No, this is not about “Believe”, the song by Cher. Nor is it about “Believe”, the one-word marketing motto of Baltimore City. This is about what I know and believe.

My imagery of masculine males in danger and peril and my storytelling might convey the wrongful impression that I am a very unusual person. The truth is that I do not have what I consider to be unusual beliefs and values. But, I will open up to you all here so you can judge for yourself.

Roman Catholic Upbringing

I was born into the Roman Catholic faith and I attended Roman Catholic owned and operated schools from first through twelfth grade. That was a very high quality education if judged by the fact that 95% of my graduating class in high school went onto college. So it was that my life was shaped as a Christian in one of the world’s most established and powerful organized religions. 

By the time I had reached the beginning of my teenage years, I had developed an insatiable appetite for reading science fiction in print. Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), one of the great masters of science fiction literature, especially captivated me.  His 1955 time travel novel, The End of Eternity changed my life forever.  While reading this and other Asimov works during the 1960s, I grew to reject my Roman Catholic upbringing regarding the promise of an afterlife of either eternal reward in Heaven or eternal punishment in Hell.

A young kid around age 13 certainly cannot be expected to grasp intellectually the concept of eternity, so he likely will accept the concept of the afterlife on faith alone.  And so I did at first.  But, as a teenager, when I read Asimov’s The End of Eternity, I began to understand time as a quantifiable concept. More importantly, thanks to Asimov’s descriptions of time travel, I began to appreciate the mathematical scope of eternity compared to the lifespan of a typical human being.

The simple outcome of my reading Asimov and other science fiction writers of the 1950s and 1960s was that I grew to believe it could not be either fair or logical that a human being who lived approximately 70 years could earn an eternity of reward or punishment. Eternity is so much longer than a human lifetime. If the Creator is to be conceived of as a fair and just deity, then where is the fairness or justice of a lifespan of six or seven or eight decades leading to an eternal reward or punishment? I stopped believing in an eternal afterlife as taught by the Roman Catholic Church because that kind of afterlife to me seemed no more logical or believable than science fiction stories about machines that can enable a person to travel from the present into the past or the future.  The afterlife and time travel certainly are thrilling concepts that are engaging and fun to read and study and fantasize about. But, one cannot live life in the physical world in a reasonable way if one believes in impossible or improbable concepts like an enternal afterlife or time travel.

Moral, Peaceful, Unselfish

Instead of being motivated by organized religion’s vague promises of an eternal afterlife of rewards amid winged angels and heavenly streets payed with gold, I began to accept a personal responsibility for living a moral, peaceful and unselfish life. I became someone who continues to feel responsible for living as a decent and giving person minus the guilt-based motivations of religion’s concept of an eternal afterlife.

Simply put, studying time travel in science fiction stories as a youngster enabled me to attain what I consider to be an emotional intelligence with regard to organized religion.  I grant that many people, indeed, need and want organized religion in their lives to feel that life has meaning, purpose and direction.  Organized religion is fine if you choose it, but that’s just not who I am intellectually or emotionally.  That kind of statement, as interpreted by most Christians, would certainly bring me a lifetime of eternal punishment in Hell.  But, I just don’t believe there is either Hell or Heaven.

Belief in a Divine Creator

Do I believe in a Divine Creator?  Yes, I do.  For me, maybe because I have read science fiction for so many years, I find it impossible to consider that what we call the known universe could have simply created itself.  There must have been some initiator or creator or purposeful designer that got things going and who made it possible for life as we know it to be on planet Earth and elsewhere throughout the universe.

While I may find it reasonable to believe in God, the Father, and, God the Son, and even God, the Holy Spirit, I just do not and cannot believe in God, the interventionist.  I do not accept that God involves Himself in my everyday decisions and behaviors. I also do not believe it is possible to be rewarded after death with sexual favors from virgins in an eternal afterlife like some men believe. I think that kind of belief is just plain goofy.

I am certain that to some people, it must make perfect sense for intervention to be an attribute of God or Allah or whatever name you give to Him. I just don’t buy into that belief. I cannot understand how the Creator–an all-powerful Being–would have the need to care about particular details of each human being’s life and daily activities on this small blue planet. What would be the point of God getting so involved? If I shave today but not tomorrow, why should God know this or care about this?  If I masturbate today but not tomorrow, again, why should God know this or care about this? I struggled for years to figure out why religions choose to put so much emphasis on God, the interventionist, instead of focusing on how a religion can educate people to embrace a lifelong imperative of being moral, peaceful, and unselfish.

