If you had an hour to spend with the Almighty what would you talk about?
Many people, worried about whether they would be dispatched to heaven or hell would beg forgiveness for all their sins. Others would bargain for more time on earth.
I would seek answers to these 5 questions.
1. Why are men and women so different?
I have tried to understand men and have finally accepted defeat. I don’t get how they think, why they do the things they do, how they are wired. To me, men might as well be another species.
Many men say the same about women. One of my friends told me the key to relating well with men is to just love them, not try to understand them.
I often wonder why you created us so different and yet we’re expected to get along in a relationship. Without killing each other.
Sometimes I wonder if you did it on purpose just to amuse yourself. Heaven must get boring sometimes, what with angels singing Hosanna non stop. Perhaps our antics as we try to get along provide comic relief for you? I can picture you on your great throne laughing your ass off as you watch us down here, hopelessly getting tangled up in our messy love lives.
It would be terribly boring if we were exactly the same, I get that. Who wants to spend all that time with someone who thinks and acts exactly like them? Still, we’re too different and that creates untold problems.
Why for instance did you give men such a high sex drive where they want to just go out and populate the planet? Then you made women the exact opposite, with a nurturing instinct that makes them prefer to stick to one man and not share. Was this supposed to work? Seriously?
Why did you create men and women so different? And why on earth didn’t each come with a manual?
2. Is there life on other planets?
If there is one thing you blessed man with, it’s a curious nature and the need to explore his environment. We’ve been very busy and have made wonderful discoveries about our universe and everything in it.
The size of our universe is so vast it makes me feel like a tiny speck. Just to recap what we’ve discovered so far. According to NASA, our sun, the nearest star, is 93 million miles away. That’s why the sun, which is a million times the size of the Earth, looks so small. It would take the Space Shuttle seven months to fly there.
When we leave the solar system, we find our star and its planets are just one small part of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a huge city of stars, so big that even at the speed of light; it would take 100,000 years to travel across it. All the stars in the night sky, including our Sun, are just some of the residents of this galaxy, along with millions of other stars too faint to be seen.
Beyond our own galaxy lies a vast expanse of galaxies, billions of them. The most distant are so far away that the light arriving from them on Earth today set out from these galaxies billions of years ago. So we see them not as they are today, but as they looked long before there was any life on Earth.
All this exploration hasn’t however answered this question: Is there life on other planets? I tend to imagine there is because if not, it would seem an awful waste of space.
If there is life elsewhere, can you tell me about it? Who are they? Are they different from us? Why can’t we see them? Can they see us? Why did you create them? Why did you create us? Do we get to visit them after we die?
I realise these are many questions. And chances are I’ll have more, once you’re done answering these. It might become like the 1001 Arabian nights where several sessions are required to get through all of them.
But hey, my tour of duty on earth is over. I’ve got nothing but time.
3. Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?
I really like the fact that you created man with a free will. I mean who wants to live like a slave? But seriously, aren’t you disturbed by what we’ve done with it?
This world has enough for all of us – food, water, shelter etc. The problem is greedy people and nations who don’t want to share. This is why we have so much inequality in the world and why nations keep going to war – it’s all about scrambling for resources.
You’re supposed to be omnipresent or whatever. You can do anything. Why then can’t you beat our heads together and show us the futility of all this fighting?
Our differences should be celebrated, not used as justification for killing each other. Think how the world would be if we were all the same race, looked exactly the same, spoke one language, dressed and acted alike. I would have died of boredom a long time ago.
Our differences make life interesting (this doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about the differences between men and women and its effect on relationships).
So why not just wield the big stick and make us see reason? We can go back to free will and making our own choices after that. But all this poverty, war, inequality, doesn’t it make you just sick? When will it ever stop? For how long will some have so little, while others have so much that they waste most of it?
There are good people in the world, I know that. I’ve seen and interacted with them. But they seem so few and their voices can hardly be heard above the din of the selfish, me-first majority.
We have made the world about mindless acquisition. Those with the most win and are the most admired, never mind how they acquired their wealth. As a result, we are teaching our children to acquire more and more at whatever cost so as to be number one. But it’s never enough and they are selling their souls in the process.
Man has clearly shown himself incapable of being fair to his fellow man. So why don’t you do something?
4. Why did you create mosquitoes?
Scientific discoveries have shown us that even the smallest occupants of our world have an important role to play. Without them, the delicate balance of nature would be upset.
Except mosquitoes.
They seem to have no purpose other than to make our lives miserable. They kill hundreds of thousands every year, especially children and don’t seem to contribute anything positive to the ecosystem.
Man has spent billions in efforts to eradicate or at least contain them but they seem to be developing more and more resistance to our medicines. At this rate the world will not be brought down by a misguided dictator launching a nuclear missile, but mosquitoes.
Speaking of which, I’ve heard (I don’t know how true it is) that cockroaches can withstand a nuclear attack. I believe the same of mosquitoes. Someone once said that the biggest benefit Noah would have bestowed upon mankind is swatting the pair that entered the Ark. I agree.
So tell me, why did you create mosquitoes?
5. Is reincarnation real?
I was raised Catholic and to believe in the concept of heaven and hell. But as I’ve evolved and matured, I’ve come to believe that no one religion has a monopoly on truth.
Plus many of the world’s religions have at their heart, remarkably similar concepts that if followed, would be good for all of us. So I borrow the good from each and ignore what I don’t agree with.
Frankly, I don’t like the concept of reincarnation. Life is often great and I believe it is a gift. But it’s also hard and often heartbreaking. I’ve gone through it, but I really don’t want to have to go through it again and again, if reincarnation adherents are to be believed.
So I ask: Is reincarnation real and if so, do I have a choice in the matter? I would rather stay here with you. I’ll even sing Hosanna for the rest of my days even though I’d prefer to become a star, shining down and watching everything that goes on in the universe.
Visiting the people on other planets also seems a great idea (if they exist that is). But please don’t send me back to earth. If you have to, perhaps as a different life form? A blade of grass for instance, or a tree? I’ve always liked nature.
Or better still, an eagle. It would be great to spend my life flying around and not being tethered to one place. To quote the song Eagle by Abba:
And I dream I’m an eagle
And I dream I can spread my wings
Flying high, high, I’m a bird in the sky
I’m an eagle that rides on the breeze
High, high, what a feeling to fly
Over mountains and forests and seas
And to go anywhere that I please
That’s all I had to say. I’m ready for whatever comes next.