Gamble Your Soul

Recently, I had a discussion with some people on the issue of faith. What is it you believe in? Regardless what you believe, there is an element of uncertainty, but yet everybody clings to the notion that what they have learned is the absolute truth & nothing, no matter if another person's faith counters yours, will change what you believe.

I would imagine that the religion you adopt is almost always directly correlated to the area of the world in which you live or what your parents grew up believing, etc. People tend to take up the predominant religion of their demographic or the favorable religion of their parent's demographic. The question that plagues me is: how do any of us know that our religion is the RIGHT religion? How can we piously say that anybody's beliefs that counter what we believe must be wrong? If we were in the dissenter's shoes and grew up with their background, and acquired their beliefs, we would likely be on their side of the argument and we'd be arguing with people that had our old views. So can we both be right?

You have to think objectively about this. It all boils down to that one little word: faith. Faith can mean the difference between burning in hell for eternity or living blissfully unaware of all evil & corruption in THE paradise that has the streets paved with gold; heaven. That seems to be a pretty rough sentence considering the wide array of religious choices we're given. Let me give you an analogy. Let's say that on your day of judgement, God stood before you and said he had a test for you; a test that would determine whether or not you should be granted access into this utopia called Heaven. You break out into a cold sweat but think to yourself that this should be fairly easy. God says he has placed a key to the pearly gates under one of these cups and you are to figure out which one it's under. You look a little closer and there are too many cups to count. Hundreds of thousands of cups align the floor and fade off into the distance. On each cup is the name of a religion. The odds are stacked against you. You must pick the right religion or burn in hell for eternity. Now that you get my little analogy, how absolutely fucked up is that?

Let's say you look under the cup labeled "Catholicism" (for example) and find another cup underneath that. Than you lift that cup and there is a smaller one underneath that one; kind of like those Russian nesting dolls. My point is, religion has evolved into so many different sects that have established their own rituals and fine-tuned way of doing things. Most religions take a little from their predeccesors and build on top of it so it complicates everything just that much more. Some include ritualistic routines & it's no surprise that most religious zealots have become method-actors that have eventually become worshippers of the religion itself that they practice, and not of the God the religion was originally organized to worship. People have become so caught up in the nostalgia of religion that they lose focus in the end. A lot of the wars being fought even today have religious significance. Religion currently plays a role in the wars that are taking place today. It's a dangerous thing. I think it is so ironic that the one thing that is supposed to unify us, is one of the most notorious killers of us all. So the man-made sects & evolution of the religions has actually added more complexities to this already complex ordeal. How are we to know what to believe given all that is out there? Did God really want us going through this maze to find Him? Was it really intended to be this confusing?

I guess the point of this post is, did we complicate something that God never intended us to complicate? Would God complicate it so much that we'd have to choose the correct religion out of the multitudes that exist in order to avoid burning for eternity in a hot lake of fire and brimstone? Is this a sick joke? Is God really a sadistic being waiting for us to screw it up? Most people would say that they aren't worried because they KNOW, they believe the correct thing. They're faith is good enough. How do you really know? You don't. It's simply faith.
According to the dictionary, one definition of faith is a "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence". So really, nobody knows anything for sure, in the absolute sense, so I have to ask: what good is faith if the object, or set of beliefs, of our faith turn out to be untrue in the end? There are billions of people all around the globe that have their faith in a multitude of religions --thereby if everybody can't be right, you could possibly be wrong. Which means having faith that you believe the correct thing means nothing. How can you sit & point at your neighbor and decry their beliefs when you do not have "perfect information" about anything. Then again, you could be right along with people of other faiths. I always thought that there were some similarities between religions. It seems as if they're all trying to get to the same destination through different paths. Some paths may seem more complex than others, but perhaps lead you to the same end. Does that mean that you should be rewarded more than another person who reached the same destination but had an easier route? I don't know. The point is, they both got there. Everything else is just semantics & dogma. Maybe that's true in God's eyes too, maybe it's not. Who knows?

Who would be seen as more favorable to God: A man that gives ten dollars to a beggar but does so in hopes that the beggar will shutup and never return or a man that gives the beggar nothing, tells him to shutup never return. Perhaps God looked past the money and saw that the man's heart was hard in both cases. I think of religion this way; God may look at the heart & intentions of individuals based on what information they were given throughout their life. There are people in remote villages that will die not knowing your religion. Does that mean that God is so unjust that he will punish them for something that they could not help? Have faith, you say. God says have faith. Faith in religion? Which one? Faith in God? Which path should I take to God? Is Christianity right? Should I be a Baptist, Catholic, Hindu, Muslim? Should I explore all religions so that I have an educated choice or should I blindly believe everything that my family believes? After all, is believing what you believe, simply because your parents swear by it, having faith in your parents or in God? Just have faith, you say. Gamble your soul, choose one religion and don't even listen to what the other's have to say of God? It's a game of Russian roulette for your soul. Is that a gamble you're willing to make? Let's not complicate it any more than it already is. Let's just have "faith" and everything will be alright.