Disclaimer: If you are a religious person I recommend you stop reading now as this blog post may unintentionally offend you.

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Where it all began

So Religion, touchy subject to get into with people, everybody has their beliefs right? Even those claiming to believe in nothing still believe, the question is where did it all start? As far back as recorded history goes we have clues scattered pointing to religious beliefs, now this could be a result of god like apparitions popping up all over the world, making miracles, turning water into wine, bringing peace and prosperity to all and developing a following which would last 100's if not thousands of years but lets look at this pragmatically for a while, we still have no evidence of the supernatural, with all the mobile phones, surveillance cameras, periscopes, snap chats and selfie sticks we still haven't yet managed to capture or validate a genuine supernatural experience, now this could be that these "apparitions" that appeared so many years ago got bored and decided to use their god-like powers to take a vacation that would last millennia but let me put another idea in your head...

What if these religious symbols exist as an answer to the questions which we as humans were hard wired to ask? On this planet we seem to be the only animals with the gift of consciousness, we managed to use evolution to our advantage to develop our conscious brains and consciousness by definition is knowing of your own existence, but what do we know of our existence? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Are we alone? Who buys a salad at McDonalds?

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These questions pragmatically would have been asked since consciousness in our species began, but back before recorded history we did not have the luxury of modern day scientists, academia, research and development, the closest thing to that would have been healers, our shaman, priests and witch doctors, yes health and well being was tide directly to religious belief, the pragmatic reason for this would be the nature of how we heal, once any human being catches any sort of virus or infection, our bodies would all but shutdown while they focus most of their available resources on dealing with this infection, our healers (or scientists of yesterday) would assist the recovery with prayer and all sorts of concoctions made up of what was most likely highly nutritious broth of some sort, this would (as we know today) speed up the recover process, this practice would usually be accompanied by prayer, now instead of attributing the fast recovery to the nutritious broth like concoction the healers would find it much easier to influence their tribes and chieftains through prayer, after all religion would prove to become the one of the most powerful influence tools of recorded history...

Unanswered questions

Our priests and shaman of yesterday would be faced with many challenges that would challenge the foundation of religious belief itself, it was the nature of the conscious mind to question so when situations arose in various parts of the globe (not linked in any way) where priests had no answer they would start to use this lack of knowledge to structure their religious beliefs. Think of pork, the Abrahamic regions of Jewish and Islam restrict pork from their diets completely, these religions would have you believe that a requirement by god was that consumable animals must chew their cud and have split hooves. Pigs do have split hooves but do not chew their cud. We know that in history pork proved to be a meat which would harbour all sorts of bacteria and germs and people would get sick if pork was not cooked right, so wouldn't it make more logical sense that the priests of ancient times would be faced with a situation where people all around them would be getting sick and dying by the dozens, and without even basic understanding of the food and safety standards we have available to us today, priests would have had to come up with a solution to this problem, how would they understand the causes around these deaths and illnesses without the right tools and education, the easier option would be to ban pork all together, now placing a ban on pork would raise too many questions and picture trying to explain to a bunch of uneducated, uncivilised tribesman why pork is killing everyone when you don't know the answer yourself, it would surely leave people wondering whether you were fit to be the town healer at all so healers would need to come up with a different plan, using religion they would install the fear of god into their parish and use this fear to ban pork, "for it is god that doesn't want you to eat pork" and if you do he will very likely take your life from you.

The introduction of fasting into religion was a great discovery by healers that would end up keeping I higher standard of general health among the clan, we know today that fasting intermittently is a common practice for many modern day health diets and detox programs, many books have been written on this subject describing the benefits of fasting which include longer life, weight loss, lower cancer risks, reduced cholesterol etc... but back during the original introduction into the various religions one could assume that healers would take note that during times of famine in the clan people would display signs of increased health before the inevitable downturn, if we could control this state of health through religion we could limit the consumption while improving health, it was a win win.

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Again, these solutions and religious practices would not need to be understood by priests or need to be explained to the general populace, all it would take to install these changes would be to use the voice of the all-powerful and almighty god, one does not question god.

