Read an Excerpt from Finding God: To Believe or Not to Believe
!The hardest part of the human experience is to comprehend the enormity of thousands of years, of the many religions predating today’s beliefs, and the shortness of human memory and our lives in perspective to our history. To begin to speak of history is to be mired in details especially in this day and age. Instant gratification rules in this era. Few can keep it all straight and understandable. Massive amounts of information exist on human history and beliefs and the majority of it has nothing to do with Christianity. The human mind can only process a small bit of the intricate details bringing us to present day.
History is made by those who have the blood of others on their swords and keeping track of thousands of points of aggression is impossible, but for scholars. It is easy to confuse hundreds of years with thousands of years. We think the Romans ruled as a unit for hundreds of years but they were part of a process that saw a rise, a stabilization, and then a long fall. We know even less about Greece and the Egyptian Empires, though they are relatively close to our time frame. The ancient civilizations are still many years before these empires and time has eroded their presence. There are but shards of evidence left behind. All this is difficult to put in perspective for the average person trying to get through life with some type of understanding and survive day to day.
The ancient religions of India and the Far East far predate Buddhism, which is usually confused as a religion and not a way of life. That is really more of what religion and belief are supposed to do—meld together so one would practice their beliefs in everyday life. We must begin to recognize the humanness of mistakes and faults and to reach out and spread love to help each other through this short life. These are the real reasons for faith. Faith in one’s self to do the moral and human things necessary to make life bearable. All we have is our ability to create great happiness or great sorrow for others.
Many of us, both religious and non-religious, want to feel what we do is righteous. In order to be righteous, we must do the righteous thing. By this I mean to forgive and forget and to move on with the knowledge, in the end, all that matters is the laughter you’ve spread, the love you made. We cannot control those who have the power to create horrible experiences for their fellow man, but we do have control over those with whom we surround ourselves everyday and our loved ones. Don’t let the big picture overwhelm the importance of your contribution to making the world a better place. It is not as hard as you think.
It begins with you. A mere smile can change someone’s day. A good gesture can make the difference in someone wanting to live or die. Tackle what is around you and leave the worry of what could be harmful for the time being. Do what you can to fight inhumanness and that is all you can do. Struggle is what we humans must do and it never ends. Change is inevitable. It is hard to manage, but it is all we have.
“Finding God: To Believe or Not To Believe truly is a gift to humanity. If only we would heed the advice this book contains. I invite you to put down your weapon (fear), stop hating those you don‘t understand, and prepare to be tolerant as you delve into this gift.”
– Yvonne Perry -Author of RIGHT TO RECOVER: Winning the Political and Religious Wars Over Stem Cell Research in America and MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: True Stories About Death, Dying, and Afterlife
Nicholas Oliva (O-lee-va’) has been a musician, writer, poet, photographer, an audio engineer, an Entertainment and Technical Director for over twenty-five years.
His first book, Only Moments, was published in 2007, which was a novel that followed the lifetime journey of the professional musical career of a husband and wife team to the year 2020.
His latest book is Finding God: To Believe or Not To Believe, now available at Amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble and will be available in the Kindle Store soon. To visit the website go to www.tobelieveornot.com. Mr. Oliva’s other Websites are OnlyMoments and for his first book Only Moments by Nick Oliva. You can find him on Facebook as well on either the book page Facebook
Finding God: To Believe or Not To Believe or his home page http://www.facebook.com/noliva.
Oliva lives in the quiet mountains of Nevada.
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