the reason why these idiotic emotional 'gods' (not to mention foolish governments and bureaucracy) exist is because, generally speaking, humans are unable to govern their own minds with insight to any reasonable degree.
if you have some ability to read between lines and not get hung up on labels, then there is truth conveyed by the word's written by bob dylan: it may be the devil or it may be the lord, but you gonna have to serve somebody
the relatively subtle imposition of the appointed gods is a natural consequence of the repeated searing of the shrouded conscience with hot irons. our own choices necessarily create our own blindness
jesus was said to have called the scribes and Pharisees a brood of snakes and vipers, but generally speaking humanity in general is just as sick and willfully ignorant.
we get what we ask for. it should be quite clear to see that wide is the road that leads to destruction and misery and narrow is the road that leads to liberation and peace
perhaps everyone will wind up in heaven eventually, but that could conceivably take billions of years
your religion (habits of body speech and mind) is your responsibility most humans have the ability too see what is right and wrong the ten commandments, and other equivalents, are only a starting point - something to get the ball rolling. do not mistake the sign post for the destination
if you don't "custom build" your good (as opposed to bad) religion (realization) according to your disposition and a deepening appreciation of the value of virtue then you are wasting a precious opportunity.
most die in vain. death in vanity, birth in vanity - the cycle goes on and on. the choice is entirely one's own.
the path of self denial starts off as a hard road because that is what we have created. accounts of ego death are documented in erowid or NDE. but NDE or chemicals are not a reliable path to realization (whatever that is)
most popular belief systems have self denial contained within in them to varying degrees, but it is obscured and misrepresented by countless other doctrines of delusion that promote egocentricity most belief systems have become what we want them to be.
words are useful, but because of the conditions of conventional reality, they can be, at most, a crutch to aid in recovery, and then discarded or passed on.
