I read somewhere that 99+% of all species that ever existed on earth are extinct.
These species appeared, thrived, declined and perished.
Now we are on top of the food chain like a drunk on a mechanical bull in Billy Bob's bar hanging on for dear life!
We look behind us at the extinct ones and wonder what advantage we might exercise to stay on that bucking bull without falling off.
It isn't just SURVIVAL we humans hunger for. The homeless guy living under a bridge begging for food with the little cardboard sign in the middle of traffic is s-u-r-v-i-v-i-n-g. Survival is staying alive.
Humans require more than survival!
We also need comfort, a sense of well-being, freedom to make a wide variety of choices about our lives and especiall HAPPINESS and contentment.
Now is that asking TOO MUCH? Sure it is.
The ideal is what? We have the life of our own choosing?
We aren't held back. We aren't opposed. We select from the banquet buffet with ease.
The ideal is having power to veto or to choose whatever the hell appeals to our fancy!
Let me pause and have a good laugh! Ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho...deep cleansing breath.....ha ha ha ha ha.....ha.
There now. I'm done.
It isn't enough to be comfortable. We want to be attractive. We want to be accepted. We want to be cool.
The list gets bigger and bigger as society pressures the young very early on to stay young, slender and appealing.
And it doesn't end there!
There is something gnawing away at the edges of our life that just can't be chased away.
What is it?
WE HUNGER FOR CERTAINTY.
We would like guarantees...ironclad and infallible...that we are RIGHT and that we KNOW BETTER than everybody else what is in the road ahead.
Well....welcome to the world of RELIGIOUS FAITH!
For those kinds of ABSOLUTES you have to leave this world of testable hypothesis. You grab for another world advertised as BETTER and BEST.
You can end up trading your lie away for CERTAINTY.
Chuck it all but grab for certainty and you can remain on top of the food chain.
You have perfect vision of the road ahead.
You KNOW when others only think they know.
How?
You are CONVINCED.
Accept it on faith and nothing can tamper with your grasp on eternity and all its fanciful promises.
What the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses offers is not Truth (although they call it "the Truth").
JW's offer the comfort and peace of mind that comes from trading everything (rational thinking, freedom to control and individuality) for the pot of gold at the end of the Faith rainbow: ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY.
It is like pouring concrete in your ear. Once it hardens nothing can break through the barrier between fantasy and reality.
You trade and you get the brain freeze.
Oblivious and impervious to reasonable skepticism the mind of the JW simply SHUTS OUT all proofs of bullshit.
We may have all felt that tingle and tickle of Absolute Certainty which filled us with great POWER!
Nobody could tell us anything! WE KNEW IT ALL.
And then, one day we look at the crumbled rubble of our personal lives and wonder "How the hell did THAT happen?"
Sorry, buddy.
You traded YOUR LIFE away. All you got was CERTAINTY.
Sure, it was a hollow world of self-deception. But....didn't it feel great WHILE IT LASTED??