Religion fired up in my life when I was baptized some form of Christian. This much I know, not because the holy water scalded and scarred my body, but because the parents say so. The next religious event would be going to a Baptist church with my father around the age of 11. Deciding that religion was a good thing, he took me an hour before the main service to attend their form of sunday school. The other kids were practically wearing suits and their best dresses, while I sat timidly in a tucked in tshirt. Not having any of the materials the other children did and not being able to answer any of the questions asked, I soon disappeared from their mind. Seems that my father assumed that I would be able to find the main service after sunday school. Wrong. Being timid enough from the uber-Christian children, I did not even venture out of the basement. All of the children my age left, and many parents brought down children too young for the main service. For the next hour, I stayed with 6 year olds coloring Bible scenes while eating graham crackers with milk. Needless to say, I never wanted to return to church again. Dragged by my aunt and grandmother, I attended a few Catholic services over the years. The idea of "stand, sit, kneel, sit, pray, give money out of the infinite Catholic guilt" process did not appeal to me.
By the age of 13, I realized there were other religions out there. Not to say I was fully against Christianity, but my early experiences turned me from that faith in a hurry. "God created Man in his own image" is reverse logic. Man created God, especially in his own image. Heaven and Hell are products of the human psyche being unable to comprehend unconciousness. If the mind does not exist after death, how can we understand it? Since that is impossible (sarcasm), Heaven and Hell were created as a true afterlife. The afterlife is just like the mortal existence, yet a dichotomy is created. If you were good, Heaven; Bad, Hell. Is this not a very ingenious way to keep control over people during their entire life? Then again, Karma is almost the same pattern. Defining your next form through reincarntion based on Karma; it's the same sort of control. Mankind has created religion as a way to answer that which cannot be answered. Along the way, it has been tailored such that it can control the masses.
Studies on Buddhism and Hinduism were most appealing to me at a younger age. Except for the aforementioned problems inherent with the karma and caste systems, the religions seem more logical. There is Conservation of Matter and Conservation of Energy, so the idea of Conservation of Soul (life force, spirit) makes perfect sense to my logical mind. Reincarnation, of some form, is the only conclusion to life that makes any sense. Not even my mind can grasp the idea that we just die. Maybe I would enjoy life more knowing that.
By the age of 13, I realized there were other religions out there. Not to say I was fully against Christianity, but my early experiences turned me from that faith in a hurry. "God created Man in his own image" is reverse logic. Man created God, especially in his own image. Heaven and Hell are products of the human psyche being unable to comprehend unconciousness. If the mind does not exist after death, how can we understand it? Since that is impossible (sarcasm), Heaven and Hell were created as a true afterlife. The afterlife is just like the mortal existence, yet a dichotomy is created. If you were good, Heaven; Bad, Hell. Is this not a very ingenious way to keep control over people during their entire life? Then again, Karma is almost the same pattern. Defining your next form through reincarntion based on Karma; it's the same sort of control. Mankind has created religion as a way to answer that which cannot be answered. Along the way, it has been tailored such that it can control the masses.
Studies on Buddhism and Hinduism were most appealing to me at a younger age. Except for the aforementioned problems inherent with the karma and caste systems, the religions seem more logical. There is Conservation of Matter and Conservation of Energy, so the idea of Conservation of Soul (life force, spirit) makes perfect sense to my logical mind. Reincarnation, of some form, is the only conclusion to life that makes any sense. Not even my mind can grasp the idea that we just die. Maybe I would enjoy life more knowing that.