Some of my earliest childhood thoughts, that I remember, were of a religious nature. It seemed as though, while other kids my age were playing with toys and enjoying childhood, I was contemplating heaven, hell, and all of the other implications of a mortal existence. I would find myself in much confusion, trying to find comfort in the fact that someday I would probably find myself in hell, being as I knew I would never live up to the standard set before me by our church. I couldn’t even live up to the much more tolerable standard set by my parents, as was obvious by the much needed punishment I received so often. The only way I could find comfort within those thoughts was to tell myself that I would inevitably know someone there, which brought on more mental conflicts of not wanting to be alone in hell; I guess misery loves company. These thoughts only added to the confusion. I would rather not of had to think of me or my friends and family engulfed in eternal flames.
I was raised in an Assembly of God church and I’m not sure that’s a good environment for children as they are at their most impressionable state. I went through many stages of confusion as I developed obsessive compulsive disorders of a religious nature because my intellect was at war with my teachings. I would never subject a child to the knowledge of hell and punishment at such a young age. It took me many years to break the mental programming and finally find peace within this world. Even if I’m going to hell, I would just as soon not know about it, and at least have the opportunity to find some peace while I'm here.
Religion approaches everyone as though they are born evil and they must be reprogrammed. I was as far from perceived evil as a child could be, yet I still got the same gloomy treatment of eternal punishment as those who may or may not have needed it. All souls aren’t born equal in any aspect, thus if we can’t judge the needed teaching for a specific soul and teach on a curve then perhaps we shouldn’t force our views at all. It’s just like any other knowledge; most of those, who need that kind of enlightenment, won’t learn from it anyway, and those, who don’t, get tired of hearing it. I feel that subjecting our children to doom and gloom at such a young age is definitely doing more harm than good. That was the case for me anyways.
Perhaps, all souls seek answers just the same. Some look for them in understanding the functions of our world. Others attribute them to a being and spend their lives seeking his/her compassion by pretending to enjoy being deprived of certain freedoms. I always had trouble with the thought of living forever. It plagued me as much as dying. Often times, I would have to get up from trying to sleep and walk outside just to get my mind unraveled from the fear of it all. What will we do the day we realize we are eternal. If we sit under a bush we never have to go anywhere. How will we motivate ourselves to do anything? This is just as frightening of a concept as eternal damnation. There is no good choice to me. We live as the same entity forever in heaven or hell; we die and eternally slumber; or we continuously change who we are and have to go through this world over and over, eternally ignorant. I’m not sure which one I choose.
It seems as though religious people spend their time trying to find favor in the God of their choosing, so that he will keep them around for an eternity at his side. If there is a being, which created all of this, I don’t think I have a trait within me that would be worth him keeping me around forever to admire. Isn’t it kind of arrogant to say that we should have rights to eternity, while others are either punished, or taken out of existence?
I question the zeal of most so called religious people also. Are they really that concerned for our souls, or are they more concerned with our opinions, whereby needing everyone to agree with their views? It seems to be human nature to want the world to see things the way we do, but that doesn’t give us the right to force feed our so called enlightenment on those who obviously either don’t want or don’t need it. Religion has caused more death and destruction than any other creation/concept of mankind.
All and all, I think God is needed by the individual who needs comfort within a world which offers none, and I think religion is needed by the establishment who needs us all to get along, whereby societies are maintained and economies can thrive. There’s nothing like a common bond of peace and love to keep us all from killing each other and working as we should, within a single government/economy, but our group can kill another group if they don’t conform to our views; just as long as the rich stay rich; the poor stay poor; and most importantly, the working keep their asses working.
Even if we do choose to believe in a God, and we give him credit for creating such a wonderful world of only essential things, let’s not turn around and contradict ourselves by saying that we, as humans, are the only of his creations that he will ever have to turn around and take out of existence or eternally punish. We say that he is infallible, yet we imply that he creates fallible things, whereby he must destroy or punish them with no chance of parole. Is this not a contradiction?
If the only way for something to exist is within the mind of God, then what does it say about him to imply that he will forever maintain a burning fire, stoking up the coals, for all of eternity to throw the souls, whom he created, into; and they will never get out. Thus, the punishment isn’t for the betterment of the person/soul. The punishment is strictly to punish.
For those who choose to believe that we are all figments of the imagination of a creator, whereby we are part of his dream, then is this not subject to what the great Freud pointed out about our dreams, as he stated that, when we dream of someone, we are basically assuming their role within our minds as we sleep. We are giving life to their character; thus their actions aren’t a representation of who they are; they are a representation of how we obviously view them and how we see them acting. Our dreams of others are more telling of ourselves, and what lies deep within us socially, than they are of those we dream about. Do we awake and find ourselves angry at how others acted within our dreams? I would hope not, because we were merely playing their part for them.
If we choose to believe in wrong and right rather than believing that all things are essential, and we choose to believe in a creator, then all that is within us came from him. Everything within our minds and all of those things that we base our decisions upon came from him. Therefore, whose fault is it when we do supposedly bad things? Does a computer programmer make a program and then get angry when it does what it was designed to do? Would this too, not be a contradiction to the belief of an ever intelligent being? If we all represent portions of the whole (God) and the disputes of mankind represent an internal feud within an omnipotent being trying to better himself, then what does it matter anyway. If I represent a portion of that being, that the rest doesn’t like, then there’s nothing I can do about that.
People are often quick to judge me when I say that I am not religious, but I am probably more respectful and amazed by the true intelligence that founded this world than those who judge me. I just choose not to acknowledge and credit a being with so many great attributes and then turn around and contradict myself by the many implications of how he/she/it runs the place. I’ve seen deep enough within this world to marvel at the beauty of the design, and if anything, that is the closest to a God that I will probably ever know. It isn’t any less of a God than any other so called religion's. It is the essence of logic and reason on which our entire universe is founded, and it is why and how I am here. I choose not to think that it gets angry at me when I live as I was designed to live, and while I do the things, which I must do to contribute to the mechanism of maintaining this place.
I don’t know that the fundamental entities that make up our world require an underlying organizational framework to maintain existence, but I do know the current arrangement of them before us (our universe) requires an underlying system of interactions to maintain the asymmetrical state, which they are currently in. This state requires functions, which require forms. We are merely a part of that system of interaction. Our form is needed, and our function is provided. The hypothetical sinner is just as important as the hypocritical saint. They are both needed to make all of this work, and if we choose, within our own minds, not to like this fact; then we choose to stand against that which provides for our existence. Perceived evil is just as necessary as perceived good, and a study of which will truly reveal the social dynamics that help make the world go around.
I am not religious. I am realistic. Our world exists the only way an eternal system can exist, and everything within it is here for that reason, even our inability to agree on religion is part of the beauty of the whole. All things are accounted for, and all things are in place. If I was to have to admit to the possibility of one variable within a system of obvious constants, I would say that possibly all we can change is how we feel. Perhaps, that is the only control we have in this world; not what we do, or how we do it; but how it makes us feel about ourselves after it’s done. Who's to say?
Without a doubt, we will all be subjected to the one thing I do know exists within this life, someday; when we find ourselves having to leave this place all alone. Let us gather what comfort we can, however we can; cause we will definitely need it, one lonely day.
05-03-2008 08:45 AM 
