No human being can deny the fear of the unknown. We are all a victim of it. And the biggest fear is of the unknown after death. Yesterday a friend and I got into a discussion about religion. It wasn’t a debate but merely a friendly exchange of each other’s beliefs, which ended being similar. Though once a deeply founded Christian, I am no longer one at all. I wasn’t all too sure of my faith in the first place and now I see all the flaws and the things I smoothed over so I could follow what my family so desperately wanted me to follow and the things I forced myself to believe, to deal with my fear of the unknown after death. Now I look back and wonder why I ever did that. Even back then I would have moments of disbelief but I allowed the teachings to fool me to think that that was just human nature and something pushed me to force myself to believe. One thing I just couldn’t get myself to believe was the New World, the place after Satan was banished forever in the bottomless pit. Even heaven bothered me sometimes. How odd is it to hear someone say that the thought of heaven bothered them? I tried to believe but though I pretended, that part, I could never believe or wanted. I remember sitting in church, in a pew right near the front and learning about after the Tribulations and the New World and the New Heavens. I remember everyone besides me sitting there in wonder and excitement over such a wonderful happy place where lions and lambs laid in fields together. It seemed like I was the only one who thought that that seemed like a horrible, boring place. I felt horrible thinking that that would be a boring place. Heaven also seemed boring to me not that hell appealed to me either. But who would want to go to a place that was always perfect, where everything went right?
I have always been a firm believer in aliens. There was no possibility in my mind that we were the only life in an universe that was supposed to be endless. I couldn’t fathom how God had made this endless universe and on our tiny planet was the only life. Also the thought of this universe being endless made my mind scream. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the thought and if there was an end, what was past that end? My human mind cannot grasp this concept. Sometimes it is too hard to think of for fear that I will go insane trying to understand the idea. I could never really believe in an all-powerful being ruling over us. Things seem too flawed for that. I never understood if there was an all-powerful deity looking over us, why things were the way they were. If they had this all this power why didn’t they fix it? If they had an enemy why not just smite him? Thing were just to flawed for me. We look back on the Greeks now and laugh at the things they believed in but look at us now, we are no better than they were. Maybe I like the Greek deities so much because they weren’t perfect, they each had their flaws. I can see things being controlled by a mystical force more than an entity itself. Something that causes things to happen but that doesn’t have that deity-like status. I see this place and life as just one level or plane. I don’t know what happens exactly after this life but I don’t believe this is the end. I could never be an Atheist. To believe that there is no magic in this world, that it is all just science and that when we die, that is it, nothing happens. What would be the point of living? Life would be so pointless. Why make memories when we are just going to die? Also what happens to my spirit then? I can’t wrap my mind around this concept either. What would happen to me? Like my spirit, to not be anymore…it’s one of the most frightening things. I know for a fact that we have a spirit, there is no doubt in my mind. It’s more than just science. Science makes our bodies work but what makes the difference when we die? You could push a point in the arm of a dead man and his eyes would open and you could touch another spot and make his leg move but what is it that makes this man dead? You could get his heart to beat again but he would still be dead. You might be similar to you parents but people are their own person. Why? Again I will go back to that mystical force. And by the beliefs of Atheism, there was the Big Bang that started it all but what was before it? Where did this little condense material come from in the first place? Atheism just doesn’t seems right, there is just too many unexplained things.
We all find our ways of comforting our fear of the unknown whether it’s with Christianity, Atheism or whatever belief you might have.