He wonders about the eternal promise

"Take my eyes for what I've seen, I will give my sight to you
You are free to choose whatever life to live or life to lose
Whatever god you know he knows you better than you believe
In your once and future grave you'll fall endlessly deceived"

- Bruce Dickinson, Starblind: Iron Maiden

This is most definitely going to be my most controversial post yet. Depending on who you are, you may just hate me endlessly for this post for which I apologize. Please do not be offended, I do not mean to offend anybodies religion. I simply want to express a view I have on many religious people and I do not want many of my friends to succumb to the same fate.

One may have guessed that this post is entirely about religion and a certain perspective I have on a part of it.

My personal religion isn't really important in this topic of conversation, what I can say is that I have grown up in a very strict muslim family. Years of my life have been wasted on islamic education and studying the principles and beliefs of the religion. I was to be pretty honest, highly indoctrinated until I came here to Canada and developed my own view point. If my parents were to read this post (as is a good possibility, I will probably be skinned alive :P )

How ever, despite my own religion or lack there of, I have no prejudice what so ever against others who have faith. I realize that through out history, religion has done many great things for man, I also realize that religion has held humanity back and prevented us from truly progressing. I realize that many human beings want a life with a purpose, as I do and a religion is a very common explanation to the meaninglessness of life.

How ever, it is the things we do for religion that truly saddens me. Religious belief in my opinion is a very selfish act. Consider, that the primary reason anyone believes in religion is because of the promise of heaven, because they believe that believing in and being faithful to their god will promise them an eternity of happiness. People help others not for the sake of the person they are helping, but rather to get brownie points with god and move closer to their own eternal happiness. Through out history, religious beliefs have prevented humanity from taking risks or doing anything that would risk an individuals own entry to heaven.

Now, I know that most of my religious friends and anyone reading this blog really aren't like this. I know that most religious people are in fact good people, I just hope they are for the right reasons. Many kids grow up learning that doing something bad will anger god, this has been a great tool throughout history for keeping mankind in check. But it is also a major limitation, where does this "bad" begin? Generally speaking, anything that god spoke out against, or even didn't mention in one of his many holy books is considered bad, humanity is limited by this severely.

I'm not going to get into too much detail about this, because it really isn't the topic of this blog post.


It truly truly saddens me to see these intelligent, smart and great people waste away their precious lives for potentially empty promises.

For so many people, religion becomes everything. Appease god in this short meaningless life of ours so that we may obtain the eternal promise of heaven. There are so many people that spend all of their time following religion in a way or another. An example would be a priest that gives up his entire life to live one restricted completely by religion. Throughout my life, I often see people who are so immersed in their belief of heaven that they limit their lives drastically. This goes for every single religion out there, imans in islam being another example. These smart people who could have better'd humanity in so many ways waste their chance away.

But for what? The promise of eternal happiness in heaven?

But what if my friend, what if that promise is not real? What if when we die, it is the end of our existence? What if we embrace that we only have one life, one life that can end at any one second. What if everything we have learned from childhood about religion is false? What if it was all just created by humans in order to control others? What if it's all lies, lies fabricated to give us our own purpose?

What if god does not exist?


Now most of my religious friends will have cringed so hard at that statement and closed the tab. They will probably never open this blog again.

We are scared to embrace this idea, because of religions device. We have been warned of an eternity spent in hell, burning endlessly if we do not embrace the existence of god. Fear is what has controlled mankind, fear of hell.


But just speculate my friends, if god does not exist.

All these people that spend their one and only life, worshiping and trying to appease a god that may not exist. Is it not a wasted life? The promise of heaven may just disappear the moment we die, is it not a wasted life then? A priest that spend his entire life with limitations, who died a virgin because that is what his god asked of him. Is his life not wasted if god does not exist?

Or a muslim extremist, that commits suicides in the name of a god that potentially does not exist? Is it not sad that another life is thrown away for a promise that will be broken? People that wear veils, repent for their sins believing that everything is okay no matter what they have done just because they may still get into heaven. People that refuse medicinal treatment for their dying child because they wait for gods miracle; people that murder "possessed" children.

What if it's all been wasted?

It truly and deeply saddens me to see so many human beings living their life without meaning. Simply going through the motions of religious belief because they believe that this life is only a transition into eternity. Because they believe that what they do for god in this life will reward them in the future. Obviously everyone is entitled to live their life accordingly to how they see fit. I just feel that in many cases like this, people are misguided and not really aware of every possibility.

Please don't misunderstand me, continue to worship god and do your religious things. I embrace the possibility that there is a god, that there is a heaven and a greater purpose for each of us.

But what I ask, is that my religious friends please please embrace the possibility that maybe, just maybe there is no god, that maybe the promise of heaven is not real.
Continue to practice your religion, but please embrace this possibility.

The reason, is that by embracing this possibility you allow yourself to live a life of fulfillment. You allow yourself to truly appreciate this life and live for the moment. You do not limit what you do in life, you do not live a life simply for heaven. You live.