I like Grant's post unfortunatley I have nothing that I'm able to contribute to it because it was done so damn thoroughly, heres a wink for ya Granten ;) now, I do have something else on my mind, something that's been on this little mind of mine for quite some time: religion. Shit, I always end up going full circle and coming back to talk about religion. Maybe its because I just find it fascinating is all. Now, we were watching a movie in history class called 'Inherit The Wind' and this movie was about the Scopes Trial, or the moment in American history when Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution was put up against Christianity in a battle to see who would come out the most unscathed. Now, in the movie there are points where lawyers are giving good arguments to religious people about evolution and their answer, no matter the question, will always be 'because God wills it' or 'if God wants to make it so, then it is so' these arguments are beyond infantile. If you ask me, why do we have religion? The answer to this question is simple, because it fills the void and gives us hope, it brings knowledge to us of the unknown and it shows the unknown in a favourable light, this unknown of course being death. But think about this for a minute, suppose that we were all going to go to heaven, yes, what about all the other animals? Is it feasible to say that flies or maggots go to heaven? Of course not, they dont have souls do they? I dont know. In all honesty though, I beleive that since there is no heaven and since there is no God, I will probably share the same fate at death that a beetle being crushed under the sole of my shoe would. We are all just products of evolution, we didnt ask to be born, we just were. We didnt ask to live in the way that we live, we were born into that way. In the end, we are all just steps on which the feet of the human race will stand before moving to the next step, or the next generation. The way we live on after death is by leaving something behind for those who come after us, or in the memory of those who knew us. Of course, this gives us the perfect reason why we should live life to the fullest. Indeed, I can see how there is consolation when your unsure or suffering to think that your suffering is somehow being heard by a higher being, but a wolf in the forest with his paw in a trap has about as great a chance of being heard as we do. The best way to think is to think that someday, we're all going to die, this is a gloomy thought yes? Well, counter it by giving yourself a zest for life, and know that what you do will have a significance however small it may be. However, I think that while it must be nice to be able to beleive in something like heaven, why should we try and take that away from others? Whatever you beleive, you beleive, and if it gets you through life happily then really thats all that counts, I like the quote that says something like "to know what happens in death is like saying what happens when a fire goes out."