The fact that someone will sacrifice their own life in the name of their religion has baffled me more than anything I've ever known, considering the fact that we're all doomed to the same fate. No, not death. Death is a rather easy concept grasp. The truth of existence is that all human beings, whether we levitate into heaven or just rot in the ground, are doomed to experience time forever. There can be no end to time, because there was no begining. What ever existed before humanity was either there forever or was created from something else. And the same is true for the creator of that existence. Where ever we go when we die, we'll be in the same situation as when we were when we were born on earth. We'll be manipulating matter, waiting for some sort of end. No end will ever come. And if some end does come, what Next? Blackness, forever?
So when you come back to the struggles of mankind, you realize that our acts of martyrdom aren't significant in way except for the ignorant removal of someone's, maybe only, form of existence. So, what would be more mentally stimulating: Trying to survive every day, for eternity--or given everything you've ever wanted, to exist with for eternity.
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I can tell that this is something that you have come to struggle with and can't resolve. I've been there too, these are questions that can be answered in so many ways that I have just concluded that there isn't really an answer or right way. I know this helps you in no way whatsoever, but just had to say that I think I know where you are coming from.
Michelle
UI undergraduate
Focus: philosophy, biology, education