 Every religion has its principles. Every religion has fundamental ideas which define which that religion stands for. And especially when we talk about religion, religion is just not simply what somebody thinks or what somebody feels, what somebody aspires to, what somebody sets as his goal in life. Religion is a unique type of philosophy of life. Everybody has a philosophy of life. The sea is the atheist whoever it is. So religion cannot simply mean a way of life that you have chosen. Otherwise the word religion would become a meaningless word. So religion would have to have something unique, something specific. What makes religion unique and specific? First of all, you can't have religion unless you have a concept of God. Without God there is no religion. That's what sets religion apart from every other philosophy of life. In everything else you can postulate these or that premise, these or that theory, whatever it may be. But to make it unique, to make it a special category, it must have something unique and that is in terms of religion, God. Now just because you have a concept of God does still not mean that you have religion. You may believe in God, you may even believe in God as God being the creator of the world. You may believe all the things that are said about God, omnipotent, omniscient, almighty, everything. That still does not mean that you have a religion. In fact, in theology and philosophy we have two concepts, one of which is called deism and the other one which is called theism. Both words mean exactly the same thing, except one comes from the Latin deos and the other one comes from the Greek teos. Both words meaning God. So basically both words mean Godism. What's the difference between deism and theism? In deism a person believes in God, of course God exists. After all, it's a basic fundamental logical premise that no one can deny that ex nihilo nihil fit. Nothing can come out of nothing. From nothing you cannot establish anything. If there is a world, if things exist it must have had a source of origin. There are certain things which theoretically could be eternal but we see in day-to-day life that the scientists would also do. How long do they say how old is the human race, the human species, what have you? I think the longest known was about 20 billion years. For that matter you can make it 200 billion years, makes no difference. And then I can always ask what happened before 200 billion years? If there is a certain moment in time when this begins there must have been something which set it off. And that we call the beginning. And once you have a beginning of something which is ex nihilo which came about from nowhere as such then the question arises how did it come about? Regardless whether you're a believer or an atheist it doesn't matter. Everybody has to start with some eternal substance which is the origin, the first course, the pie mover of everything else that we see in this world. That's number one. Nobody will argue this point. Second point that nobody will argue that this course, Carla's first course, Carla's pie mover must contain within itself all the potential for everything that eventually evolves or comes about. Because otherwise you get right back to square one. Where did it come from? How did it come about? The effect can never be greater than the course. So the course must contain all the ingredients that the effect displays later on. So therefore it's quite simple and quite logical to assume there was something that existed eternally with not out having any source of origin that brought everything into being. And then you can develop a whole theory about that and give it any name. Call it X, call it Y, or call it God. The name means nothing. The term means nothing. All you can do is you can define in order for that eternal first course to exist and to be the course of all things that came about thereafter there must be certain qualities. For one thing, it must contain all the positive qualities that we see evolving in the course of time, in the world, in all the objects, in all the creatures that we see. But that's about it. And deism argues, of course, God exists. Those of you who have studied philosophy or theology, you may be familiar with the most famous of the deists, famous philosopher of the 17th, 18th century, David Hume. He accepts, yes, of course, God exists. Yes, God created the world. But after God created the world, God is not interested anymore. He had his fun. He got it out of his system. As the Bible puts it, all is up our shameless odds. God's forsook the world. As a matter of fact, the deists will go on with a logical argument and say it's presumptuous and arrogant on your part to think that God cares one hoot about you. Who the heck do you think you are? I care about things which have some relationship with me. How can you say that God has a relationship to anything in the world? God by definition is infinite. God by definition is perfect. Anything existing is imperfect, is finite. Compared to God, it's nothing. If you take the number one, the smallest number, and you take a huge number that you need a computer to even figure it out, zillion to the zillion's power to the zillion's power to the zillion's power, which means practically nearly infinitely greater than the number one. There is still a connection and still a relationship between the smallest number and the biggest number. The biggest number is simply so many times bigger than the smallest number. That's all. When you talk about infinity, then the largest number, the biggest number, is no bigger in relation to infinity than the number one or the number zero. Because infinity is beyond counting. And therefore they argue if God by definition is infinite. God by definition is completely beyond that. And the world by definition is finite. The world in relation to God is nothing, zero, nada, zilch. So for us to argue that God cares about the world, that God is involved with the world is sheer nonsense. It's sheer arrogance and presumptuousness on your part. That's deism. But then why did God care the world? I haven't got a clue. God cared the world, had his fun, got it out of the system. It's like playing Mr Lego set, build something, or you go to the beach and you build a sand castle. You put in a whole days of work and ingenuity to build your sand castle, made it very intricate and complex. And then you look at the watch. I had to go home for supper. What's going to happen to your sand castle? You know very well the next morning it won't be there. Tide and app will be washed away. Are you concerned? No, you had your fun. It was interesting. It was a challenge. Tomorrow I'll build another