Reposting

Just thought that I'd repost what I commented in Kyle's blog...interesting stuff, if I say so myself...even though it is frickin long...

As background to this comment, there was this big religious debate, and it kept going back and forth, so I decided to add my perspective to the conversation (you know, just to stir it up some more...)

Just thought I'd add my two cents...besides, it's more fun to continue the argument [:0)

First of all, the Quran is technically infallible to muslims because Muhammad was speaking directly from God, and scribes around him wrote everything Muhammad spoke verbatim. This means that the Quran is the exact word of God. However, that's only if you believe that Muhammad was actually able to communicate with God...

Also, everyone seems to have this notion that the bible has been watered down over the years because of the many different translations, but that idea is completely false. There are many original writings of most books of the bibles hidden away in museums all over the world, and bible scholars look at these documents when they make a new translation. But I agree that just because something hasn't changed in over 2000 years, doesn't make it automatically correct...

And another thing. I don't believe that Mohsin is closed minded, nor do I believe that anyone else in this conversation is closed minded. People just choose not to believe other people's opinions...true closed-mindedness is when people don't even want to hear others' opinions. Okay, so I have a narrowly defined meaning of being closed-minded, so sue me...and yes, I realize the irony...

Oh, and Mohsin, why don't you drink water from a bar? Is it the same reason why you're not supposed to touch someone who's eaten pork? Or is the bar tainted because it serves alcohol? I am genuinely curious, btw...

Just as an aside, there are many religions that believe that rocks have souls you guys...it's called Animism, and it's found in nearly every polytheistic religion in some form or another...

But then again, what exactly is a soul? Most people agree with the greco-roman idea that the soul is separate of the body, in which after the body's death the soul will be released and go to either a good place or a bad place, depending on how the life is lived [or be reincarnated, but whatever...]. I do not believe this idea. I do not believe that people are inherently immortal. I believe that the body is a lifeless husk, in which God puts his "breath of life", or spirit, to revive the body. This union of body and spirit creates the soul; your mind, your personality, and everything that you are. But that leaves the question as to what happens after death...

When someone dies, the spirit returns to god. However, since the spirit would be separate from the body, there would be no more soul, and no more you. This is the whole idea behind why I believe that death is like a long sleep, and where the term "Rest In Peace" comes from. Long story short, there will be 2 resurrections, in which god returns the spirit back into the body [or an exact replica]. One resurrection is for the righteous and one is for the unrighteous...the righteous will be awoken and be taken to heaven for 1000 years, pretty much all spend understanding why everyone else wasn't righteous and not with them there...then the unrighteous will be resurrected, the devil will stir then to rebel against God, and they will all be thrown into the "lake of fire" to be destroyed forever...

So why did I write all of this? Knowing that I could cease to exist is way frickin' scarier than knowing that I'd go to hell...I don't know how atheists do it. Knowing that I'm not immortal is a very daunting idea to grasp. Think about it this way: time is infinite, correct? Well, what if it wasn't? "But if time isn't infinite, what would happen after the end? If there was an end, would that mean that there's a beginning? What was before the beginning?" And saying that time loops around on itself is irrelevant, because that would mean that time would still be infinite; an infinite loop. Anyways, knowing that I'm not inherently immortal is as daunting as trying to understand what happened before time began...

Anyways, just thought I'd share my perspective in here...hopefully to start up more debates on more topics and what not...

[p.s. - since when did Kyle's comments become a religious forum? haha...]

Until next time, I guess...




--> As told through the mind of an introverted extrovert.