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First off, the bible, as we've been taught to perceive it:

I've always believed that not all things are either all black or all white. I've never tried to completely denounce the bible, yet, I don't entirely agree with it. One thing that has always bothered me is how people often refer to the bible as thee good book. It's not. It is a good book, nothing more. It has some good stories that have some morals to convey that might be useful to the reader at some point in their life. But, at the same time, it has some things that don't make any sense at all. The bible we've all come to know is the King James revised version. In England, during the time of King James, King James wanted the bible to be suitable for his people to read. So, they cut out a lot of parts and other parts were simply changed. It doesn't surprise me how something that has been so thoroughly edited, and in other areas, practically rewritten, can be interpreted in so many different ways by so many different people. But, in some cases, it has to be, because some of the stories and passages have a tendency to be so vague.

You would think after all that revising the bible would be clear enough for everyone to understand. I'm an atheist, but I've not always been. By the way, just because I said that I never completely denounced the bible doesn't mean I believe in god. God did not write the bible because god doesn't exist. The bible was written by humans who believed in an almighty, spiritual being. I used to believe in god, though. And during that time I believed in deism, because I couldn't understand how god could create the world along with everything in it and then abadon it altogether just to watch it all go bad. Deism is the belief that god created everything, but chose not to interfere with the progression of it. But the definition of deism doesn't explain why god would ever do such a thing. Though, it could easily be assumed that he did this because he wanted to see if people would remain loyal to him, even if they didn't have proof of his existence. If you believe in god, whether you're a religious person or not, you have to at least accept the philosophical concept of deism itself, even though it can be considered a belief system unto itself.

I'm not much for spirituality and worshipping anything or anyone, especially gods that I can't prove exist. As a matter of fact, I don't like believing in anything that I can't prove myself or that can't be proven to me through scientific means. When it comes to spirituality, I like the way the native Americans viewed it. If they were going to worship anything, they would worship the sun, rain, earth, wind and fire. In short, they worshipped nature. That seems more logical to me than worshipping a man in the sky that nobody ever gets to see, unless they happened to have lived in a time when cameras weren't available. Nature was something that the native Americans woke up to everyday, and went to sleep with every night. The elements of nature have the ability to take life as well as to give it. The sun helped create life, and is needed to sustain it. If the sun shines too frequently, and intensely, then life can be taken away, because crops can wither and die. If the sun is shielded from us by bad weather, then we won't get enough sunlight and we might receive too much rain, and as a result, crops may receive too much water, and, ultimately, they'll die, as will those who rely on them for food. But with just the right amount of rain, crops can flourish and grow. Nature is capable of as many blessings as curses.

Death was an incidental circumstance in the creation of life, but it's a reality we all have to accept. You can't have life without death. And sometimes death creates life. Natural disasters bring death and destruction, but they also bring great changes. It's easy to see how the native Americans would perceive nature as a kind of almighty itself, when in fact, it is. Though not a conscious entity, it's an almighty reality nonetheless. Nature was here before us. It's needless to ask if nature was here before the creation of the universe. Nature is the universe. A what ever came before the universe is nature as well. If an asteroid hit this planet and decimated all life as we know it, that too is a natural disaster. It may not be an earth bound natural disaster like an earth quake, tsunami, tornado or hurricane. It's just a natural disaster that happens to come from outer space. No one knows exactly what was here before the universe. And no one knows what will be here after it's gone. But I believe one thing's for certain. As long as something exists here, where ever here is, that too is nature. We're all nature's children.