My+Conclusion

__ The Importance of Beliefs/Understanding __

A belief system is a group of smaller beliefs. There are many beliefs in the world, (scientific, Christian, Buddha, etc.), and they all try to answer questions that we humans don’t know the answers to (yet). Humans do not want to handle with the unknown, people want to understand, and therefore different groups of people or individual people have made religions. The scientific theory is not a religion, even though mostly a religion is to explain something (in my opinion). The sorts of questions religions (and scientists) try to answer are questions like: ‘how was the world created?’ or ‘what happens when you die?’

The many different beliefs have a place where they are most worshipped (not in the case of the scientific theory). Taoism is mainly in Japan, and Hinduism is mostly in India. Judaism is found mostly in Israel, though it is also found in other places. The Christian religion however is in many places in the world, in America and Europe mainly. It has spread greatly. The scientific theory is also around the world, since there are scientists around the world. I don’t have an real belief, though if I had to choose one, it would probably the scientific theories.

One of the questions religions try to answer is the question “How was the world created?” All (or at least I think all) belief systems have tried to understand how it was created. Christians and Jews believe that God created the universe in 7 days, and that he created Adam and Eve, the first humans. Hindus have the understanding that Lord Brahma’s body parts created different things on Earth. Taoists have a similar belief, that after the God Pangu held up the sky and he died of exhaustion, that his body parts also created things on Earth. Buddhists believe that the universe is a cycle, that land formed on a surface of water, and that it eventually will start to fade again. In my opinion, I think this could be possible. The scientists probably still believe that there was a Big Bang, and that the explosion caused planets to form. This I find probably the most likely to be true, though I don’t have any real belief.

The other question people ask and that there isn’t any specific answer to (yet) is “What happens when you die?” Many religions have the understanding that you can be reborn, or you go to Heaven or Hell, depending on what you did in your life. When you are still alive, there are rules you have to follow to get a good place when you die. For example, in Christianity, if you break the rules or do ‘bad’ things such as believing in another God or stealing all the time, you were most likely to go to Hell. However if you followed all the rules and did many good deeds, you would have a good life in Heaven. Hindus believe in rebirth, and this depends on certain factors, when you die, where you die and other similar things. Buddhists think that you are reborn, or you go to Heaven or Hell. Scientists have come to their conclusion, that when you die, the worms eat you, the nutrients (or energy) go into the soil, the nutrients in the soil then help the grass grow, which gets eaten by a cow (for example), humans eat the cow, get your energy, die, worms eat you… See the cycle?

There is a story about blind men touching different parts of an elephant; they all think that the elephant is a different creature, although they are touching the same animal. That is kind of what all of these different beliefs remind me of. They all have a different perspective about the same thing. I find death beliefs a bit different. I find it like a mountain, with different paths leading down from it, that it starts at death, and different things happen, according to different beliefs. It is hard to say which belief is true and which is not, they could all be correct, they could all be wrong. I mostly believe in the scientific theories, I don’t think that there is any supernatural being out there who created everything, though I don’t know if the Big Bang theory is true either. It’s all very complicated.


 * Quotes:**

__“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I can see everything else.”__ C.S. Lewis

__“Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase good deeds.”__ Buddhist saying

__“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”__ From ‘The Book of the Way’, 600 BC