2.24.09

Super random post topic...ready?
Religion.

Since the tender young age of 16 I have found myself in many controversial, thought-provoking discussions with friends (and sometimes strangers) about this topic. Religion. What is my religion? Well, I suppose I don't believe in religion.

Let me just interject by saying that while my personal beliefs fall along the lines of thinking religion is bullshit, I still respect those that choose to think otherwise.

Religion is a set of beliefs that are meant to guide us toward being a better person with the ultimate goal of some type of satisfactory ending in the "afterlife".
For some this may mean reincarnation, for others the ever-promising final location of heaven. Listening to the wise words in, for example, the Bible, are meant to lead its followers along a blissful and morally solid path toward eternal happiness.

After years of internal reflection and many many essays on the "meaning of life," I've come to the educated conclusion that the main question religion is looking to answer is "what is the point of life?" Ultimately, using Christianity as an example, the goal is to end up in heaven. Consequently, everything you do in life, all the choices you make, are in one way or another tied to that ultimate goal of ending up in heaven.

Personally, I don't believe in the concept of heaven/hell, and I don't believe that I need a book (the Bible), which is historically inaccurate and simply a compilation of anecdotes and thought provoking stories, to tell me how to live my life and be a good person. So, cutting out the obvious goal of going to heaven as the point of life, what is left? What is the point of life?

Sadly, there seems to not really be one. We are simply living out the circle of life, which always, undeniably, ends in death. So if there is no ultimate point to all this heartache, hard work, sadness, chaotic happiness, and struggle, why do we put up with it? Why do we even try?
After years of going through this thought process trying to look for an answer, I've come to the simple conclusion that the point of life is oddly just to live life.

That's what we were put here to do -- live life.
Using that logic, who am I to say that the way others choose to live their lives is wrong or inaccurate, and who are they do disagree with my choices? If I was simply put on this earth to live my life, and to live my short, short life to the fucking fullest, how can I limit my happiness to what a group of people, thousands of years ago (or even today) tell me is acceptable.

So how do I choose to live my life?
I choose to enrich it as much as possible by securing myself a stable future with enough money to allow myself to have freedom and fun. By surrounding myself with people that make my heart want to burst with happiness, and leaving those that drag me down way far behind. Life is too short to put up with the sadness and the people who don't respect or deserve who you are as a person. I respect and enjoy every single emotion that I have ever felt, and every single experience that I have ever experienced. Every love, every heartbreak, every tragedy, and every fit of laughter.
I choose to keep my head held high, but occasionally let my heart sink down low. I want to feel every highest high and graze the bottom of the lows (which I probably already have).
I want those summer afternoons where nothing can shake the pure, lustful, youthful, exuberance, and I'll sadly yet fondly remember all the nights of crying myself to sleep, wishing I would never wake up again. I want these emotions and everything in between, because if nothing else, living life means living through an infinite amount of emotions.
I fill my brain with knowledge of every kind - academic, emotional, and random knowledge that really has no category.
I want everything and anything, and as far as I'm concerned any experience that you are faced with, be it negative or positive shouldn't go unexperienced.
Ultimately, my goal is to be able to say, when my last moment on life is up, that I truly lived my life.


I'm going to take this religion conversation 1 step further and say that religion is like drugs. It's a escape. An escape from the questions "Why?" and "What's the point?"

Without an answer these questions can be very dooming and depressing.
Religion can provide you with an answer that is easy to blindly accept and live your life for.
Similarly, I believe that by taking drugs, especially hallucinogenic drugs, you are looking for an answer to those questions. You are stepping out of the true reality and letting your mind go to a place where it doesn't have to come up with its own answer.
It is often when people don't have the answers, or find themselves in a hopeless situation that they turn to drugs. Or religion. People search for explanations and some type of comfort, and both drugs and religion can provide this escape.
I've always heard people talk about how taking acid or tripping hard on shrooms created for them an eye-opening experience that changed their perspective on life.

Personally, I enjoy my perspective on life, so perhaps that is why i've never ventured to the avenue of hallucinogens, or religion.

At the end of the day, I believe in making my own decisions and choices, and truly living my own experiences and truly living my own life.

That's my answer.