1° Edition, 1st Revision
Time and again, we read in the news about demonstrations of prejudice regarding gender choice.
Analyzing the subject only through the lens of emotions or the cultural concepts of our own society can be a way of thinking that ignores other possibilities, which makes the judgment biased and therefore unjust.
Starting from the premise that the individual denies the existence of a principle that survives death, then he is confined to hypotheses where psychological behavior arises from somatic variation — that is, from the genetics that shaped the person.
Simplifying: if there is no soul, then only the matter of the body remains.
Would thinking and feeling be merely consequences of genetic codes?
Materialists remain restricted to matter, which makes them limited.
Admitting the existence of the soul, we can expand the hypotheses, separating the nature of the soul from that of the body.
Assuming such a perspective, and also admitting that life were a single expression — that is, a unique opportunity to “exist” — then its devotees are left to resolve the resulting doubts:
“Why would God create souls this way?”
Some happy with their bodies, others not?
Or is something created even before it exists?
Such a paradox makes this possibility unviable, because even if the choice occurred right after existence, what principle would lead the soul to different choices? This thought returns to the earlier one: God would not create all souls equal.
“If not God, then would it be a genetic condition? And in that case, why should the individual bear the blame?” It would be like holding a newborn responsible for a congenital deficiency, such as leukemia. This hypothesis falls back into materialism.
The atheist, as much as the theist who admits only one life for the soul’s experience, faces questions difficult to answer with plausible logic, and ends up feeding doubt that weakens faith itself.
And if we admit the existence of the soul’s evolutionary journey, traveling through time by means of multiple earthly existences, where the physical body is the medium that enables its permanence in dense matter — like a diver who uses different diving suits for multiple dives?
In such a context, it becomes easy to consider that the soul, being independent of the body, does not require gender. Yet perhaps, given previous physical experiences under another gender, it could define a psychological identification that conflicts with the gender of its current existence.
Working under the context of multiple existences, we can add other solutions, increasing the coherence of the answers that existence demands in difficult moments.
In this small essay, a laboratory for thought, the aim is to show that much of our so‑called “rational” attitudes arise from weak premises when faced with sharper questioning.
It becomes easy to understand so many problems that could be avoided when we realize that their origin lies in systems more restricted in thought, whose consequences bring a continuous succession of mutual violence.
In general terms, our civilization still has a long road ahead in re‑evaluating the conception of God and the soul.
Faced with conflict and extreme intolerance in the Middle East, the clash between Israel/USA and their enemies inspires reflection in this sense.
The Jews pray to Jehovah (God) and certainly expect His protection.
The Muslims pray to Allah (God) for the same.
In the USA, approximately 70% of the population is monotheistic, divided between Protestants (~45%), Catholics (~22%), and other smaller religious groups.
Since all the countries involved mostly adopt the monotheistic concept — that is, one God, creator of all — then it seems logical to think they are the same: Allah is Jehovah, differing only in language.
In this context, how would God stand in the conflict between Jews/Americans and Muslims, both asking for protection and victory, though all are brothers in humanity?
Being one single entity, we might imagine that if God answered one side, He would be betraying the other.
Or perhaps, when requests are conflicting, He ignores them — and in that case, both sides drift?
If you asked a religious fanatic, would he admit to praying to the same God as his mortal enemy?
Would such an idea enter the mind of those less enlightened?
Or does the individual imagine deep down that there is some difference between his God and that of the enemy? In that case, would it not resemble the Greek Olympus, where gods dispute power among themselves? But the monotheist cannot believe in two, for that denies the basic concept of one God.
Another hypothesis would be to think that Muslims, Americans, or Jews never ask God for victory in wars between them.
Hard to believe…
Only one sensible option remains: to consider that the difference lies in how each conceives what God is, and how He manifests.
Thus, the difference in understanding the principles that emanate from the single divine nature — and that define the way believers offer praise — ends up establishing a common point: God is one, but conceived in different ways. This leads to the thought that at least two of these conceptions are false creations of humanity’s religious vocation.
Conclusion:
Even the best of principles, if forced to coexist with others whose nature collides with its greatness, then transforms in the human psyche into something apart, isolated in watertight compartments of thought, where questioning becomes sacrilege and perjury in despotic theocratic regimes.
Mistaken concepts sponsor chains of errors, challenging the sanity of the best principles, sheltering the incoherence of unanswered questions that turn belief into the art of believing without thinking — where faith sustains the right to ignore the incongruities of human thought.
One day, far ahead, there will be a single thought, where science and religion will have reconciled: the first continuing to advance the frontier of knowledge, and the second sustaining understanding beyond that frontier, where faith will be the fruit of consolidating thought free from the torments imposed by its cruelest contradictions.
Author’s Note:
This post, though philosophical‑religious in nature, does not question the merits of faith, but rather the coherence of the acts derived from it.
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