one, different kind. So why should we not say the same about God? Yet we like to think no God cares about me. I'm important. Who says you're important? Nothing. That is deism. So the basic premises they accept because they're simply necessary to explain logically, philosophically, certain facts that we have to confront. This obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. It's the opposite of religion. Religion is the term that would use in Greek theism. Theism says not only does God exist, not only did God create the world, but after creation, even though God doesn't have to, but God chose to create the world for his purposes and God is connected with the world, God is what we call a personal God. That's religion. But just because you believe in a personal God who is involved with his creation, who is involved with his world, still does not mean you have religion. So fine. I know God cares about the world. God cares about mankind. So therefore, well then, there must be a connection between God and you and you and God. Perhaps. What kind of a connection? I have no clue of knowing. You cannot make a connection between God and man and man and God. You cannot talk about a religious code of conduct. You cannot talk about religious principles unless and exclusively so, if and when God says so. If and when God directs us in that direction. That God says to us, this is what I expect from you. You cannot say, we have now adopted these or those religious principles. People assume that when it comes to religion and relationship with God and there are certain things in life which turn me on and they turn me on and make me feel spiritual. So I can simply devise now that system or that's this lifestyle, whatever have you. It's sufficient for me to establish a religion. It's sufficient for me to establish a lifestyle, a philosophy of life, a religious code. And you may go out and be indeed very sincere about it and devise a very intricate and very delicate and very subtle philosophy of life, the most noble and the most moral. And you may say for that God which I now believe in, which come to that conclusion, I'm going to build the most beautiful edifice in the world and bring the greatest symphony orchestra to play the hymns to inspire anybody and everybody who comes there and go about and do it. And now you think that you have a connection with God? God may very simply turn around and say to you thank you for the compliment, but frankly you're not my type. That's not what I want. That's not what I expect. That's not what turns me on. You want to know how to serve me? You want to know how to connect to me? There's only one and one way only that you can ever possibly find that out. Ask me and I'll tell you. That is the third concept that comes into the idea of principle of religion. First is idea of God. Second not just God existing but God, a personal God. And the third one is revelation. Without a concrete form of revelation you have no religion. No such thing. Even if you have a concept of God, you believe in God etc. And God alone is the only one who can possibly tell you what he expects from you. What is acceptable to God. All the Gators philosophers and all the Gators theologians all the wisest people on earth whatever they may come up with and it may make a lot of sense it is meaningless, it is worthless, it is zero. You can get that source of information from one place and one place only God himself. Now existence of God for that we have many philosophical arguments. All the philosophers some day one have been dealing with that problem Jewish, non-Jewish, monotheistic, polytheistic, whatever it is. And there are a number of philosophical arguments to prove that there must be this idea of first cause of prime mover. You can even go a step further and say look here this God surely must be connected with the world. You can give a philosophical argument for that as well to prove that philosophically. So these two major points and major promises you can argue and demonstrate on a purely logical philosophical level. The third item which is really the most important of all revelation for that there is no logical argument for that there is no philosophical reasoning. Revelation is history. It's something which either happened or did not happen. It does not depend on mental acrobatics. It's an event. It's an event that must have been experienced. And once we deal with experience an event that must have been seen, heard, whatever it is, then the same criteria that apply to any other historical event. Whether you talk about something of the far off past or you talk about something which is very recent. History is not something which happened two and a half or three and a half thousand or four thousand years ago. History is also what happened a split second ago. Anything which is not here and now is history. And the moment you deal with history you have a very profound perplexing problem. How do you know about any event of the past, anything that is not occurring here and now that it actually happened? In philosophy this is known as epistemology which is probably the most perplexing problem that mankind has to face. Epistemology means theory of knowledge. How do you know? How do you know anything? How and when would you know what you know? And how can you be sure that what you know is really real or not? Philosophers have been struggling with that question for thousands of years and I can give you today in writing that for the next thousands of years they will still be struggling with that. They have never come up with a satisfying answer regardless of how old the thousands of books have been written on that subject alone. And there will be thousands of more books that will be written. Each one trying to be smart and find out. It is logically impossible to come up with an answer to that. The only way that you can ever come up with an answer how does my mind work? When do I know that my mind is working properly? How and when would I know that my perceptions are correct and real? I would have to be able to step out of my mind. I have to be able to get out of my whole reality and judge my brain and judge my forms of perceptions from outside, from a kind of an objective point of view. And that of course is human impossible. The human mind is programmed, it can only work with things which work in time and space. Anything outside time, outside space I cannot even talk about it. I can discuss it, I can talk about it, I can talk about it, but it's totally meaningless. Revelation, we talk about it meaning God revealing himself, God speaking to man, God addressing man. Either this happened, God did speak to us or God did not speak to us.