In 2010, a dear friend and admirer was dying of stage 4 tongue cancer. He would ultimately die just weeks later. Being he knew I studied the religions of the world as my BA, he asked me: What if he was wrong, what if his faith was wrong and reincarnation wasn’t real.
I told him something that rings true every day.
No god who truly LOVES his people would EVER hold their being born in a place with a particular religion as the predominant against him. To do so would be ungodly.
Because just as we are unable to choose our birth situation, we cannot chose what religion we are born into and raised in.
Who you are. How you act. What good you try to do will be seen. As Leo Tolstoy expressed in “What I believe” we are human kind, he walked away from being a lawyer because his faith had guided him to a new path because ultimately we as humans can only applied justice of what we perceived to be true. Because the real truth behind the motive and intentions is only something the omniscient would be privy to.
And for anyone who feels that believing in Hell is a motivational tool to be good. It’s one thing to be afraid of Hell, but if that’s your only motivation to be good, it’s to avoid Hell. Then, it’s a fraction of good that doing good for sake of being good would be.
Do your best to be your best. And remember, it’s ok to ask for help to be better.
