Now that’s some advice you can take to the bank! Finally, some logical realism.
“People make shit up and sell it as TRUTH. People who are dumber buy it and make it their world.”
That’s an understatement. What I like to call the “excremental truth” – that is, the ever-present verbal/written mystical religious shit – has always been with us, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, . . . oh, and the Bible, as well as the Talmud, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc. And kind of along those same lines, we have the current fringe beliefs of things like the sasquatch, Loch Ness monster, the abominable snowman, the Latin chupacabra (blood-sucking demon monster), green aliens who apparently had a hankering to crash-land in Roswell, New Mexico, etc., etc., etc. Yep, from astrology to numerology (and don’t forget pyramidology!) to so-called faith healers to crystal ball gazing, tarot card reading street charlatans – well, as one of my favorite expressions goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Now, myself – I just believe in (or at least now I do) the concept of a “Higher Power,” or “God,” as being simply the natural processes and functioning of the universe as a whole. Some people think of “God” as being simply Good Orderly Direction. I think that the reality of the “God” concept is really more of a purely mathematical phenomenon, somewhat akin to some form of mathematical “chaos theory.” But I do NOT believe in any mystical entity as a “divine being,” which so many people seem to keep stuck on. I think that people have some innate tendency to fabricate and anthropomorphize such a being, or deity, which is in fact just a projection of their own need, or at least yearning, for some all-wise, all-powerful father figure (I think Freud had that one right). But when you look at the history of humankind from a psychological, anthropological perspective, it become so obvious that people’s believe in a “God” is not coincidentally quite self-serving and rife with all the basic human defects of character – such as fear, pride, greed, and lust. After all, don’t all religious groups keep claiming, “We’re right, everyone else is wrong!” It’s always “us vs. them” – or at least “our god vs. your god.”
As you said, Terry, “A good life is a practical life.” At the end of the day, it all boils down to, as you stated: “Build your own world. People it with sanity. Water it and nurture it and watch it grow. At the end of life, you'll look back on friends, family, people who admire you for all the help you've been. THAT is your heavenly reward.” As the popular expression goes, “Some of the best things in life are free.” So many folks the world over squander so much of their lives striving for some ideal to put them in good stead with a made-up “afterlife,” while the real answer to the meaning of life has been right under their nose all along – I believe that the answer to the meaning of life is that there is NO such answer; the meaning of life is simply in the living of life one day, one moment at a time and enjoying the journey. It’s called “mindfulness.” And that, my friend, is the so-called big secret of it all. And that, as you so eloquently put it, is: “So simple. So beautiful. So true.”