In reading the newspapers every day one can’t help but wonder what it will take to bring about peace on this tiny speck of a planet of ours.
Seriously, when you look at the overall scheme of things and realize that we are all very lucky to inhabit a virtually perfect planet for us to live on. I am sure that there are others like it, and that someday we may get to visit them, but for the time being we have to protect what we already have.
What I don’t like is the fact that every day people seem to be finding reasons to kill one another. Of course, the kooks and the crazies and the fact that guns are so readily available lends itself to that almost too easily. My main concern is primarily the Middle East and what is taking place there. I truly see no purpose in setting off a bomb to kill a bunch of innocent people, women and children because they supposedly do not believe in the same God as the bomber. Most of this we know comes from various factors in the Moslem culture. No matter which group you belong to the basics remain the same. To go further, HOW you worship separates you once again
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called “hypocrites” and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. Whew!
All religions, including those that we follow in our country start with the basic idea that OUR God is loving and kind and would do no harm nor allow anyone to do harm to others. Yeah, sure. A few million Jews in Europe may question that. Now we somehow get ourselves involved in the many conflicts of the Middle East, primarily from ISIS and whatever other groups exist, all claiming to be worshiping Allah in the correct way. Our solution is sending the drones over to kill whatever people we happened to kill with the hopes that at least one or two of them are leaders. The problem is how do you fight against a people whose greatest pleasure is dying.
I would like the opportunity to try and convince these people that the life here on this fragile planet is all we get. If there is an afterlife then it is in the form of those who remember you when you were alive and whether you were a good and helpful person as opposed to someone who sets off a bomb in a department store killing lots of innocents.
That’s it! How you will be remembered is truly your afterlife. I would love to believe as many do, that living here on earth is just a practice run for that magical place with streets paved with gold, angels flying around, and all kinds of other wonderful things. I can tell you now as a fact that this does not exist.
How do I know? I am sure by now many people have probably been buried with their cell phones and at least one of them would have messaged their loved ones to tell them how truly happy they are floating around in those beautiful white clouds. I certainly will take my cell phone with me and post all my experiences on Facebook with perhaps a few pictures. If you don’t hear from me in quite some time after I’m gone, that should be proof that there is nothing up there or that my battery died.
I guess what I am saying is that after 13,500,000,000 years we should have grown up just a bit and learned how to get along with one another no matter what church, shull, or mosque you belong to. Those are all great places for meeting other people with similar beliefs and some great parties, bingo games and what have you, but what do you care if someone in another building is behaving in a different manner as long as they are not trying to kill you.
Okay, I expect lots of nasty replies to this article, but as you all know I tell it like it is, at least to me. Perhaps start calling me “The ERNEST.”
Don’t forget to read my latest book When I Was Your Age, available from me or Amazon and Kindle. Just type my name in the search engine.
For more about Ernie Sochin visit www.sochin.com.
