Religion

Religion is a sensitive subject for every and any person you may talk to. People have beliefs that are so strong our world has been in countless wars since the beginning of recorded history all in God's name. There are countless religions in every country all with a different idea of the afterlife and what is to be expected in that after life. Some believe that by killing others or themselves for "God's Cause" that they will be welcomed into the afterlife of eternal happiness. Some believe even the smallest sin can condemn them to eternal torment in hell being roasted on a spit like some kind of a kabob. Some religions put the focus on their buildings, specifically the church, and some on faith alone. The questions are always the same, who is right, who is wrong and is there even a god?

I don't consider myself to be a very religious person but I do believe in God. I haven't even been to church in probably about 8 years. I have experienced multiple churches from Baptist to Mormon and to be honest I personally am not a fan of organized religion. In my experiences most churches implement a form of guilt and fear to control the congregation and in a technical way force them to comply to the set rules and guidelines for fear of eternal damnation. Eternal damnation, now that is a powerful deterrent. Who wants to spend eternity suffering? I know I don't. In a way when if you take a step back and look into the shadows there a few men standing there who have all the power and control over the main churches of the world. These men presently and in the past have made decisions and choices that influence millions. Who gives them this power, God? Millions of people give tithing and instill faith into these men and their churches but why? Two simple answers, faith and fear.

In history people have always looked into the heavens for answers to things that could not be explained by science. When someone dies people want to know where they go and what happens. Man is a vain creature and as this vain creature we tend to believe that we are very important and we are to good to die and that be it. There must be something else, something more. Not to mention all the original unanswered questions such as where does the sun come from, why did my crops fail, or where did all the animals go. Hence the arrival of God, with God we do not have to die and be no more, we can live on in eternal bliss and nothing sounds bad about that. We can answer all kinds of questions by using God or God's depending on the religion or faith. If something bad happens and you don't know why you must have angered god, and if something good happened you must have pleased God and are now in his favor. Ok, now that we have intelligent vain creatures running around believing in different and multiple gods the background has been set for someone to step in as a prophet and preach to man what God wants from them. This is where organized religion joins the party. Now what is the best way to control a person or group of people? Everyone who says fear gets a smiley face. When organized religion as we know it today popped up people already had some pre-set ideas of God and what was expected. Organized religion capitalized on these beliefs. The major churches could makes rules or "commandments" to control the people of the land. The leaders of these church became more powerful than the kings and queens of entire countries. After all now even a king or queen doesn't want to go against God or his servants. At this point you could reasonably argue that the founders of organized religion used it to control people and gain power as well as wealth. What better way I'd say, you and your church are the people's connection with God. They don't want to be in bad standing with God so they better be in good standing with you right. The question is again why should you believe in a man or a building?

The ironic thing is all men other than Jesus are destined to be flawed. As a man Jesus was said to be perfect as he was the son of God, but was Jesus still not a man? Would this mean that Jesus could make mistakes? The truth being we will never know. Jesus himself supposedly did not leave behind any writings or gospels but his disciples did. His disciples were not son's of God and therefore were not perfect. This being said it is completely possible that the writing or gospels by these men may be flawed. If no man is perfect not even the disciples Jesus then think of the other writing and gospels in the bible. Another thing that should be looked at is individual perception. Two people can see the exact same series of events at the exact same time and end up telling two completely different stories. This leaves the events "documented" in the bible up for even more speculation. Not to mention the fact that there are gospels that were not allowed into the bible. This in my eyes is understandable seeing as there are hundreds if not thousands of gospels and that would be one big book if we allowed them all in there. The question this poses is what if there was a gospel left out containing valuable information? History is written by those in power and by those that win wars. Think of the American Civil War, if the Confederates had won that war American history would more than likely read a little bit different would it not. So at the time of the publication of the bible it would make sense that those in power had their own agenda on how they wanted themselves viewed in the scheme of things. Also you have to think of what religion was preaching as acceptable and moral during that particular time as well as what was the agenda of the church. People as a whole need some thing to believe in. If you were to write a gospel explaining Jesus as a regular guy with really good ideas not many people would take note. Same as if Moses had only snuck his peoples out of Egypt and not parted the Red Sea most people would not care. People need miracles to give them hope and promise for a better tomorrow so if you give them exceptional stories of grandeur they pay attention. This brings to mind all the subtle contradictions of the bible itself.

