It snakes by you, when you turn, it’s gone by, and you wonder, you ask yourself, you question others and they return that look, yes that look, the one that means are you kidding me? or more isn’t it early to be hitting the bottle, and so rather than confront their interest, you run, but not really quickly, a run as in away from where you are, as in turning the head, the eyes away, showing that they are no longer in your view, your concern lies elsewhere buddy, get it, get it, sure you do, admit it, you’ve been dissed.

Let’s make sure we have this straight. There is an afterlife, aka heaven. In heaven, where ever that is, obviously it can’t be in a physical space, souls exist proclaiming the glory of God forever. Okay then, but I can’t get my head around this afterlife life, this soul thing and infinite. Nowhere, except for math, can I understand any of this, and yet over half the world finds it perfectly fine. What am I missing? Especially if you look at it backwards with every exception seeming like a con man’s slippery answer to a prospective customer. Let’s listen.

You say if I join your religion and believe I will live forever?

Yes.

What part of me lives forever, because parts of me aren’t working so good right now?

Your soul.

What part of me is that?

It’s a spiritual part attached to your body by God. You can’t find it with your senses.

Then how do I know I have one?

You have to believe.

So this soul thing, is what part of me? Is it the part that gets angry and acts inappropriately at family get-togethers, the part that honors my wife, the part that obeys my boss, the part that plays with my children, the part that is despondent when the Eagles/Phillies/76’ers/Flyers lose, the part that drinks too much?

It is the better part of all of you.

Kind of like a utopian version?

Yes.

Well, that’s cool. Is it also the utopian version of my body?

Yes.

Cool again, will hopes never fail me. But why are there two of me, did God not get it right the first time?

God created two of you so that you could prove to him that you were worthy and get to go to heaven.

So this is all a play, and I am entertaining God?

No, God is not entertained. God needs nothing?

So why did he create me with a soul, if he doesn’t need anything? I don’t do anything unless I need to.

God isn’t like us, you have to have faith.

So, if I have faith I get to go to heaven, live forever, whatever that is, in bliss I assume; but if I don’t I won’t? I’ll just die and return to the earth.

No, you will go to hell.

So, its the opposite of heaven, where the utopian of me will go when I die and instead of eternal bliss, there will be eternal punishment?

Correct.

So, it’s all a morality play.

Yes.

And if any of what you posit is incorrect, the whole story collapses?

I do not understand.

You posit God, but without a soul and an afterlife, it makes no difference, because God surely doesn’t listen to our prayers, proof of this is there are two sides to a conflict and both sides pray for victory. Both can’t win, and we can’t believe that the chastest team always wins, which is what the Bible promotes, as history shows us that is seldom the case, just look at the Axis’s early victories in World War II, look at the Holocaust. You posit a soul, because without a soul what is left of our body after we die, if anything, might not be worth saving; and what difference would there be if we had a soul but there was neither  God nor heaven. You posit heaven and hell because without those what would be the point of God, much less a soul? It all boils down to trying to make sense of our existence and deciding it must be something more, and hence the labyrinth of belief is created to support the hope there is something besides just this life and so religions abound, and you glue it together by insisting that each member have with in it without the benefit of reason or else suffer eternal damnation.

The crux of it:

Everyone wants the affirmation of all that he/she is the one, the one who gets it, the conduit for the message (think of Moses & Abraham, Jesus & Mohammed, Luther and John Smith), except the message is just that, end trans. And because everyone has different brain connections, they seek different ways of distributing the truth to everyone else, with an emphasis on their being the One, while of course we all seek the same resolution and we all can’t be the only one, just like there can’t be one religion. We can be the One excepting having any real non-corporeal powers. So why write Mr. Kirk? To nudge everyone’s understanding a little closer to understanding that everyone is the One, so we can’t dismiss them, but can dismiss the religions that work in the other direction, namely naming some individual as the One, other than everyone. Religions do not do that because the purpose of religion has always been to anoint one person as the One’s emissary, the door to the One; when in actuality, the door is always wide open to you. All you have to do is see other people, and see that they are in need. (Their need to me, is to find another way of walking that lets the great religions rot along the sidewalks, and so I write this book.)

Ever ask yourself why religions enact rules on sex? Why would God possibly care? Humans have a universal imperative to pro-create, without it the species would die out. Restrictions on sex is applying the brakes on an engine that has its gas pedal pushed to the floor. But it does give the enforcer power, and that is all it is, a power grab, using shame to dictate what was given naturally to you. It is equivalent to asking you not to wonder, not to think, not to ask questions, which is what we are. The APR imposes no such restraints, except to remind members of the law to cheat no one and so not to hurt anyone.

Our vocation is to celebrate life and our impending death, giving death the respect it deserves, and identifying what it is. All worries, all shames, all are gone. With the end of an individual’s last synapse firing is the end of the individual’s impact, impression, etc. so as we work to make life better for all, we engage in life, we meditate by being one with our thoughts and our actions. No separate meditation or prayer is called for. Engagement, without distraction is it, with the one caveat that we are not cheating others. War for instance is cheating.  We can achieve all that we need with honest dialogue and negotiation. In the event, the other party does not abide by these rules and instead uses force; force must always be met with equal force. When the attacker has superior firepower, all other countries should join and push the attacker out, forcing it back to the negotiation table to obtain what it wants through peaceful means. There really is no imaginable impasse that can’t be resolved this way, even the Middle East, with independent courts with mandates to rule alternatively between the two parties when there is no high ground so neither obtains an advantage. What if when the State Israel had become established, the involved parties had gotten together and established one law, no one would lose their life over this? All disagreements that could not be worked out by the factions would be turned over to international independent courts and all would obey the result, if only to end bloodshed, that should have been more than enough incentive, now how many people have died with no end in sight.