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I really have no stand to take on this issue because I truly don't know what I believe. I did go to church on a semi-regular basis not all that long ago, but it was, at least partially, to please an ex-girlfriend. To tell you the truth, my religious experience didn't clear my thoughts on this subject in the slightest. I did have a certain degree of inner peace that I hadn't experienced in a long time, but, to tell you the truth, I looked upon certain members of the congregation as hypocrites, and I don't miss these people in the slightest.

What I do know is that the Bible and The Book of Mormon, etc. are incredible literary works, and a lot of thought went into their creation. We don't know a whole lot about those who wrote the Bible, other than what lies within the text itself; however, Joseph Smith doesn't seem to have had the background to have written a book that dwarfs the likes of WAR AND PEACE in both quantity (of words) and quality. That is one of the tenets of the Mormon religion: divine intervention seems to be the only realistic option. Perhaps it is.

My father isn't a deeply religious man on the surface. He hasn't stepped foot in a church in a number of year, but he reads The New Testament on an almost daily basis. He fought in WOrld War II, and he likes to tell me that "There are no atheists in foxholes." I have never been in a foxhole, but I look upward and pray every time that my life takes a bad turn. Nevertheless, I do claim otherwise every time relgion comes up in conversation. I'm just not clear on the issue, but I want to believe-in something-very badly.

The issue of belief and afterlife even puzzles me to a degree. Atheists, agnostics, and lukewarm believers make up a large part of the world's population, and it's hard to believe that any religion can condemn these people. You never hear about any of these groups declaring war on the Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, or anybody else. Religion plays a major role in what is wrong with the world today, but it can also be said that it has a lot to do with what's right in the world. Whether or not there is an afterlife appears, to me, to be a coin flip, but I certainly do hope that I'm flipping a two-headed coin on judgment day.

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