True Religions

In debate, theists will often ask the question: What if you are wrong? This is a fair enough question that everyone should consider whenever making a decision. However, while religious people ask this question to others, they often do not ask it to themselves. Everyone can be wrong about everything. This includes their god. It is time for everyone to really consider what god options there are and make the most rational decision possible.

This first thing to consider is that history, as well as the world today is full of gods and religions. Virtually every one has had devoted believers utterly convinced in their hearts they are right. Without hard evidence, anyone’s sincere beliefs are as good as another’s and needs to be weighed equally. With this in mind, assuming there is a god, everyone has to consider that they may be wrong.

With so many religions to choose from, it is necessary to categorize to list the possibilities as follows:
1.    One of the Abrahamic religions is correct and there is a loving, merciful god out there that will send us to cruel, eternal torture (or some other type of eternal damnation since the religions cannot agree on this either) for not believing in the correct Abrahamic religion.
2.    One of the other religions, past or present, is correct.
3.    There is a god or gods and none of the religions of human history are correct.
4.    There simply is no god.

Faced with these choices, many suggest taking what they consider a safe bet and choose Islam or Christianity (their version of course). However, if we are going to assume there is a god out there that sends people to eternal torture over ideology, this is not a safe bet either. Any possible god could be from option 2 or 3 above and despise being characterized like the god of the Abrahamic religions.

There is also this to consider: Assuming humanity was created by a god, maybe that god wants us to be atheists or agnostics. That would explain why we do not have any hard evidence to support any religion.

For those looking for the safest option, atheism or agnosticism just might be it. The anthropomorphic god or Christianity, Islam and many other religions of history is often pretty cruel, bigoted, vile and an overall bad character. If there is a god that judges people after they die, let’s hope it is one that does not judge people over what ideologies they believe in but by how they lived their lives. That would be a god worth being wrong about, and the only way can truly good people be safe.

Many major religions teach that our thoughts and actions will determine the fate of our souls for all eternity-heaven or hell (whatever they may be). Since our brains control our thoughts and actions, then our brains decide what happens to our souls. However, having a physical brain determine what happens to an immortal soul raises serious questions.

If we have immortal souls and our actions (decided by our brains) determines their fate for all eternity, what happens to those who lose have some kind of mental defect brain damage? For example, what about the mentally ill? How can they be judged fairly when they do not have full mental facilities? Sending them to hell would be sadistic beyond words. However, if they go to heaven, they would be getting a free pass. If some can get a free pass, why not give one to everyone?

What about a very bad person who suffers brain damage? Let’s say that person lives in almost vegetative state for years before he dies. If that person loses their previous memories, will they be judged for their actions in the years they were brain damaged or for the lives before the accident? If they are judged for their lives after the accident, then haven’t they dodged their responsibility by living a few years longer? If they are judged by their lives prior, then that means people cannot be saved after they are brain damaged.

The point here is why do we have these fragile brains determining heaven or hell for all eternity? If this is for souls and their fate for all eternity, then why not have our souls in charge? Why have brains? Why do our flimsy little brains determine what happens to indestructible souls? As it stands with our brains, something as simple as falling off one’s bike or depriving oxygen to the brain at birth can throw off this all-important test. That hardly seems like the perfect test from an all-knowing and just being.

On top of all of this, even a healthy brain is hardly perfect. It is all too easy to brainwash people. What happens to their souls? What about the soul of a child that is brutalized and into committing atrocities? Does that child get eternal torture for falling into a situation beyond his/her control?

Furthermore, many children die before their brains even have the chance to develop. If the brains of these people do not determine their fate, then do their souls determine their fate? If so, why is not everyone judged by their souls and not their brains?

Finally, it has been shown the intelligence and belief in religion is inversely related. If intelligent minds are likely to send their souls to eternal torture, should not this god make people with lower IQs?

Of course, these questions can all be easily answered if the religions that teach this whole bit about our brains determining what happens to an eternal soul are wrong. Perhaps the real question should be if people really have souls or if religious teachings about heaven and hell have it wrong.

It is basic teaching of the Abrahamic religions that life is a test. Because life is a test, this loving god has to sit by and watch the cruelest things happen in the world but can not interfere (just like Star Trek!). To reject this premise is to deny some of the most basic teachings of all these faiths.

Now, there are some major flaws in this premise before we even start looking at it. For example, why would an all-knowing being need to test us? Even if it would, couldn’t it find a better way that did not involve so much human suffering? These contradictions go on, but we will ignore them for now.

Ok, so life is a test, a test so important that it will decide our fate for trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years. Now would not you think a perfect, just being with the power to create the universe could find a way for everyone to take it in a fair way? When we look at the world though, this clearly is not the case.

For example, what about the mentally ill? How can they take this test?

How about all the countless children that this god watches die young from various causes including the diseases that the creator of the universe created?

What about a person who is brain damaged and forgets their past. Is that person judged on their old or new personality?

What about the children who are brutalized or brainwashed into committing horrible atrocities (for example, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia or child soldiers of Africa) and then die young?

There are a many more examples of people who did not have the mental facilities, died young or lived lives in which they had no real chance to practice free will. So, what happens to them? According to these religions, they either go to heaven or hell.

So, let’s say they go to hell or are damned in some other way. How is that fair and divine justice? Why should someone be damned for a test they had no chance to take? How in the world can that be divine justice? Surely no divine being could be that horrible, cruel and unfair.

Most religious people will say they get to heaven. There are many problems with this argument too though.
1. How is that fair? If they can just skip the test, why not everyone? Why send anyone to heaven then if so many can just skip the test?
2. In the case of people dying young, at what age are they held responsible for their actions? If it is puberty, then atheist children who die the day after they reach puberty are damned for all eternity, but those who die a day earlier go to heaven! How is that fair?
3. What if Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or some of the other horrible people in history had died when they were young? Would they have gone to heaven then? If they would have gone to hell anyway, then life is predetermined and there is no need for the test. Why would a god create people knowing they would be damned anyway?
4. If they can all just go to heaven, then why this whole test on earth in the first place? If the worst people in history can skip the test, why not everyone? How many would-be Hitlers and the like are there now? In that case, we should be overjoyed when children die young since they get a free pass and cannot be damned!

No matter how one tries to twist and justify this, there is no way to come out with divine justice. Many either get a free pass or a damned for things they had no control over. That is a divine test from a merciful, loving being? That was the reason to put us on this earth with all its problems when everyone could have been sent straight to heaven (or hell)?