Someone once told me "Religion is for the Living and Faith is for the Dying". What does this mean?
Humans by their nature are always looking for something to strive for - religions are the visible expressions of that need to have something bigger and better to strive for. Faith, on the other hand, is something that each individual either has or doesn't. No one can give you faith - it must come from within.
If we look at most religions - they are fear based:
Christianity (the one I'm most familiar with) is based on if you're not "good" you're going to go to Hell; others are based on reincarnation and the fact that if you do something or fail to do something in this life you will have to deal with it in the next. Perhaps others who know the different religions more could give real examples?
I, personally, don't feel that any "religion" is completely right or wrong. Because I have an ultimate need to believe that there is a creator - I do. I don't believe that there is a separation between good and evil - I believe there is just one - the Creator. Why do I believe that? Because I have issues with something just being created <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />. And yes, I understand that there is an issue with that. Who created the Creator? LOL - Just no clear cut answers are there?
Now, for my last irreverent thought, Have any of you considered that we're all just some extremely sophisticated form of a computer simulation? We now have the Sims and Sim City programs where we can teach our avatars to do certain things and then let them do things on their own. What if we're just some extremely sophisticated AI computer program and we're allowed to do things on our own until the designer decides they have to throw in a few natural desasters or a bad guy such as Saddam into the mix? Side note here: Wouldn't it be great if we knew when we entered the game who the bad guys were and that it was
okay to just get rid of them??
Even if we are just a part of this AI program - Does it matter? We think, we feel, we breathe, we hurt, we love, we laugh - we try to make our lives mean something. If we've touched someone else and made their lives a little better by just being here, isn't that what matters most?
