I often wonder what it would be like to have a conversation with a person I feared would be sentenced to an eternity of horror.
Such a conversation would make me sad. It'd be like talking to a wrongly convicted death row inmate.
I'd ask them, "If your existence will be one of misery for thousands and thousands of years, why don't you take this short opportunity we call life to go crazy. Eat all you want, drink all you want - just go nuts, 24/7. Since things will be a lot better for me after I die, I'm going to rest up in preparation for all the good times and frivolity the afterlife will provide, so thankfully I don't have to live the rest of my life as if it were akin to a last meal."
I can't emphasize how pleasurable it is to talk to an individual about religion without fear that, if I don't convince him or her that my beliefs are correct, they'll forever rot in hell despite the fact that they're a person filled with decency and morality.
So let's examine what life would be like if religious people didn't believe in different outcomes for different faiths.
I think it's safe to say that church parking lots wouldn't be overflowing on Sunday mornings if nobody feared what's on the other side. Perhaps there would be no churches.
If only religious people claimed, "We think our god is the only true god. In fact, our god is so cool that if you don't believe he's the one true god, he'll still allow you to stay with him after your time on earth is through because he loves everybody. Not, 'loves everybody, but if you don't believe in him, will send you to hell, loves everybody,' rather, 'loves everybody, will let all humane persons bunk with him in the afterlife, loves everybody.'"
If that were the case, there would be no big three religions.
A few lost souls would still cling onto to Jim Jones type individuals promising a heaven beyond their wildest expectations, but the people content with life would make the decision to only concentrate on the things over which they have control.
They would focus on enjoying life, helping others, and studying historically accurate facts.
They would think, "If none of the proposed gods give a flying whit whether or not I believe in him, yet one of them is actually the true god, it means he probably wants me to focus on how I can benefit humanity instead of racking my brain in search of answers to questions I can't comprehend."
From the beginning it was never about the truth; it's always been about control.
Throughout history, the church elders have never really cared what you believed; they only cared that you followed their life instructions to a tee. I'm sure a few higher-ups were believers, but regardless of their thoughts on god and his teachings, their main objective was to control your life.
Unless you were convinced at young age to believe such a tale was factual, wouldn't you consider fishy a story about a man saying to another man, "Should you choose not to believe in the god I insist is the only real god, and should you choose not to live exactly as I say, based on said god's specific instructions as previously relayed to me, he will not welcome you into his kingdom of perfection."?
If that wasn't fishy enough, the stranger would then list contradictory rules with seemingly no standards.
But in simpler times such stories must have seemed plausible, because religion grew and grew.
Had ancient people enough sense to reject these so-called human conduits to god, millions of people who devoted their lives to destroying other religions could have focused on the betterment of all mankind, leading to a superior world.
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