart, but eventually the same number will get spit out more than one time. Random means it happens in a random pattern not that it only ever happens once. Now if one of those steps is different than the rest, more of an overhang, a little bit taller a little bit different than your cadence is such that you trip. People trip on that step many times. That is no longer random. The differentness is causing the tripping. If one step is different than many people will be caused to trip on that steps. It is no longer a random thing.
Scientifically Speaking
Astrophysicists, nuclear physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, investigating how this universe functions remark it is so precise and so fine-tuned. There are no repeats and no randomness. In fact, we spend a huge amount of money trying to find another planet, even another solar system that might have a planet, like ours. One that just might be able to sustain life or have this evolutionary process take place. we haven’t found any. Though we have not explored the whole universe, because it is expanding faster than we can get to it, but there’s nothing.
So why do we keep looking? Because there are people who believe we are nothing more than primordial soup. If there’s primordial soup a.k.a. water on the planet somewhere, then at some point maybe there was or will be living creatures.
To go even further, if we came from primordial soup not only are we just animals, we are equal with vegetation. Therefore, do you believe we are uniquely, intentionally, wonderfully created by the very fingertip of God? Who gives a unique and special fingerprint to each one of us? Not random or replicated. Even twins have their own fingerprint. Rather, do you believe we come from primordial soup over a slow long process of evolution? Don’t worry about religion right now decide what you believe. From my perspective, it takes a lot more strength to believe in evolution and randomness. There is just so much more evidence to support precision and accuracy.
What do You Believe
Ultimately, all we have and all we are, is a gift from God. The fact that we are here now, at this time, is really our time in history. First, you need to figure out what you believe. Is it random chance? Say you have a bag with all the parts to a watch in it. How long would you need to shake it up for it to put itself together and run accurately? Or does it take a creator to come along and puts all the pieces exactly where they need to be. Tunes it, polishes it, sets it in motion, and keeps it in motion. What is the difference?
Maybe you believe there is a Creator, a Higher Power, but don’t really know anything about it. That is okay, we all confront that in our life. There are consequences to your belief system. People who believe that this was created by God have a profound understanding there is real purpose for life. This wasn’t just a random occurrence that you showed up here. There is a purpose for each of us. Human life is valuable.
More Than Animals
Why do you feel the urge to help someone? Animals don’t help animals. Say a big storm goes through and knocks down the neighbor bird nest. The cardinals, orioles, and blue jays don’t get together and build a new nest for the robin who lost her nest. Blue jays don’t go out and peck at the raccoon trying to get the robin eggs. Nor do they help out the eggs back into the new nest. Animals don’t do that they are instinct driven. They find food, build shelter, and reproduce. That is it. When you find an animal nest or burrow you can identify what animal lives there. Birds make specific types of nests based on the kind of bird. Cardinals build nests that all look the same. Robins build robin nests, blue jays build blue jay nests, and so on. They find food, build shelter, and reproduce.
We humans dislike sameness. Look at our housing. Even developments have variety just for the sake of variety in types of houses. It is not cheaper. Even the houses that are the same don’t all look exactly the same because of landscaping or paint color. We are made in God’s image, in his likeness. As creators, we create. I create this podcast, artists create great art, businessmen create great business models, and sales men create a sales pitch. We all create many different things. Creating unique landscape to establish our house looks unique to us.
Changing Your Life One Letter at a Time: What begins with B – Believer. We all believe something. What you believe sets a trajectory for your life. Do you belong in a zoo with the other animals? OR are you created to create? There is more on the podcast, give it a listen.
2021 © Elayne Cross
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