Religion is a concept that has followed us throughout the annals of history, going back to our earliest consciousness, when man first experienced thunder and lighting too the devastation they faced from an exploding volcano. Religions have always been accompanied by either God(s) or some sense of a higher purpose in life, a secret, private knowledge that all the chaos and turmoil is all part of a master plan.

At the core of most religions is a desire to build structure and stability in an ever-changing world. Like the Great Pyramids at Giza, religion is something that has endured the sands of time and will most likely continue enduring. If you were to take religion and dissect it, what you would find would be an attempt at self-defense, a shield of sorts. A war erupts and we strive to find structure and stability in the chaos and turmoil. A plague breaks loose and we hope to find meaning to the mindless killings. But, religion does go beyond this paltry description. It goes and will always go beyond it. The biggest part of religion that incorporates this mystery would be the origins of life.

Science denotes creation as a cause and effect theory. The Big Bang created all known matter. Life soon emerged from that matter. But science can’t always explain everything, its greatest setback. Religion on the other hand denotes creation as the product of a divine entity, God. I believe a truce is needed. Couldn’t God and the Big Bang be linked? Isn’t it possible that maybe, just maybe, God made the Big Bang?

On the topic of God, it is a concept that is impossible to even begin to explain. In almost all religions, God is the Creator, Ultimate-Being, begot from no one and existing outside Time and Space for all eternity. Even this trivial sentence defies the human mind. God is used as an example of supreme authority and as a reservoir for all that is good. God is the orchestrator of everything and anything, the reason for wars, plagues, and natural disasters. But the belief in God offers a sort of assurance. It’s an assurance that tells you “don’t worry, someone’s watching over you” and “it’s all part of the plan.”

But with every reservoir, there is a bad batch, a rotten apple in the basket. In the case of religion, it’s the Devil: or a close equivalent. It’s these two forces that via fir the human soul. The belief held by the majority is that if you walk on God’s path, no matter what hardships you endure in this life, you’ll be rewarded in the next. The problem is that the devil is a master of trickery and deception. The devil will influence people, making them do unspeakable, horrendous things, all the while weaving a web of deception, assuring you that “its ok, go ahead and arm the nukes, no ones watching” or “don’t worry, nothing will happen, just send in the F-4 bombers already.” The reason: maybe it just wants some friends down “there.”

But the problem with God and the Devil is that they get mixed up. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, the end results are enough to damn all religions. The perfect example would be the Witch Hunts in England by the Church. The name of God was used to hunt and kill mass numbers of suspected “witches”, which by the way included a lot of female scholars.

Religion can be a good thing or a bad thing. An example that keeps coming to mind for no apparent reason is one where a gun, fully loaded, is lying on the ground. Two people are walking toward it, one good and one not so good. Whoever reaches the gun first gets to shape and mold its purpose, crafting its future: Same with religion. But at the end of the day, all of this just sort of becomes superficial. You just want to get away from all the theories and just sit down and pray. Nevertheless, you can’t help wondering, while an idiot rampantly runs a religion to the ground, if God is looking down and laughing at a joke we can’t even begin to fathom, the laugh echoing throughout time and space.