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Good question.
When you know the truth and not dwell in fear and superstition, a great peace and joy comes over you. Freedom and Truth are one in the mind. Without freedom you can never know the reality that is truth.
The problem is that religions are but superstition. No superstition is true. Without truth the mind cannot trust, nor soar. It must live in the dark cave of a faith, imprisoned by fear of hell and want of salvation (saving) from that fiery torture. The emotionally weak are quick to submit to this emotional trauma, and are enslaved. That is not freedom.
I was once superstitious about spirits and demons. I was indoctrinated as a child into the Christian belief system. Then I discovered that my father's sperm met my mother's ovary, like the virus meets the cell. The result was a transformed biological entity that leached on my mother and began to split and grow till it popped out 9 months later.
I never began to live as from a lifeless state. I am the life from my father and the life from my mother, the life that left those entities to meet, react, evolve and exist independently, and continue the legacy that dates back more that a billion years of uninterrupted replication and evolution of life on earth.
I am that who I am, a biological entity in the evolution of the tree of life. I am the sum of my parents, who are the sum of theirs. Life from the first simplest form through which I have descended, is in my constitution. The whole is in the one. The one is from the whole. I didn't begin life at birth or at conception. My life began in the primordial soup, in a continuous process of countless transformations. I came from energy reactions. I am energy. All is energy. Energy is all. All this, science has shown.
Science has shown that energy can neither be created, nor destroyed. It has always existed in many forms as matter and dark matter, energy and dark energy, in ways we have yet to discover. The Big Bang was nothing more than a behavior of this always existent energy. We come from energy. We are energy. We take in and expel energy. We will return to energy. Science has revealed all this. There is no need for a god to create that which has always existed, not created, indestructible. So why stick our heads in the sand and say "I'm alive. God is the explanation?" What are you, if not energy? All the universe, see and unseen, is energy. You are a part of that whole. After you die, you will live on, in different dispersed forms of energy. And if maggots crawl out of your dead carcass, it is reasonable for a primitive man to conclude that you have reincarnated. But your perceived god has no power aside from energy. What then is greater, energy or the perceived god. What is an invisible god without the power? All that we see, all we know is energy.
Then how did life begin? Abiogenesis. It "is the study of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how groups of living things change over time. Amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", occur naturally, due to chemical reactions unrelated to life. In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids. Thus the question of how life on Earth originated is a question of how the first nucleic acids arose." (Wikipedia)
Amino acids are sometimes called proteins that are sometimes called enzymes. These enzymes are catalysts with the ability to cause reaction and therefore do work. We are bags of working, collaborating enzymes, their environments and their products. It's not exactly that simple, but that's where evolution plays it's part in developing complexity over billions of years and unimaginable number of iterations. We don't know everything, but in a few years, we will know more. Not knowing everything should not mean we fabricate or accept primitive superstition to control our thoughts and turn our backs on science. We need to continue our exploration, discovery, learning, build our knowledge base, and help humanity live longer and prosper through science and research. To live in the dark cave of superstition with 100% certainty of a gods doing, is not better that walking towards the light of truth with hard work and diligence, that we leave behind our efforts as our legacy for our children.
Why do we have to condemn people to hell? It is but a hateful response with intent to terrorize and curse others who reject their superstitions.
Superstition is foolish because it is governed by emotions like fear, love, desire, hope, security, comfort, etc. These emotions never make for good science or truth, but most of humanity is weak and easily surrenders to emotions, like an addiction. They can't control their emotions. Their emotions control them. That is the reality of the religious indoctrination. If it wasn't religion, it would be called brainwashing. Note that you are never born knowing about gods. It has to be drilled into you. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus - it all works the same way.
Superstition is big money (power), and money is a game changer. That explains why we have so many different faiths.
What is the purpose of any life form? To prosper the species in it's lifetime to the extent it can. Thus, we copulate and do the best we can for our off-spring and community. Like ants we die, leaving behind our legacy in the anthill we constructively build.
I no longer live in the dark cave of god fearing superstition and ignorance. Now I walk towards the light of truth in my quest to explore, discover, learn, prosper and share, without hallucinations or other such mental baggage. We also do this in our scientific endeavors to uplift humanity in every way, from finding new cures to more productive farming and enhanced education and communication, that we may live long and prosper.
There is no evidence that the gods exist, let alone that they create or influence anything. But science and immunization has done much to let you survive those deadly childhood diseases and illnesses that in the past meant plagues and death by angry, vengeful, cursing gods. And there will be new diseases that only science will save us from, not some godly superstition. Even in this modern age, children have died from curable diseases because parents believed god and prayer could cure, rather than doctors and medicine. It is not that gods sent plagues. It is that the godly superstitions are the plague in need of cure.
The primitive and emotional superstition of spirits and demons has no part in this our humanity, except to retard human development and perpetuate human strife and suffering. That is our cross. The cross we must shed of our backs.
Forgive and Share
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