Religion

I spent some time with the trees today praising the sun. Reaching up for higher places, I climbed a few. I thought it would be great if I could just stand there all day taking in the sun and that being all I needed to survive. But all I could use that energy for would be to praise the sun by reaching up closer as trees have done for thousands of years.

I ate a granola bar after coming home from the woods. It gave me life with its nuts and fruits. I used the sugars by transforming them into various other molecules that allow me to move electrons around in my head to think, move muscles in my arms and fingers and legs and toes and neck and eyes and all the other muscles I have used since I got home. I used other bits of granola, nuts, and fruit to rebuild my skin that I had scraped while in the woods. A bit more was used to continue healing my elbow, which was wounded the night before, falling off the roof of my home twice while trying to climb it to break into my window. If you have seen a red key or a blue key in a place they shouldn't be...please return.

Falling from roofs always makes me think of death. If I had fallen just a bit differently, my neck could snap or I could've wounded my brain in a way that could forever change me. I rarely fear death. I know where I should be and I know where I shouldn't. My experiences on top of roofs have been largely good up until last night. The real danger is always in getting started and getting finished. Those dangers hardly just apply to roofs though. One finds danger in starting or finishing any venture. Being aware of these dangers is half the battle though. The other half is attempting to manipulate one's environment to minimize the danger. I didn't break my neck because I set up chairs and suitcases around my climbing position so if I fell, my fall would be broken by better objects than concrete slabs. So when I did fall, the objects I set out allowed cushioning. I did not thank god for my survival. I did not ask god for help in climbing the roof. I knew what I was capable of, I thought about the problem. I briefly considered possible dangers. I prepared for them. I even called a friend to notify them that if I didn't call back in the near future, I had fallen off a roof and needed medical attention. God would not have had anything to do with it if he/she/they did exist. The world needs to realize the world they live in and know how to prepare for the things they will come across that will need preparation. Having faith in a deity that will hopefully only let you die when they feel like it is not included in the necessary preparation ever.

I am not making a front against religion. I realize that groups of religious people have done great things in the past. It is always good to have a community. But I am making an argument that communities will not be hurt when religion passes. Humans are creative beings. We can make decisions related to our immediate environment with the knowledge of environments we have encountered in the past. If we are around each other, we can interact and work together for great goals.

Believing in a god allows for one thing. The prospect that a person can be immortal without working at being immortal. There has never been any evidence that a person exists after death. There has been little or no evidence that humans have anything trumping the laws of nature that require that organisms live and organisms die. There is no reason to believe that once I die, anything will happen other than I will cease to be, rot or be burned, and disappear. Everything that is has existed much much much longer than I will exist and that is something to accept and move on from.

God gives a crutch that isn't necessary. We can all work together. We can all get along. We can all grow old and die. We all have the potential to do great things for each other within certain bounds. Expecting something greater because one's elders told them so because their elders told them so because their elders told them so is unreasonable at best. We used to worship the gods that brought us food, just as the trees worship the sun. Now we worship ridiculous ideas of grandeur, while knowing better of the results.

I only ask you to be a human, not a tree.