Something hit me as I was on Facebook a few days ago. I noticed that several of my friends updated their status with religious saying and such.. Eventually, one post asked. "If you had 1 day to live, will you go to heaven or hell?"
I saw it using my cellphone, I typed in my response hastily.. without thinking of the impact on the person who wrote it, and those who would view it.
My response was: "I have no idea, but I like surprises." They responded promptly by laying out a few bullet points about accepting Christ & such, or I will not like what happens.
Then I realized that I made a mistake responding to the question in the first place. It somewhat made me want to argue the point, but that would be wrong.
First off.. this is where I stand. I don't want to be disrespectful to the believers over here, but this is how I feel.
I'm not afraid of the boogie man.
I took the time to explore religion. In each case (Islam, Christianity) when my discussions with my mentor/Imam got to a point at which they expected me to suspend rational thought. For me, as a defense mechanism a few whistle's go off. As in, if anyone tries to get you to suspend reality in order to be a part of a belief system, then that is brainwashing. It makes me angry - To be quite honest.
In my opinion, people go to religion for various, dare I say justified reasons. It could be tradition- they simply were not taught anything else, and they are not the type to challenge it. They get a sense of being a part of something- a community.
Or, this is a biggie.. It's an emotional crutch. They need it in order to avoid reconciling the absoluteness of death. They are unable to handle the possibility that the end, may actually be the end. It almost seems like human nature to want to believe this. Perhaps it makes it easier to cope with the death of a loved one, or with the prospects of your own eventual demise.
People use religion to rationalize (oxymoron) the behavior of others. (criminals, dictators).
I get it, I understand mankind's desire to know everything. But for me, when you don't have a rational answer, you can't just make shit up. You should just be emotionally mature enough to deal with not knowing. Interestingly enough, I believe the same thing happens in science.
I don't pretend to know the unknown. A mere mortal wrote the bible and every other religious text.
I don't know if there is a god.
I don't know how big the universe is. And what the heck is the end of space?
I don't know why we are here, but it sure is interesting.
I've noticed that our society's concept of heaven and hell are always in worldly context.
To me, heaven and hell exist on earth. Human beings are capable of the most glorious, and the most wicked.
Anyway.. enough babbling. I feel that I always have to hide the fact that I feel this way. Among friends.. and DEFINITELY around family. Anyone else having the same struggle???
**UPDATE** Okay, Okay... I can only compare it to being gay because there is societal pressure to hide it and it could work against you if you told anyone.