There a couple of things that tend to make me scratch my head when I think of the bible. God speaks of an eye for an eye but then in the 10 Commandments murder is a sin. So this is just a little contradiction. If a man murders my brother should I not be able to murder his? This would be the literal translation of eye for an eye. The question is here how literal is one to take this? Do I kill this man's brother or does God? I also often think about wrath. Wrath is one of the seven deadly sins I do believe. If you look back into the Old Testament was God not wrathful? Ummm.... Could this be hypocritical? Maybe, maybe not. You must remember the gospel that describes God as wrathful was written by a man and therefore may be complete hogwash. It is kind of curious though how God goes from wrathful in the Old Testament to loving and forgiving in the New Testament. I wonder why the sudden change? Is there a missing section where God reaching down to Earth and partakes in some herbal remedies or was it just the change in the world itself. Where there less wars going on? Did the farming season start to flourish? This all remains to be seen.

This brings me to the way the actual church building is viewed. I can completely understand if someone wanted to build a church or temple so this person and their friends could all praise and worship God together but why should a person feel guilty if they miss a day? In most organized religions there are great beautiful buildings built in God's name for worship and the congregation is expected to attend a service at this building on that particular religion's chosen day. Tell me do you really think that God requires you to be in this building? Is not a personal relationship with God just as good? So why would churches make it appear that you "need" to attend the services in order to receive salvation? I think it's because in most cases most churches wouldn't exist unless people had faith in the building as well. With Catholics you have confession, why do you need to confess to priest? Aren't you supposed to ask God for forgiveness? If more people believed that you only need your personal relationship with God then there would be less church goes and as a result less tithing.

For all the non church goers and folks that just don't know tithing is when you give 10% of you monthly income to God or since God's not around to collect to the church. You may ask why does God need money? Simple, God does not need money, churches' need money. You can't build those beautiful building with out money. Oh and don't forget that those priests have to be taken care of, fed and clothes you know. I agree with tithing to an extent. I believe if you have the money and you know it's going to a productive expense then sure go ahead, tithe. On the other had if your are behind on your bills and the tithing goes to your preacher man's new boat that rethink this decision. Some churches have wonderful programs that assist their members in times of need and provide food to less fortunate families. These are things I fully and completely support. I just personally think that when it comes to tithing it is something that you need to fully think through and not completely depend on blind faith alone.

The Devil, Satin, Lucifer, what ever you want to call him, always interests me. I honestly think that Satin is the most interesting part of the whole mess. So God created the heavens and the earth and every thing that dwells in them, correct? So God created Lucifer his most beautiful Angel. You know its said that the angles where created as God's servants and companions and were given no free will. So when God chose Jesus to go to earth and save the humans from their sins how is it that Satin got his panties in a twist with no free will. Heaven's suppose to be perfect with no pain, no wanting, and everyone doing God's will right? Oh, with everyone or everything having been created by God wouldn't God have control over Satin and be able to just be like, "Hey Satin, shut up, sit down, and chill." It makes sense to me anyway. So now Satin goes all crazy and starts some static with God bucking the system. There's war in heaven and Satin is cast out into the pits of hell. So now that Satin is in hell he wants to get back at God and forms a plan to corrupt all the humans and make them sin, damning their souls to eternal torment in hell. Don't ask me why but this makes no sense to me. Here is Satin wanting some glory for himself by saving the humans and now he detests them to such an extent that he wishes to torture them for eternity. The only way this makes sense is if by having all these souls condemned to hell he is really building an army of hateful sinners. These hateful sinners would be enraged by God's judgment of them and also want to get even. What better way to attempt a take over than to build a bigger army than the one God has. Wait, couldn't God just whip up some more angels or for that matter just destroy Satin with a single wiggle of his pinky? Technically he should be able to, or should he?

So here a little thing I ponder from time to time. So since Satin was created by God where does Satin get his power? He was cast out of heaven so obviously God has or had power over Satin but what has changed from that time to now where Satin has power to do as he pleases with God supposedly unable to do anything about it? I think that if this is actually how things have played out it have something to do with the way Satin thinks. Scientist say that the average person only used 10% of their brain so that would mean that there is 90% of the brain untapped. If you think of all the things that people can do such as making them selves sick merely by thinking they are imagine what these folks could do if they were able to access the full potential of their brain. Would it be possible then that if you think you can then you can? Potentially this would mean that a soul cast into hell could pose a rival for power against Satin. This makes thinks much more interesting. The reason this become more interesting is if Satin can attempt to rival God, a human soul can attempt to rival Satin, why couldn't a human soul attempt to rival God? Now we've really reached a taboo subject. Don't get me wrong I have no intention of trying to over take the throne but just a little food for thought, God had to come from some where and if Satin can change the system he was created into why can't you?