could i die for this, you never know

I don't know if God is real or not, if it exists or not, if it created this world or not. Or maybe God is real but didn’t create the world, or maybe God is real, created the world, but not for the reason we think. I don’t know if there is one God or many, if one rules over all galaxies or if there are separate gods for each individual galaxy.

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that people; they are real. They can be touched, felt, loved, and hated. They are dying and killing in the name of God, either willingly or unwillingly, but they are.

And if God is not real, then dying in the name of something that doesn’t exist makes no sense. But even beyond the question of whether God is real, people are still dying and killing in God’s name.

Is this truly a war of the gods between the real one and the fake one?

Let’s not get graphic, please, social media has already taken care of that. But think about it. Why?

In my opinion, the war isn’t about different types of gods but about the cultures built under the name of God. For instance, if one community worships trees as sacred while another cuts them down for paper and resources, conflict is inevitable. At its core, that’s the dispute.

In retrospect, it is not, never was, and never will be a war over God, but a war over culture. And the thing about culture? No one truly cares about it until there is competition.

Humans, whether created by God or not, are meant to live in harmony. But we are too animalistic to even acknowledge that.

8.2 billion people.

8.2 billion possibilities.

8.2 billion philosophies and ideologies.

And the ego that people carry and the belief that they are never wrong. And when people are never wrong, they can never be rational. And when people are never rational, they can never live in harmony. Rationality is the only seed needed for peace, because it builds perspective.

If I had to sum it up, I’d say: if humans were created by God, it was for one reason and that was to live. But we fucked it up. We took a bite from the fruit of knowledge, lost all our powers, became mortal, and to prolong our mortality, we altered living into surviving.

Surviving like any animal does in the jungle. But because we are social animals, we got creative with our survival.

And survival has one rule: last man standing.

That’s why people are dying and killing.

Cultural warfare: Last man standing. Who dies and kills? People.

Political warfare : Last man standing. Who dies and kills? People.

God’s warfare : Last man standing. Who dies and kills? People.

National warfare : Last man standing. Who dies and kills? People.

A beautiful world that could have been has now turned into a game of chess. The king and queen die last. But the first to be thrown out? The pawns. Then, one by one, the elephant, the horse, and the camel.

¯\(ツ)/¯

This is us, after eating the fruit of knowledge. No wonder it was forbidden. Maybe, MAYbe, MAYBE, Steve knew that his reflection couldn’t handle what was meant for him, or her, or it. But what difference does it make?