Ok now religion. Although I sometimes attend a Christian church, the church's youth group, and am the editor of the youth magazine, I am of no particular religion. In other words, even though I take part in a Christian community, I am not a Christian.
This is just a page where I just sit and let my fingers do the thinking so some bits may not make sense... hehe.
1. Post Death
2. Sexual Relations
3. Is There A Point?
4. Time Travelling
1. POST-DEATHI don't believe that if I were a Christian I'd live an eternal life with God after I die. In fact I'm not sure there is anything after death at all.
I used to believe that a soul was like an eternal spark of life and death was merely an event where the soul casts off it's 'shell', moves on, and carries on living in a new 'shell'. This concept is a bit like the reincarnation of the Karma in Hinduism.
But now I'm not too sure. My views on death and IF there's anything beyond that, varies all the time. At the moment I believe that death is the end... the end; full stop. Like the flame of a candle, when the flame goes out; life goes out, the soul dies with it, merging into the earth as rippling of vibrating atoms.
Frankly I'm not bothered what happens to me when I die. I mean, we are living now; now is now, and we all live once during this lifetime. We shouldn't get our knickers in too much of a twist just because we are concerned about what will happen after death. Sure, a lot of us might wonder what will become of us (mind, body, and soul) beyond death, but we souldn't spend too much of our time wondering about THEN, when we are currently NOW.
Ok so maybe I'm just in denial about all this post-death issue, but as long as my mind remains in blissful denial I'm ok :). I'd just like to concentrate on worrying about THIS life, than to worry about 'next' life, or similar.
2. SEXUAL RELATIONSSex sex sex sex sex sex. I can remember when we were in primary school (elementary school) when the word 'sex' was what we called a 'rude' word. Even now you see kids giggling and flapping around like seals when they hear the word 'sex' or even a word that sounds like sex eg. 'SECtion'. LOL... the good ol' days, eh?
Now that we're all grown up we know what sex (intercourse) actually is and are developing our own sense of morals to do with it. More and more kids these days are loosing their virginities at younger ages. Maybe because kids mature faster now than before?? I don't know, but I feel saddened when I see 11-12 year old girls around town either pregnant or pushing their baby in a pram... they probably love their child(ren) and don't regret it, but I feel like they have grown up so fast with the responsibility of a child and also they might find it difficult to cope with school stuff on top of raising a child. I mean, I have enough stress with school on it's own, let alond raising a child also! For example, if they wanted to go on holiday with some friends for a week or so, they have to consider their baby first. I'm not saying that they are bad mothers, but teenage mothers are a tad young, hmm?
Since I have traditional Chinese parents who are Christians, my parents are naturally against me having sex before getting married. That's IF I get married. I DO often think about me and sex etc. but I haven't been with a guy in a deep enough relationship to have ever had the thought of making love to him. Virginity is v. precious and I'm not gonna just flaunt it off with whoever comes along.
3. IS THERE A POINT?Why do we live? Is there a point to us being here? What IS life anyway?
There are so many questions around, and yet so many of them unanswered! I am not even going to TRY to answer any of these questions. I have been thinking about this question of life for so long that I have given up trying to find answers and just accepted that I am here and I should make the most of my time here.
In more literal terms, life is merely a collection of chemical mass. If we narrow it down to an even more literal term; a collection of chemical mass could be interpreted as a collection (or selection?) of information - this can be in the form of DNA or electrical impulses. But thinking deeper into this, is there more to existence than just a collection of data? For example, how do know for sure that you, or anything around you, really exist? I know (or 'I think') that evidence of existence could be the fact that we have knowledge/conscience of things such as who we are, functions of life, etc.
I know this sounds sad, but I'm not sure that I have a particular purpose in life. Sure I have goals and aims that I would like to have achieved before I die, but I can't think of anything that I live to maintain. I THINK that I may not have much of a purpose, but I MUST have at least one purpose otherwise I would not be sitting here typing this. So maybe I DO have a purpose but am not remotely aware of it. The sociologist George Peter Murdock analysed many societies and found that the functions for society (and family) are:
- Economic
- Educational
- Reproductive
- Sexual
There are many theories that try to explain the point of living. If somebody honestly believed that they do not have any purpose and that there is no point in them living, then that would probably end their life in an egoistic suicide.
Christians and people of other religions have their own purpose in their religion. In other words, they live to maintain their faith in their religion. This means that the reason they live is to serve in their religion, and have no other purpose in life other than the latter. - that is, of course, if they are truly devoted.
For atheists and agnostics (atheist - one who believes that there is no god, agnostic - one who believes it to be impossible to know if there is a god or not), their purpose of life is probably to please themselves, which is a logical outlook in such an idealistical and materialistcal world.
Some people might believe that they are living to do the world good, and dedicate their life to doing good things for the world. Others just take life as it comes and do not really ponder on their purpose of being here. They merely live just for the hell of living.
Now for those people who think that religion should be the only thing that humans should lay their peace of mind in, then I urge you to perhaps think on a wider perspective than just the one religion. Personally, I think all religions are similar, in that they are plausible in terms of faith.
4. TIME TRAVELLINGWhen I was younger I always wanted to go time travelling. I wanted a Ziggy from 'Quantum Leap' so that I could navigate myself around the times. Now I'm not too sure about time travelling. I know that in theory it IS possible, but there are problems like: how do we generate the energy? See, time travelling invovles reaching speeds greater than the speed of light (speed of light is 300,000 km per second.) To do that, masses and masses of energy is needed to get up to that sort of speed. At present, we are not capable of generating such energy levels due to the issues of money and resources.
Also, we could only travel BACK in time and not FORWARDS simply because the future does not yet exist. Ok, so you might throw 'fate' and 'destiny' at me, but that does not account for the fact that time is fixed. Time is fixed and can not be shortened, lengthened, or moved. That's why it is called 'Time Travelling' and not 'Time Moving'.
Another issue of time is that if we went back to a time when we were not even born yet, surely we would not disappear? Or maybe we will be located inside the womb of our mother in the form of a dormant egg? (See, when a baby girl is born she already has millions of eggs stored inside of her ovaries.) But what about our father? Hmm... this is freaky.
I really don't know much about time travelling and such related issues. Please voice out if you have any prticular views on time travelling. I would like to hear other people's views on this because I'm not sure what I believe d:o)