All "belief" is just that, belief and nothing more.
One's opinions are just interpretations of reality, and not reality itself. When we assume our interpretations of reality are perfect reflections of reality (ie. "what I think is true"), we forget our own inherent subjectivity and that our viewpoints/interpretations are inherently clouded by our own bias. This is not something I made up, and it's something I can totally PROVE with real examples.
I'm a little surprised by the number of people who don't realize that Jesus never actually claimed to be divine and who actually think that the political tirade which is christianity could at all be an accurate reflection of reality. It quite literally boggles my mind.
Christianity, like all political religions, is a human crafted tool used to structure societies with law, ethics, punishment, reward, etc. It has some good things about it and some bad things about it, like all of our little human devices. We have every reason to believe it was man made (like the countless other religions/philosophies which came before and after it) and no reason to think it was of divine origin.
We can watch the discovery channel chronicle the (seemingly whacky) beliefs of different cultures/tribes and we (even the most hardcore christians among us) dismiss the idea of worshipping a rock or the sun as little more than a nice bit of mythology that people use to structure their society and give meaning to their lives. Since we can ALL see that, why do we have such a difficult time applying this to our own society/religion? What's the mental block? We are not at all different from them and it's a little presumtuous and short-sighted to think our myths are more "accurate reflections of reality" (ie. "more true") than theirs.
If we were born in a different era/society/culture we would adopt the mythology of that culture and believe it with the same intensity as many believe in christianity. If that were the case, you would then *surely* proclaim that christianity is as misguided as thinking god lives inside a volcanoe on your island and that you must sacrifice one virgin per year to appease it's wrath. Doesn't that sound silly? Yep, about as silly as christianity sounds to them. It's all PERSPECTIVE and nothing more. Reality is entirely subjective, and to not realize this is to be hopelessly bound by your own subjectivity. I wish I could say it in a more simple and straightforward way but I can't, and I wish this very simple concept were more easy to comprehend cuz it really is liberating and life-changing (for the better).
We have no reason to think we are the center of the universe. We have no reason to think we are immortal. We have no reason to think that life is a race of swallowing the illogical to appease selfish desires/fears.
I think it's time we stopped deluding ourselves. It's the 21st century, it's time to give people some credit and treat them like adults instead of attempting to herd them like mindless sheep and scare them with mythical rhetorical blather. I think people deserve to be treated better by their mythology.
Don't worry, when you die all logic/evidence suggests you will end up in the exactly the same place as the zillions of zillions of beings that lived and died before you. It's a beautiful thing really, and a legacy I am humbled to be a part of. Fear is a real downer.
Happiness is not being afriad of anything and knowing that ultimately everything will OK. What more could we want?
Satori
Often, when I end up arguing with christians in chat rooms (which happens quite a bit) I tell them to read the translations, and many are not even aware you can get them! Come to mention it over a quarter of the "christians" I chat to have never actually read the bible in full. The modern bible hs been passed on so many times and translated, that a lot of the origonal meaning ins lost, which is what confuses me about people believiung it by word - it's riddled with contradictions.