The elusive answer is that human beings are motivated most strongly by fear, by the threat of punishment, and by the avoidance of physical and emotional pain. Religions can control people and make people do what the religious leaders want them to do by making people feel fearful about the consequences of their behaviors. If you install a deep sense of fear that the afterlife will be filled with punishment and pain, you can get anyone to do what you want them to do. The problem is, there has never been any tangible proof that there is an eternal afterlife of either punishment or pleasure. You need to accept the belief in an eternal afterlife on faith alone, but in so doing, you end up believing in things that are similar to far-out ideas and plots in science fiction storytelling.

Sex and Biology

Then, there’s the whole issue of human sexuality and how organized religions deal with it. Most people sooner or later learn that human beings on planet Earth, like many other living organisms, reproduce by means of sex between a male and a female.  But, whenever anybody tells me that God specifically created sex solely for the purpose of men and women making babies, I tune out.  Mere mortals living on planet Earth who presume to know precisely why human sexual reproduction exists (other than for the obvious reason of continuing our species) and who then take things a step further and ascribe some religious purposes to why biology exists are arrogant, maybe also just a little dangerous, and certainly should not be trusted in my humble opinion.  I also wouldn’t give such people any of my money.

For a human male and a human female to reproduce by means of sex requires one essential thing: A human male needs to have a basic drive in his life so that he will want to reproduce by having sex with a human female.  If he does not, our species would eventually die out. 

This element of a human male’s very being is called sex drive.  This is one of the essential components of human reality that enables the continuation of our species. In order for our species to continue, at the very least a human male must get sexually aroused, insert his penis into a female’s vagina, and then he must experience an orgasm that causes an ejaculation of his seminal fluids into the female to enable the fertilization of a human life form that then grows inside of the female’s nurturing body.  That, simply put, is what is most essential for the continuation of the human species. Of course, sex drive is not a male-only trait, but my focus here today is on those of us who are men.

Within that act of sexual reproduction, if there is a necessary presence of some interventionist deity, I don’t know where He is and I certainly have never found Him there.  Even though a male may cry out “Oh, God!” when he is ejaculating, in and of itself, that does not prove that God is there during sexual activity. 

Ejaculation is Not Complicated

I believe that the sexual reproduction act is not at all complicated. Why is there an illustration of a naked cowboy? Males are motivated by their sex drive. Males ejaculate into females so that males and females each contribute to the creation of another life form. Babies are produced. The human species continues. Those are the essential steps. I believe that all else has been added on by religious leaders for thousands of years as a way to control people and their behaviors.

Getting down to a the most essential level, I believe that the most basic, fundamental need for the human species to continue is the need for a male to ejaculate. Life forms on planet Earth share commonalities.  One such commonality is that the males of the species who reproduce sexually need to ejaculate for the reproductive process to work.  Without that basic, fundamental need to ejaculate, species of sexual reproducers would eventually die out. 

If you are male and the illustration of that naked cowboy makes you feel the need to ejaculate, oh you just go right ahead, sir! So it is that human male ejaculation makes human life continue on planet Earth.  Furthermore, I believe that human male ejaculation evolved over time into something that is so powerful a physical drive that it cannot be and must not be ignored because to ignore it would lead to the end of the human species. Human male ejaculation in the process of sexual activity towards reproduction is one of the most important physical and emotional pleasures available to our species. Perhaps the seeking of the pleasures are what compel the sex drive along with the physical need that human males have to release their seminal fluids on a regular basis. Perhaps those sexual pleasures are the most essential ingredient to the continuation of the human species.

In my opinion, anyone who wants to add on some religious significance to male ejaculation is welcome to do so.  Most organized religions over time have, for instance, invested a lot of time, money, energy, and process into attempting to manage human male ejaculation. That’s fine if you choose to accept what an organize religion asks you to accept.