Taking the bible more literally

​I was having dinner with a very religious couple one night, and the lady (lets call her Clare) noticed my silver cross around my neck, this silver cross is obviously a well known religious symbol signifying the belief in Jesus Christ, it is also in the modern day used as an item of jewellery, I'm from a catholic family, I don't remember many periods in my life where I wasn't wearing some kind of necklace and cross around my neck, its just part of who I am at the moment and it's become a piece of my character, but Clare after noticing this symbol (which would normally be kept tucked away in my shirt) asked the question "Do you believe in Jesus?" :innocent: Well, the curious person that I am I could not stop myself from digging into this persons mind and figuring out exactly how it all works, so I answered (truthfully I might add) "well, if your question is whether I believe in a all powerful superhuman which was born from the womb of a virgin who later died and came back to life then no, but if you looking at my cross and really asking whether I believe that this symbol signifies the idea that giving up your life to save somebody else's is the ultimate selfless sacrifice then... yes I believe it is possible that a man called Jesus is the one who is remembered for this act through this symbol"

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Her response was interesting, the conclusion was that I was not a true Cristian, she proceeded to explain what this cross around my neck signified to her and me wearing it would be the equivalent of her wearing a Wheel of Dharma around her neck and not knowing anything about Buddhism, she then asked me if I have ever read the bible to which I answered (again truthfully) "yes", granted not cover to cover exactly but I would from time to time pick up a bible at home and out of interest read a paragraph or an extract I was curious about, I'd also have learned most of these bible stories at Sunday church school as a child, the conclusion of her short but informative lecture was that I should read the bible over again but this time take the bible more literally.

​I know what you thinking, In that situation while talking to a religious fanatic I'm already treading on thin ice in this conversation... but I had to know more, those simple words sparked something in my brain, "take the bible more literally" :grin: For this next bit we going to have to open a dialogue, because it still makes me smile today...

Jeff: "Clare, are you trying to tell me that when you read the bible you read everything in a literal sense?

Clare: "Of course, you should try it"

Jeff: "you do realise that there are more than 2 million different species of animals on this earth right?"

Clare: "yes, so?"

Jeff: "Well you know that would have meant Noah would need to round up 4 million animals on an ark"

Clare: "ye.."

Jeff: "... that he built"

Clare: "yes!"

Jeff: "...Over 120 years"

Clare: "What's your point?"

Jeff: "Just him and his family, which he spent 378 days on, and somehow had to feed all these animals every day, most more than once per day?"

Clare: "He did it with the lords help of course"

Jeff: "Noah was more than 100 years old Clare, how many centurions do you see walking on their own to feet nevermind building an ark to support 4 million animals?"

Clare: "The food was much healthier back then, people lived longer"

Jeff: "Oh there I think we can agree, although I do think there is a much more logical explanation..."

Before I could keep the conversation going, and proceed to explore further into the mind of this amazing human being I was signalled by my lovely wife to let it go... looking around the table I could tell that unwillingly I had caught the attention of everyone else and I was really just curious rather than trying to make anyone look foolish, after all, I could still be very very wrong in my way of thinking.

Since we learnt earlier that religion, science and health were not as specialised in biblical history as they are today, we just have to assume that religious, health and scientific documentation would all somehow be kept in one big book, a sort of blend of it all, and through the 100's of written translations, interpretations and amendments we left with a collection of scripture which can and is understood in many different ways, bringing rise to various forms of similar beliefs and practises.

If we were to treat these books like we do our scientific and health studies of today, we would all agree that a more than 2000 year old book like the bible can hold very little solid scientific certainty and would be in dire need of updating yet priests and religious figures still hold onto alot of power in the modern day, convincing susceptible human beings that strapping on a bomb and walking into a crowd of people would bring them wealth in the afterlife, If we are ever to educate ourselves we will need first to seek answers to our true existence, and find an alternative way to provide solace to those in need without leaving any human being out in the dark to seek the light through religion as this path is dangerous and can only lead to self-destruction.

Energy is light, Energy is life.

We all learn in our various religions of our creator, the one true power, he is in all places, in all things, he is all around us, he has the power to create worlds, to destroy, to shine light where there is darkness, We learnt earlier that these teachings are from our religious scriptures left from our notes at the beginning of recorded history, We learnt that priests took the roles of clan healers, of researchers, leaders and scientists, priests would be the oracles who answer the questions nobody else could answer.

So when we look at the definition of god through these various religions, doesn't something strike you as odd, doesn't the definition of god itself have a striking similarity to the definition of energy as we understand it today?

I mean read this first paragraph again and think of energy when you do...

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So were priests of biblical times only documenting their research into the one thing that makes up this entire universe and everything in existence?

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it transforms from one form to another. For instance, chemical energy can be converted to kinetic energy in the explosion of a stick of dynamite. ... A consequence of the law of conservation of energy is that a perpetual motion machine of the first kind cannot exist | Source |

Lets Sum this up

Today, even with our immense research and understanding on this very subject we have yet to figure out the fundamental question which brings many of us seeking solace in a higher power,

We don't know who we are, we don't know why we are here, we know that life is short. We know that the more educated society becomes as a whole the harder we become to control,

Religious leadership figures, the ridiculously wealthy, Government and any group of people which believe they are in some way destined to rule and have identified themselves as superior human beings have all one common interest, to keep the general public uninformed, uneducated, easier to manipulate and control, this is how they remain in power, and this is what must change.

Educate yourself to free yourself.

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