In my last essay I said I had a crystal clear realization that I didn’t have a soul, and that doesn’t mean I am a soulless character, by golly I am alive as a rootin’ tootin’ jack of all trades.  Most people like me, as I fill the room, until I tell them what I actually think, then they hate me.  Really, I am a lovable character full of “soul” but I now think my belief in the soul as a religious concept was in error.

The reason I came to this conclusion was that I reasoned it out.  I used my brain and logical deduction to deduce the fact that religion’s teaching of the afterlife needs the soul to explain what part of you survives death, as it is obvious that when you die, then you are dead and not living, moving, breathing.  Your body quits, gets cold, and after a few days stinks to high heaven as it rots.  Now for some people they just smell slightly worse after death.

So because we can see plain as day that when we die we are dead, and we know that when we kill animals and eat them they are dead, the theist had to come up with some explanation of how we survive death.  And thus the soul was born.  And this is not the only thing the priest invented, the Catholic Church invented purgatory when they had this theological problem to explain what happened to innocent baby souls who had not sinned and had not been baptized.

So purgatory is another invention they made up. So is heaven, hell, sin, and judgment.  What I am saying it is perfectly logical they had to invent the soul for religion to work.  The whole game here is to deny the reality of death.  Because we are sentient, that is self aware, we don’t want to die. There are people like myself who don’t want to die, as the survival instinct is great in me, but I also do not fear death, in fact I view it as a welcome relief from the tedious nature of life.

I’ve worked my whole life at some of the toughest jobs like on the farm bailing hay, shoveling manure, and milking cows.  I’ve been an auto mechanic, tree feller, firewood cutter, welder, and home builder.  As I got older I wondered why I did any of those things when I discovered surfing.  Why the hell was I working so hard when I could just ride a wave and come out of the water totally stoked?  Oh yeah, I needed money.

What I am saying is that when I got older and wiser I questioned why I worked so hard when so many people I know hardly worked at all and got fabulously wealthy.  Life is what you make of it, and how you live it makes a big difference.  I could of just been a monk and meditated and in the end what difference does it make because everyone of us meets the same fate called death.

We know we are going to die, and for many this is a great unknown and a fearful event.  So it is this terror of death that drives religion – as it teaches with certainty and authority what happens when you die, and these robed holier-than-thou charlatans say you can go to heaven if you obey their rules.  Clearly, religion is about controlling us in this life, and the afterlife part is unproven and a false claim, especially when you figure out that they are offering you nothing for your obedience now.

So if you if believe the soul is unscientific then what hold does the priest and his religion have on you?  Not a damn thing.  Because if we are soul-less creatures like all the other animals then the afterlife is a ruse, and thus you can do any damn thing you want and there is nothing to fear in the way of afterlife punishment.  Banishing the soul to superstition is a great liberator for human freedom.

I imagine that if I had not been taught religion and grew up on the ocean, I would of been surfing earlier in life and been with even more stunning babes, as the coast is full of beautiful bikini clad women.  Life on the ocean is just better and who needs religion anyways if you are not living in fear?  Religion is pushing heaven out of fear of the unknown, and it still has a mighty grip on the human population.

I know many of you will scoff at my lack of faith in God, soul, afterlife, and sin.  But I am telling you the priest made all these things up as necessity is the mother of all invention.  People wanted to believe in something so they did not have to face their own death, so that necessity drove the invention of religion and all the associated theology.  Religion fills a great human need, that is why it still exists even in the scientific age.

You can’t go to heaven or hell without a soul.  You will never meet Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates without a soul.  There is no afterlife review if we don’t have souls.  All these wild theologies and notions about what happens when we die are right out the window.  No soul means all theology is total bullshit.  Going to church and worshipping God is a supreme waste of time.

So what does it mean if we don’t have souls?  We are free from religion.  We are free from the Bible and all of what it says.  We are free from government and it’s authority established by God.  Not having souls is a good thing, it means we can pick up arms and kill those who want to subjugate and control us without fear of retribution from God.

But to get to this freedom you must overcome fear of death.  That fear is what allowed us to be tricked by the priest.  Fear of death is our greatest weakness.  We were subjugated by the church and state out of our own fear.  Without souls we need not fear judgment, God, or even soul traps.  No worries about going to the light, because that is all just a brain generated illusion when we die.

What is the greatest thing that happens to us if we realize we don’t have souls and this is it, we get one life to live and that is it?  Think about it, if this is our only life, then living it to the fullest right now is our only concern.  We are not worried about what might happen to us in some future afterlife if we decide to go nude swimming with the Swedish bikini team.