Dogs have no souls
This post isn't meant to offend anyone. If it does, I apologize. I'm just getting out my view on things so that way I can get it out of my system, and make more room for things like alcohol :)
Okay here we go, bible and religeon.
I find myself growing less and less spiritual in my beliefs the more I question this and that about religeon.
I think in general the way the whole system works is that maybe religeon was a good intention, or maybe the bible was just a form of control over people way back in the day, but either way, I still question it all. There are a few key points I wanna bring up that haven't been sitting right with me, so without further a due, here we go.
Souls...
When people say "Yeah well when you die, you die. Your body eventually turns to mulch and you become part of the nitrogen cycle", the counter arguement I hear from religeous people is "No you don't. Your soul goes to heaven or hell. How do you explain feelings? That's your soul."
Now keeping that point kind of on the side, another point I hear from the religeous side of the arguement is that "Dogs and cats have no soul", so that tells me that when I die and my soul goes to heaven, fluffy and fido won't be there waiting for me.
Well that's strange, because as far as I'm concerned, Fido gets pretty emotional some times. You can tell any loving dog owner that their dog doesn't have feelings and can't love. Why can you tell them that? Plain and simple...
Dogs have no souls.
Well if that's the case, then any loving dog owner will tell you to get your head checked because just like me, they'd completely argue against that because as far as I'm concerned, any pets I've had in the past haven't exactly been all too sociopathic.
So if dogs have no souls for example, then what is it they're doing when they show you they love you? Why do they wag their tails when they're happy? Why do they bare their teeth when they're angry? Why do the cower and back away and whimper when you scare them?
Those seem to be pretty emotional responses to me and doesn't the church take smug pride in knowing the truth? Isn't part of that truth knowing what has a soul and what doesn't? I mean, by the very logic of religeon (going back up to the start of the arguement), if how I feel is with my soul, then what are dogs using to feel?
How is it that if fluffy, fido and mister Ed can have the same feelings that human beings do, but get turned away at the pearly gates?
Religeon and other cultures...
Okay here's another one. Why is it that the 'events' of the bible, only took place in Rome and the middle east? I mean, it's been proven that the world is indeed spherical and geography has proven that there was a world outside of the boundaries of where everything in the bible took place.
According to the bible from what I can remember, man wanted to build a tower to reach heaven. This tower was the tower of babel. Well god was not very impressed with the idea and instead of taking the "Damnit my kids are fucking up again, now I gotta come up with some horrible catastrophe to get them to stop" policy, I guess he was tired of that and chose instead to give everybody working on the tower different tongues.
That's the bible's explanation of why we all speak italian, german, french, spanish etc.
So basically I guess betwen the tower of babel and many many years later, a fuck tonne of Italians left the middle east and settled in Italy, with the Germans following suit and settling down in Germany, the French settling down in France and any other remaining French, German, Italian, Spanish etc. suddenly disappearing because as we all know, there are SO many white Iraqi/Afghani/Iranian/Egyptians over in the middle east.
The tower of babel would also imply that for some, like the Japanese and the Chinese, god would have had to change their skin colour and mess up their facial features as well.
So why is it that there are absolutely ZERO accounts of the events that happened in the bible found in Chinese and Japanese history? I mean surely with the times being the way they were back then and everyone being so god happy, the Chinese and Japanese would have taken that knowledge with them and not believed in dragons and other gods and whatever they believe.
The 'events' that happened in the bible also tell us of the ten commandments. One of those commandments being "Thou shalt worship no other god than me". Well... if that's the case, then why is it that he didn't find a way to reveal himself to the Eskimos, or Native Americans, or Hawaiians, or hell even the Vikings?
Take the above group of people, who for the most part, are quite seperate from each other with their own unique belief systems. Vikings had their Thor, Oden, Valhalla etc. Eskimos had their thunderbirds etc. Native Americans had their dream catchers, raven, spirit totems etc. and the Hawaiians had their fire god etc.
Where does it mention anything in the bible about other gods, dream catchers and totems?
It doesn't...
Just like in other cultures like the above, it makes no mention of the virgin Mary, Jesus, the seven seals, temptation of christ
or....
"Thou shalt worship no other god than me"
So does that mean God's playing favourites with his children in Isreal, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Rome?
Oh yeah I forgot. All the Eskimo's, Natives, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians, Germans, etc. just moved on to settle in their respective countries, took absolutely zero knowledge or historical evidence of what all happened with them and just waited around for the crusades to come by.
Christianity...
