[Michael Chui]

*cracks knuckles* This looks like a fun way to wind down from a night of coding. Here we go.

(NOTE: I had way too much fun writing this. Um, it's long. Sorry? Enjoy... )

Originally Posted by Restrikted

So really, what is so hard to believe about the fact that "we are not special, we are not beautiful and unique snowflakes," we are just alive, like bugs, or mice, but smarter, and we just die like everything else on this Earth?

But we are special. You are unique, just like everyone else. The human species is unique, just like every other species. Certainly, there is a binding similarity that draws us together--we could call it life, we could call it molecular bonds, we could call it string resonance--but the differences are also appreciable.

The human species has a number of attributes that no other species possesses, near as we can tell, chief among these an incredible range of language and a notion of the abstract. This alone is reason to regard ourselves as different, and forms the basis for the principle that we are subject to different consequences. If a shark eats another shark, you do not chastise it for murder; if a human being slashes another human being, you convict him for assault.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

My question is, if this is true, what makes Earth so special?

Simple: we don't know otherwise. It is possible that Earth is not special, but there is no actual evidence suggesting that it isn't. But China called itself the Center Nation for an incredibly long time. We have the old proverb that all roads lead to Rome (which is awfully difficult when you to across the sea). Now, however, we do not believe either of these, because globalization has culminated into the 21st century, and we have a People's Republic and a modern set of Italian ruins.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

Also, if there is life on other planets, do they have religion?

This is likely, much, I'm sure, to Akashic's chagrin.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

To prove Christianity correct, the other planets would also have to have Christianity.

This is not true. Religion is not ex vivo, and they know that quite well. It would be arguable that, on a planet with religion and no Christianity, that Christianity has merely yet to appear OR that it is the manifest destiny of Earthborn Christians to evangelize to these people. You know, by spreading smallpox in blankets or stealing all their gold or something appropriately 1600.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

Also, a great deal of the Bible deals with what happened when Jesus was walking the Earth. Was Jesus also on the other planets?

Maybe we don't need to know. Why does it matter? If God is omnipresent, why couldn't he enter the womb of thousands of females, birthing saviors across the universe? Joshua, son of Joseph, was hardly the first Messiah born to the human race, or not even in the Bible. There was also Noah, and then Moses, and then David. With a direct genealogical tree from Adam, I might add. It's a family tradition, saving from utter destruction by God or, post-rainbow covenant, his proxies the Israelites or, post-Jewish rejection of him, everyone else. It seems to take a couple thousand years for the blood to stir again, though, and unless you believe the DaVinci Code, Jesus didn't leave any kids. If he did, perhaps the next one will come into his own in, oh... five years? 2012?. It'd be cool if the 21st century messiah was female. And cute.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

I like to take into consideration what Erin Pavlina said (I think it was her). She was talking about living your life with love, compassion, and friendship. Would you rather live your life that way, or believe in God, and not necessarily be a good person? If Heaven really does exist, would God rather let in the person that believes in him, or the person that is a truly good person? If he would exclude the good person, I'm not so sure I would want to be in that heaven.

Such is free will.

What you've done is conflated the notion of "going to Heaven" with "love, compassion, and friendship", and then set it against the attribute of being "obedient to God". According to the Bible, obedience to God goes above all else, even love, compassion, and friendship (LCF). If you disagree with God, that is definitionally sinful, which does not actually translate to "bad", and likewise, neither does Hell. Hell is, theologically, the absence of God, and if you so strongly disagree with what God represents, be it something other than LCF, then you would be making the deliberate decision of going to Hell. A Christian would not expect you to enjoy it there, of course, but that's their opinion.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

Also, are there different heavens for every religion?

Why not? Is there some restriction on how many heavens there can be I haven't heard of?

Originally Posted by Restrikted

This kind of goes back to the question of which religion is correct?

How many have you actually explored? How many of these questions can you even vaguely guess an answer to?:

What is the central thesis of Buddhism, for instance? What do the aboriginals of New Zealand believe? How does it compare with the Anansi culture or the Iroquois nation? What differences are there between those and the imported voodoo of the African-Americans? Are there relationships between that and the Arabian notion of the djinn? How are the stories of the djinn and the Jewish King Solomon intertwined? Where is the Ark of the Covenant, gone when God's temple was transgressed by the Romans? Who were the Roman gods, before the Christian rennaissance, and what were they based on? Were they actually related to the Greek gods, as many Catholic saints were, or did they find their source from mystery cults or pagan Europe? What did the Germanic nations believe? Were they Scandinavian or Russian in origin? Why are the concepts of dragons so starkly contrasted between European and Oriental imaginings? And to come back to Christianity once more, who actually were the legendary magi of the nativity story, and did they actually found Zoroastrianism?

That would be a tiny nibble. And no, I can't answer any of those questions either. Each of them would probably merit a bloody master's thesis by some poor student of religion.

It gets really hard to ask the question, "Which religion is correct?" when you stop and think about it. And all the sudden, you realize that this isn't the right question; the right question is, "What actually constitutes a religion?" And there has yet to be an answer.

For instance, is Christianity a religion, or is it a collection of religions? The Anglicans, the Baptists, the Calvinists, Catholics, the Evangelicals, the Lutherans... Then again, despite Paul's denial, perhaps Christianity is merely a Jewish sect, one that happens to have additional scripture, believes that the Messiah is the same person as the Suffering Servant and already dropped by for thirty six years, and firmly believes in using fire and brimstone imagery to describe the future. Though certainly, modern-day Christianity is absolutely nothing like it was in Paul's day, what with the perpetual checking the sky for glowing men vomiting swords; today people don't fear persecution, martyrdom is disagreeable and not fit for dinner conversation, and all that feel-good equality stuff seems to have become entirely secular (R.I.P. MLK Jr.).

People forget history very easily. It's a bad habit, because you forget past mistakes and do them over again which, clearly, is less than ideal. But it's hard to respect history when you're young, and it's too late when you're old. But in forgetting, we lose the greatest religious argument of all: this, too, will pass.