A Question of Faith and Belief

Now this is a topic which intrigues me greatly. I really got to thinking about the Terri Shiavo affair....and the long legal war over her right to die.....or live. But even more than that....is the role of religion in that debate. For it touches on a greater topic....that of which a person rests their faith and beliefs. How many religions are there in the world? Hundreds.....if not thousands. They all seem to preach the same tenant however......at some point and time....we die and depending on how we lived, believed and confessed....eternal life awaits, for good or bad.

This brings up questions as to a supreme being....often referred to as "God". Most popular christian religions...including some of the jewish teachings.....would have us believe that God is all powerful, all knowing and completely omnipotent. With but the blink of an eye....he/she could alter anything on this planet....if he/she so desired. No human event goes unnoticed by God, as we are told time and again through scriptures....or men of the cloth.

That being the case.....many people have asked why God would let bad things happen to good people. Why little innocent children are made to suffer....be raped, tortured and killed. The response from the clergy.....God gives us "free will" to act upon. If this were the case.....would it not be just as important for the little child who was tortured and slowly killed to have as much say in their "free will" as it was for the sick, deranged animal who did the killing. Why would an all powerful God allow the free will of murders, sadists, criminals, and human filth.....to take precedent over the free will of an innocent child...or even an adult for that matter....who did not want to die a horrible death? It makes no sense to me. I have a hard time agreeing to the outright faith we are supposed to hold...when so many contradictions are evident. In fact....for the most part of recorded human history.....how many times has it ever been proven that God interceded in any major calamity, war, pestilence, famine, plague or genocide to the betterment of the innocent? If God made the heavens, earth, and humans....why has he/she allowed such atrocities to continue unabated for thousands of years? How many millenia are humans condemed to
repeat the suffering of war, illness, hatred, famine and murder?
When is enough....enough? To me.....that does not sound like an all loving and powerful deity.

As far as I can tell.....and it is only my opinion....it seems that most of the world's religions were contrived for the purpose of controlling the masses. It has always been far more effective and less costly to the state to have its' people tow the line in the name of religion. As long as there has been civilizations on this world...there has been some form of religious belief that the people are expected to adhere to. From paganism and mythology....to the current religions of today. It is expensive for governments to maintain power if you have to have a large standing army and police force. Far better to have people obey your will if the reward, or punishment, is based on eternal salvation, or eternal damnation.

After all, is that not what most religions teach today....if you obey the teachings of their religious dogma.....of their particular supreme being or saviour...than you will have eternal life in the most wonderful place ever known. Conversely....disobey the religious teachings.....stray from the fold.....question the authority of that power.....and it is eternal damnation in hell.....for all eternity. Now given the choices....who would rather be in blissful heaven....or painful hell....or whatever demon realm they call it.

It seems far fetched to me.....a real contrived story passed along in many formats from recorded history. So far as I know....there is not one person alive today.....or even the last 2,000 years....who can prove that a single human has returned from the dead and proven the existence of heaven, or hell. Even if we are to believe in the resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus....I can recall him never relating what death or heaven was like when he was dead. It seems suspicious to me.

Then there is the christian teaching of what life will be like in heaven. Think about it. According to scriptures.....you would not have your old body....you would not have the worldy possessions you once enjoyed.....you most certainly would not be engaging in sex out of wedlock....and your sole purpose would be to give glory and praise to God. So in essence.....you would not be you....as you would not be able to relate your earthly life and experiences....to that which would be in heaven. No longer would you long for fast cars, beautiful women.....dating......jobs....kids, or vitually anything else that was on earth. So how could you possible know it was you....or could have even been you....who now in spirit form resided in the utopia of heaven? It would be a case of being reborn.....as a new baby would be. But if you had no knowledge of your past life on earth....the experiences good or bad,
why would you center your whole life and structure on the promise that someday....you might go to heaven and be who you were.

You would no longer be you...but would be some anonymous form of spirit somewhere doing the bidding of whatever entity had brought you there. I know that many of the religions teach their followers that you will see all your dead relatives, parents and loved ones in heaven. This is just not possible. Why? Because all religions.....particularly christian ones....state in their scriptures that out of the many.....only a few are worthy to gain access to heaven. That being the case....there are going to be alot of disappointed people when they discover grandpa did not make the list. Can you see my point?

Here is another question for thought. When a person dies...what actually happens to their soul.....no one really knows.....or do they even have one? Science has already proven that all higher life forms....including humans.....store the memories of the past and current existence in millions of brain cells. Some short term....some long term. Since it is a biological piece of matter that stores the memories that we hold......those things that make us who we are....and unique to all others.....than what happens when those biological cells degrade and die. No longer are there storage vessels for the many memories which we all use to identify ourselves.
What happens to the energy of those memories? Like all energy...I would believe that it probably dissipates into the world to be recycled into another form of energy at a later date. Think of this. If someone died 2 thousand years ago.....their physical body has long since decomposed and returned to the earth to be reused as another form of energy. Without the biological cells to hold the memories that perosn once had.....what would have happened to them the last 2 thousand years? How would they have been made to be cohesive for that length of time to be still viable as an individual person of an exact identity? Where would all of those trillions of memories from billions of dead humans have been kept for all these centuries only to have them allegedly reassembled at some far distant point in the future....and then only for the people who had passed the test of faith and devotion. What about those humans who existed and died centuries before they could even know of modern religions.....and the requirements of salvation.
It seems improbable to me that even if there is a heaven....those who were invited into it......would have any notion of who they were on earth. They would be totally new beings....so to hope for the memories of old long lost relatives, friends and loved ones to come back to life and greet you at the pearly gates....when your memories of them died when you did....seems minute at best.

I personally do not know what to believe, who to believe....or even why to belive.....in such a nebulous concept as eternal life as you would have been on earth.....once in heaven. Biologically....it would not be possible for the brain cells that carried your mermories to exist once they died. Hence.....without a vessel to carry those memories....it would seem impossible for the energy of those memories to remain a cohesive force capable of identifying a single person centuries after physical death. And.....without your memories and experiences....how would you ever know if it was you who actually got to the afterlife? Memories are what we base our lives and self identies on. Without them....we would be little more than plants or lower animal forms.

These are the questions I have....and hence my reluctance to blindly follow the lead of organized religion when so little proof exists of what actually happens after you die. No one really knows....except for the one who has died. Everything else to me is just conjecture and fabrication of what will happen after we die.
Whether that is heaven....or hell....yet remains to be seen.

The greatest measure of control indeed....to feed upon the fears of the meek!