Okie dokie here we go. One of the beliefs and expectations of Christianity is for the rest of the world to know that if they're not Christian, then they're going to hell, effectively anyways.
That's just a fancey way of saying that the Christian religeon that was started by Christ says that the only way to heaven is through the body of Christ and that unless you're Christian, then you're going to hell.
Sounds good in theory but here's where I just don't buy it.
Human beings had been around for a lot longer than Christ was even a twinkle in god's eye. Now what about all those people who lived and died before Christ was born? Did they go to hell because they didn't wait around long enough?
I mean sure, in defense of religeon you can argue that everything was fine in the beginning until people started fucking up and God had to send Jesus to earth to be man's saviour.
But then basically going back to the "...you have to be christian to get to heaven now" arguement, that's telling me that it doesn't matter how hard we improve ourselves and be good people, there's still absolutely zero chance what so ever now that we're going to make god happy and that the only way your good deeds, love, forgiveness and understanding is if it's all done as a Christian. Not as just joe blow guy with good moral fibre and a good heart who doesn't want to join the plethora of God fanclubs out there, but as a Christian and only a Christian.
So all in all if that's true, then really if you think about it, Jesus kinda failed, really since people in the religeon _he_ started are effectively telling us that God doesn't have enough faith in his children anymore because now we all need the religeous crutch known as Christianity to help us hobble our way through sin to meet Saint Peter.
Love...
Here's a funny one... The story of Cain and Abel basically tells us Abel had it going on and Cain was just a dipshit who eventually got sick of Abel enough to give him living impared status. The summary of the story is that Cain who was a shepherd offered up a bunch of dead sheep to god to make him happy and Abel
who was a farmer offered up a bunch of dead fruits and vegitables. Well god didn't like Cain's offering and Cain finally said fuck this, invited his brother out to a field and killed him.
Well Cain did kill a bunch of god's creatures, and god basically told him he was a douchebag for doing so.
Now setting that one aside as well, I have a coworker that I sometimes work with, her name is Denise. Her story is that she led a pretty messed up life of drinking and drugs and probably worse. Then eventually she found religeon and god and was able to use that to find the strength she needed to break away from the life she once lived. Now that's cool and all and it's awesome she was able to do that.
However... Denise was so impacted by all of it that now it's all she has to define herself with because out of it she developed some pretty strong, hardcore religeous values and because of that, she always finds a way to impose her religeous values on anyone she possibley can who works with her.
I was talking to one lady (we'll call her 'Barb') when we were working together who had worked with Denise. Well she said that everything was going well until she mentioned she couldn't wait to get back home to see her dog.
Barb says that her dog is suffering from cancer and that it's costing them a lot of money to keep up with the medical treatments and medication needed to keep him alive. But the thing is, she loves her dog very much and sees it as part of the family.
Barb told Denise this and she was shocked, She asked Barb "Do you love your dog?" and Barb of course said yes. Well Denise started condemming Barb, saying that she was committing a sin by having a dog and loving it as much as or more than someone in her own family.
And of course followed it up in typical "...and you're going to hell" fashion.
Well that leaves me to wonder. According to that logic, you're limited in who you are allowed to give your love to, and to give your love to a lesser being even though it's one of god's creatures, is a sin.
Why would god punish me for loving? I mean, are we 'created' (you know, sperm meets egg, fertilizes egg, god sends soul into fetus so it can have feelings and in 9 months, you have offspring) with only a limited number of love points?
Maybe that's it. Maybe life is one giant point system. Collect enough god points through good deeds and you make it in? Hmmm...
Anyways yeah it has me thinking right now about it actually. Apparently you score a lot of god points if you give your love, forgiveness and compassion to someone who may have just knifed your wife and two children to death, but if you offer your love, forgiveness and compassion to an animal (which like the story of Cain and Abel says are one of god's creatures), then that's a sin and you're going to hell.
Isn't it a good thing to love everything equally?
I mean, I love my family to death and if I had my own dog, it wouldn't mean I'd love my family any less if I also loved my dog in the same way.
Think about it. The bible says that god created man in his own image. When people bond with others, animal or otherwise, they develope an attachment to those people or animal (aka the family dog or cat). This is what's known as a natural process because we're structured that way to develop attachments to the things that are important to us, and it's only natural to form a loving bond with your pet.
So didn't god create us in his own image then? I mean, the story of Cain and Abel basically tells us that god loves all of his creatures, case in point: the sheep that Cain slaughtered as an offering to god.
I dunno... I could go on for much longer than this but I'll cap it off here for now. Perhaps I'll pick up where I left off, perhaps not because well... sleep calls for my attention :)