A young girl raped by her father and now carrying his child…

A man is shunned for being in one single, honest relationship his entire life with another man…

A child losing his mother to a simple procedure gone wrong at the hands of a drunk surgeon…

A Jew, taken away from his home and worked until he was a pile of ashes…

A woman being beaten by her loving husband with no moral grounds for divorce…

A man whipped until there is no more skin on his back just because of the color of his skin…

A child starving to death with its family while their government grows rich…

An elderly woman dying of a perfectly treatable ailment simply because she cannot afford the medication…

A tornado rips someone’s life apart, a hurricane blows it away and an earthquake eats it up never to be seen again…

These things happen everyday and I have a very hard time understanding how any rational human being could praise a god in this world. If there is a god and s/he/it allows these things to happen, how can one blindly give their heart to it? Are we that desperate? That needy? That scared and self-conscious? Why do we teach our children that life on this earth is nothing, that real life comes after death when you step through those pearly gates? Why can’t life on earth be rewarding and full-filling? If we teach our children instead that this is the only life we have and to make it through we must treat others with dignity and respect, would they make different decisions? The world would be a better place if people weren’t driven by fear but instead by compassion.We must take responsibility for the good and the terrible things we do as a human race and we must always strive to make ourselves better people.

I choose to live for today and for tomorrow. I choose to be a good person because I believe it is the right thing to do, not because some anonymous guy wrote some ancient book and told me to, or else! I have faith in humanity, not some ghost in the sky. To me, this all just seems so obvious. Don’t allow yourself to be brainwashed. Think for yourself and determine your own conclusions. Be driven by the heart and mind, not by blind faith and fear.