What brings about happiness? You could have all the money in the world and still have a sad soul. Earthly goods only bring about immediate pleasure, and your soul will always be lacking something real if all you have is earthly pleasure. You must broaden your horizons, never tell yourself that you believe in something bigger but then fail to go after it. Curiosity is not a bad thing. If you are agnostic, and believe that there is something bigger out there that created everything, well then go after it! Life is short, stop sitting around thinking God will come to you in an apparition. NEWS FLASH! God is already there, has always been there, and will remain there for eternity. Opening your heart to the unknown is a path that many people are scared to take. You can never block Him out completely because your inner self (i.e. conscience) will always give you an inkling of something greater that you must follow after.

Think of it this way, we are all explorers trying to find the meaning of happiness and the meaning of truth. The age old question will forever remain: What is truth? This question asked of Jesus by Pontious Pilate nearly 2,000 years ago is a question people ask each other even to this day. If we based everything we ever heard on scientific fact where would this world be? Let me tell you folks, the only degree you would have any reason to seek is one in science. Your sole job would be making theses and proving them to be fact. The interesting thing that we have to look at now is what are hypotheses? Every scientist who follows the correct pattern for discerning the “truth” must state a hypothesis. Hypotheses are not facts, they are guesses, mere assumptions that what they believe is the right and truthful thing. For the most part hypotheses are a prelude to something more. Most of the time they are the start of a project that has more work in its future. People believe in hypotheses before they are proven facts, for example the idea that the world is flat. That was a mere hypothesis, the scientists did not prove that the world was flat, otherwise it would obviously be so. Why do we believe in these unproven hypotheses? The main reason could easily be that the scientist has many degrees and many more years of experience over the normal blue collared worker?

Credentials are everything in this day in age. But if we believe scientists hypotheses strictly off of their credentials and years of field experience, why can we not believe what religious personnel have to say about Catholicism and its many years of Traditions? Most of the popes within the last few centuries, have more degrees than your above average college professor. So then why can we not agree their points of view that have been passed down for 2 millennia strictly off of their credentials? I would say that they have earned the same right that most scientists have earned over the ages. Now this is obviously not the sole reason for peoples belief in the Catholic faith, nor is it the sole reason in believing in the validity of the pope. This is merely an example to non believers so that they can put the way they view the world into a much larger spectrum. A spectrum not only of fact but of understanding as well. An understanding that you have without having full factual explanation of the proposed idea.

Hopefully all of this isn’t sounding like I am just droning on, I want to make sure that you look at things from every perspective. Do not doubt the truth just because it is the easiest route to take. Doubt only if you know in your very soul that it is not so.

The word speculation is derived from the Latin word speculat which means

“observed from a vantage point.” We all have our vantage points in which we view the world and its comings and goings, but who are we to say what is right? There is no way beyond a reasonable doubt that we can say everything we believe is fact, it is not possible.

Cynicism is not a bad thing, everyone must have a certain amount of cynicism that they use when they decipher the meaning behind events or situations. In order to be wise in our interpreting we must speculate meaning and if we believe somewhere deep inside that something is right, why not believe that it is so? How many times have we said we believe it is so because we feel it in our gut? You just have this gut feeling that it is right. You can not prove it is so, you can not be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that what you know is the absolute truth. And that folks, is where we come to the mystery word, faith. The ever so illusive word that religious individuals have used throughout the ages in reference to making what they believe understandable. You might be an atheist, you might be an agnostic, but regardless of what philosophy you are apart of you believe in the unprovable every day.

Let us say you have two children, one of whom is prone to stealing, and the other is the epitome of what an earthly angel should be. Although different, you love both children equally, because they are both your flesh and blood. You go to the bank that day and withdraw a certain amount of money, when you return home you leave your wallet on the kitchen counter as per usual. Later that night you go to your wallet to withdraw the money you had there in order to pay off the pizza delivery-man. You find that half of the money is missing. Your pet did not take the money and there was no evidence of a break in. The only thing you can think of is that one of your kids took the money. It is the only logical explanation, to justify the missing money. The sad thing is that when you ask both the children about the missing money, they both decline any knowledge about the incident.

One is telling the truth, and one is lying. You then look at track records, little Francis has a bad habit of stealing, and the ever so angelic Sarah is the quintessence of what a child should be. Although there is no proof that Francis took the money, you automatically assume that it is he who stole from you. You are cynical in your speculations when you interrogate him because you already know in your gut that it was he who did it. Sad to say for little Francis he was grounded for 2 weeks to his room for lying and stealing. This punishment was not based on fact it was based on speculation.

To this day we will never know if it was Francis that stole the money or if it was Sarah. Francis took the fall for the incident, not based on fact but based on a belief in something that was not proven. It happens everyday, this non-religious example is evidence that people believe what they want to believe, no matter the circumstances. Who are you in this story? The parent who made the unjustified ruling? The son who took the fall for a crime that he may or may not have committed? Or the lovely daughter who could have got away scott free and become a few dollars richer? We all play our parts in this great world and we play them according to what we believe is right.

The decisions we make in the present reflect decisions we made in the past and determine the decisions we make in our future. Without a certain amount of faith we will be blinded into making decisions that are unsafe and irresponsible. Without a strong belief in something that we cannot always prove we will resort to being moles. As moles we are condemned to a life of darkness, always digging blindly into the unknown.