The Eternal Promise- Religion is for the Fearful

Religion is for the fearful. Whilst it is common belief that religion was invented for those who fear death, I believe its purpose is quite the opposite in fact. I believe those who follow a religion follow it because they are afraid of life. For some, it’s easier to accept that this is not the final destination and instead life is much like school or university, a process we go through before we reach the final destination. This makes me wonder how can someone be so afraid of life that they are willing to believe that it is not worth 'living' for fear it will upset some higher being? Life is scary. But I like sex, I like wine, I like dancing, and those are the joys of that scary, scary life those agnostics, atheists, and deists lead.

People like having a plan. People like striving for something in the hopes it will make them happy. So they said 'let's strive for heaven and we'll be happy.' A foolproof plan for a fool. I ask, those of you seeking happiness in your daily lives, wouldn't it be far easier to reject the idea of happiness in this life altogether and instead pursue a more mundane but equally if not more comfortable life with the assurance that one eternity you will be happy? Whilst the latter may be easier, for me it remains very much unappealing. There's something unsettling to me about always striving for the next best thing. I was never very fond of school. I don't like the idea of an endless cycle in which one is always looking to the future. Here, the religious person would say but 'it's not an endless cycle if you are good and follow the rules you will go to heaven.'

Another thing school and religion have in common, is that they provide us with a set of rules to go by. For some, who like being told what to do that is a good thing, it is a comfortable thing. For others, like myself, who when told what to do proceed to do nothing instead out of sheer anxiety, rules are not such a good thing. I think this is because we'd rather have the freedom to figure out what it is we want to do and how we want to act, creating our own set of rules to live by, as this is much more fulfilling. But one can see how it is much more convenient for let's say, a dictator or a cult leader if we all followed the same set of rules. I'm not suggesting anarchy, just some regulated sense of freedom i.e. not being part of a religion.

Another thing about always striving for something is that you never truly fail. Isn't that clever, sounds almost too good to be true. For a lot of us, we never did go to our dream colleges but imagine if you never got rejected. Imagine your life was just you in school and then in the lead up to your death you apply to your dream college and then you die. Whilst that would be god awful, you never do face rejection much like applying to heaven. Your life, whilst being boring as hell, always has direction. You may never hear back from Stanford but does that even matter?

What if you get bored of the life part and decide you want to skip straight to heaven? After all, you'll be happier. Well in Islam, and I'm sure in many other religions, you can't. I once had an argument with my father that resulted in me telling him I wanted to kill myself and he told me 'you can't that's against our religion you will go straight to hell.' Ah, what a clever way to populate the planet, promise them heaven, the eternal promise, but give them hell in their grasp. These people do not want more life, they don't want a life to begin with, but the mastermind behind the plan who thought this to be true sought out a way to populate the planet despite the religious person's disatisfaction for life. Perhaps this is wrong; perhaps religion simply gives life a new meaning. This new meaning, however, is not what I call a life.

I now ask the religious peoples, what if this is the final destination then what do you make of your life? Would you do anything differently? Perhaps you would start living life more like a video game. Whilst it is true in most video games one usually has an objective this is ever changing much like in the non-religious persons life. You are constantly arriving at your destination as you level up and the facade, that is the eternal promise, no longer holds.