A quick entry, I think.
Today in Re we watched the rest of that Barbara Walters (that's her name, right? I'm so forgetful... x_x) special on different views of Heaven.
I think I most agree with the Buddhist concept of the afterlife. Like I said before I believe in reincarnation, and their belief in karma is something that I like. I think something like that is in every religion, and it helps us live better and more noble lives. I also liked what the author of "the five people you will meet in heaven" said; maybe heaven is just a fantasy. Maybe it's just a concept that helps comfort us and helps us live better, and that's heavenly enough.
Another thing in the video that was interesting to me was the Evangelical man's concept of Heaven. I'm going to go into cynic mode right now if no one minds. >_< He said that there was no sex in Heaven, that in Heaven, there was no need for the pleasures of Earth. But then, the same man said that there was a lot of feasting in Heaven, that there were always wonderful foods. Food is not only an earthly comfort (and necessity), but Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Lust is another sin, but I think this brings up the Christian taboo on sex. I think most other Heavens that were discussed had sex in it, most notably the Muslim Heaven.
Just a note. ;D

Okay... so I totally just lost a journal entry that it took me about thirty minutes to write. @_@ This website has such a terrible set up! ... We really should have used xanga. Anyway. Let's see what I can salvage.
This is the background of my Spirituality, as this is for my Youth Group at Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church...
I have never really been a spiritual person. Although my mother was raised a Catholic, she didn't push it on us. I think she disliked it because she's far too independent for a religion as restrictive as Catholicism. My father isn't very religious at all, and I think I inherited much of my cynicism toward it from him. Since I was very young, I believed that Jesus and God and their miracles were a bunch of crap, something that was made up in times of limited knowledge to answer people's inherent questions about the Origin of the Universe, the end of life, and the reasons for goodness and morality. I mistook then religion as a sign of weakness of the mind.
However, now I do believe that religion is a good thing. Although some people corrupt religion and con those that believe in it, the faith that it brings can support people through times of misery, and give them a reason to do good in their lives. Faith is like a safety net, for when everything else you believed in has abandoned you.
However, this is just poetic speculation on my part. I have no faith in a higher deity. Today, when my atheism was brought up, an Episcopalian friend of mine called me a pansy (her choice of words has yet to be understood), and I realized just how wrong she was. Living as an atheist, I can't believe in what people tell me, that Jesus loves me and watches over me, that the belief in something I can't see, hear, or touch will save me from eternal damnation. I can't be sure of what happens after death, or even that if I live my life as best I can, I will be rewarded for it. I am reminded now of the song "Thoughts of A Dying Atheist" by Muse.
Eerie whispers
trapped beneath my pillow
won't let me sleep
your memories

and I know you're in this room
I'm sure I heard you sigh
Floating in between
where our worlds collide

scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
and it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see

and I know the moment's near
and there's nothing you can do
look through a faithless eye
are you afraid to die?

it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
and it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see

It scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
and it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see

This song displays to us the fear and uncertainty that someone with no faith may go through as they reach the end of their life. How is there really a way to know that there is a heaven? A hell? Or do we simply disappear, into the deepest darkness that could ever be imagined.
I remember when I was younger and some weeks I would come downstairs to my parents nearly every night, crying because as I began to fall asleep, my thoughts would turn to death, and I would be filled with fear and anxiety. My little brother recently went through this stage, and it made me think of what I can believe in, even as an atheist, to get me through the dark hours of uncertainty. I believe in reincarnation, because it not only has a background set in science, but I have also had many experiences that I can attribute to it. The concept of reincarnation follows closely to the Law of Conservation of Energy. In this Law, it is stated that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transferred from one particle of matter to others. If a soul, the intangible driving force of a body, is like energy, then when it leaves one body, as that body dies, it enters another. I personally have had many experiences of deja vu, some of them so deep that my eyes begin to feel sore. I also have out-of-body experiences, usually when staring in a mirror in a white room, where my mind can get so lost that not only can I not move, but I can't remember my name.
Although I can't have faith in God or Jesus, I can create my own faith. Something intrinsic to my own self, that makes it all the more powerful.

So, I have no idea how the crap this works.
But I shall use it... and use it the best I can.
Once I figure out what the heck to do. x_x