But, I believe it is equally possible that the pleasures leading up to and culminating in human male ejaculation may just be simultaneously the least complicated and the most important things that there are in the context of human life here on planet Earth. Why add on religious significances and human guilt and all that?  Why not just accept that pleasurable human male ejaculation is just the least complicated and the most important things that there are for us human beings?

Sexual Activity Between Men

Some human males find that their sex drive is oriented towards ejaculation into human females. That’s very good. That’s also very essential. But, the fact remains that some human males also may find that their sex drive is oriented towards male ejaculation into or onto other males. Of course, the biological reality is that male ejaculation into or onto another male does not advance the continuation of the human species. 

Well, that explains everything! Why organized religions have for thousands of years created rules and regulations and processes to punish males whose sex drive is oriented towards ejaculation into or onto other males is because organized religions know that the continuation of the human species is essential to the continuation of organized religion.

My view is that sexual orientation is separate from sex drive. For human males, sex drive enables the continuation of the human species. But, at some point in the development of the human species came the discovery that two people of the same gender can bring one another to orgasm. Wow, that complicated the whole continuation of the species imperative, didn’t it?!

Nobody has yet proven scientifically where human sexual orientation originates. But, wherever sexual orientation starts in a person certainly is linked in important ways to human biology. Sexual orientation in each person becomes something so deeply rooted in who the person is. While any person can deliberately and willfully make choices about how they behave sexually, no person’s sexual orientation involves choosing. If you happen to be gay, you cannot choose to turn straight. If you happen to be right-handed, you cannot choose to turn left-handed. Some aspects of being a human can be chosen. Others are not available to be chosen or unchosen. The trick is to learn which is which, isn’t it?

Thousands of years in the past, before human civilization became all messy and complicated and politically correct like we have today in the 21st century, some highly advanced and organized human civilizations did not get all hung up on what the pleasures of male ejaculation were for.  The ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans, specifically, were simple civilizations at least concerning considerations of the pleasures of human male ejaculation.  In those days, some men ejaculated into women while other men ejaculated into or onto men.  Still other men had sex drives that led them to have ejaculations with either or both men as well as women.  And they all just dealt with it, thank you. Many of the ancient Greeks and Roman might get all turned out by the illustration of the naked guy. Back in ancient times they didn’t have organized religions or civil laws and processes that punished males whose sex drive was oriented toward males.  Those were times from which we can learn much at least concerning considerations of the pleasures of human male ejaculation.

Self Mastery and Self Control

As I wrote earlier, if you are male and the illustrations on this page make you feel like you want to ejaculate, please do so. I believe that a human male’s sexual behaviors are his own responsibility. He should and must learn self control.  Does he need organized religion for that?  I do not believe so.

Nor do I believe that a human male should do sexually whatever he wants and with whomever he wants.  He must learn and master self control if he is to be successful as a man.  He is no good to the rest of society or to our species unless he is moral, peaceful and unselfish.  But, in my opinion, such traits as those do not necessarily have to come from organized religion.

There is also the matter of human violence and killing. I believe that the human species is at its core a violent species. Centuries of human history have proven beyond doubt that the human species is characterized by a tendency towards violence and killing. The human species, I think, may ultimately destroy itself if these tendencies toward violence cannot be managed by each and every human being.

As for me, personally, however, I strive to be a law-abiding and gentle person. I also want to be nonviolent in my own life and only hang out with other people who are nonviolent.

Do It Over

In conclusion, you may wonder what do I believe in as an afterlife since I do not believe in Heaven or Hell.  I believe that we humans go through the same or similar process that the universe goes through.  There is a beginning; there is birth.  Then, what follows is an end; there is death.  Then, the process repeats.

I believe in a system of checks and balances that a human being can tune into without the need for adhering to organized religions.  I believe that each of us is born, we live, we die, and then something fundamental to us as individual beings (call it the soul if you want to call it something) stays with us and we go through the being born, living, and dying over and over again and again.  I believe that there is some definite rhythm to this process. It’s kind of like the Big Bang, except maybe in our case, it’s more accurately called the Big Reboot. How we live influences how many times we will go through the being born, the living, and the dying.  Just maybe it’s all about learning how each of us can become moral, peaceful and unselfish.  You can choose whether or not organized religion is what you need to get you through.  But, you can never escape the responsibility to learn how to become moral, peaceful and unselfish or you will be back again and again until you learn what you must.