It’s their afterlife, not yours

What is it about death that sparks up such bitter and heated debate among mankind?
   Why must our ideas of divinity and the afterlife be contentious, and why is it that there must only be one correct answer to a question so all-encompassing, such as the meaning of life?
   From the moment man had the ability to think, he has questioned the death that surrounded him.
   As soon as he learned to speak, he talked of death, of what happens, of why it happens, of what’s next.
   The questions were endless and the answers were absent.
   So man developed the idea of gods to answer the questions that he could not. Throughout history the numbers of gods have changed, but the questions they answer have not.
   So why has so much hatred, violence and bigotry developed from a question so innocent?
   Why is it that there must only be one answer to a question so great?
   Why does humanity so often choose to persecute others for what will happen after they die?
   How will someone’s views on the afterlife affect another’s current life?
   The short answer is that it doesn’t. Why then has there been so much hatred and death because of people’s interpretation of religion — such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, the genocide of the Kurds and the untold number of other cases throughout history.
   What god would be the creator of life and condone its followers to destroy life in its own name?
   Do we have the idea of religion all wrong?
   The biggest mistake is the ability of an organized religion to take the responsibility out of choice. So many times I have seen someone explain an action or an opinion based on his or her affiliation with a religion.
   Thoughts and choices must not be made simply because that’s what your religion believes — it should be what you believe.
   Faith in a god is one thing but as soon as an organization has the capacity to take the faith a person has in their personal thought or reasoning and replace this with the organization’s own beliefs, it has crossed the line.
   As soon as this responsibility is gone and the individual is given a sense of anonymity, they can commit crimes in the name of a god that they would ordinarily consider heinous, such as genocide.
   These problems do not lie in religion or god; it is the people that are the root of the evil.
   Those using religion as a source of power and as a means to control others are what have given religion its dark side.
   But the blame is not entirely theirs.
   One man can do nothing by himself, instead he must have followers, and it is the blind faith we place in the voices of preachers and other religious leaders that leads to the many atrocities committed in the name of religion throughout history.
   The answer? Open your eyes. Crimes of blind faith will not be committed if we take off the blinders.
   When an organization tells you how to think, how to treat others or what to believe, don’t simply accept this as law — question their statements and base your own beliefs off of what you think.
   Treat others the way you would want to be treated. It seems so simple, but why do we still fail to do something we learned in kindergarten.
   Would you want to be persecuted  by others for your beliefs? I wouldn’t think so. Keep your beliefs to yourself; it’s their afterlife, not yours.