[HeartsOfFire]

It is truly fascinating to see these differences of opinion do battle with one another. Each and every person, the sum of their experiences and the knowledge taught to them. Some thoughts embraced, others cast aside.

I was born Christian, and for much of my young life I accepted the existance of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as infallible. As time went on however, I began to question the existance of God. Logic and reasoning were the driving forces behind my scrutiny, as well as some personal revelations over the course of time.

I am just a regular joe working an honest job and living an honest life. Though I'm only 26 years old, there are a few things I've learned about the existance of humanity.

a) Right and Wrong are subjective concepts. What we today perceive as Right and Wrong are the result of cultural beliefs that crushed the beliefs of inferior cultures either by pen or by sword. Though humanity is not extinct, the ways of life of some civilizations are dead, and have been replaced by the cultures that exist today. What was Right then is not what is Right today letter for letter. Likewise, what was Wrong today was not Wrong then. Why, even now, what is Right and what is Wrong varies simply between borders and oceans. Therefore in conclude that Right and Wrong exist not inherently, but out of necessity. For without them, there would be chaos. To suggest that every being knows Right from Wrong out of the womb is foolish.

b) Humanity has left the comforts of the Earth and soared as far as the Moon. At no point in time was Heaven discovered. Given that Heaven was written in the Bible to be described as a kingdom in the sky, this questions its existence (to me, at least). And, if Heaven's existence is questioned, so to then must Hell's existence be questioned.

c) Far too often, scientists assume that the Earth is a constant, possibly due to the fact that change is perceived to be slow and gradual, and that noticable changes take longer than a lifetime to notice. The Earth is not constant, however. There are countless celestial bodies and other objects that affect Earth in one way or another. The moon herself has been proven to affect the tides of our oceans, and she's only 1/6th the size of Earth. And what of the comets that appear every 60 years or so, time and time again? It should be common knowledge that late in the summer, Earth's orbit passes through the wake of a comet's tail and gives us a lovely meteor shower. Who's to say that at some point in time before the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs we weren't struck with a similar body made of ice water? Or perhaps something carbonaceous that started what we now have as carbon-based life forms as opposed to strict vegetation?

d) I exist, but that alone is a miracle. Not because my parents had intercourse and produced me as an offspring, but because when I consider the creatures that came before me, and how they no longer exist, I acknowledge that I am insignificant, and that my species in insignificant. We call ourselves great, and praise our achievements and accomplishments since the days when we crawled out of our caves. Yet for all our accomplishments, we are not safe from another cataclysmic event let alone the Hand of God. Humanity may one day face extinction from sources of a cosmic nature, such as an errant asteroid. Finally, because I may live for at the very most one hundred more years. So since the universe considers 65 million years to be the blink of an eye, I am no more significant than the ants I stepped on as a boy.

e) If the Earth itself has been around for millions of years, then Humanity's existance truly is nothing worthy to note. The speculation that 'we are not alone in the universe' certainly is a curious speculation, but even if true, then we must assume that some, if not all other sentient creatures in the universe have got one hell of a headstart on us. Hell, we might just be the equivalent of a sixth grade science experiment for another species out there.

If an omnipotent and omniscient Creator exists, I cannot fathom why Humanity would be so important to It. We are nothing. We are an atomic particle on a tiny speck of sand in the infinite beach that is the universe. We will have no great impact on Earth, let alone anything beyond. Why do we put ourselves up on a pedestal we have no right to be on? Why do we put so much value in our lives when even our own fellow man consider us little more than statistics after we die?

For all we know, this is all we get, so don't waste it on a hope that after you die something better comes along. Enjoy it while you can, because I guarantee you, at some point in time you will stop taking breaths like the one you JUST took.