> You are correct. Something is wrong. What's wrong is that mankind is turning away from God and denying him. The numbers of the faithful are dwindling, giving rise to those who speak false doctrines. These false prophets go unchallenged, and cause more to fall away. Then there are those like yourself, who believe in nothing but the self.

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People don't use their intelligence and don't practise prayer and meditation enough to lead to wisdom. Faith is only required to "listen and practise", but once practise leads to experience and knowledge, faith is no longer required. To base everything forever upon belief and faith in some indescribable being and "hope" is merely ignorance, it's childish. To believe that someone else is going to take the reins of your spirit and put it in places against your own will and intents is simply foolishness. "God" no more dictates the dreams your spirit experiences than he dictates the attachments of your spirit after death. There are only natural processes - and spirituality is understanding those processes to find the way out of our sufferings, and this is the teaching of all great religious figures at the core. It's a science, in the sense that there are practises that lead to experiences which can be independently verified, and which are accompanied by knowedge and wisdom which cannot be acquired any other way. Prayer is a beginning for focusing and concentrating the mind, a beginning to self-awareness, the beginning of turning away from the world/senses, but it is not enough. Next, one must stay in that state for 1-2 hours/day. Then ... when you have done this for a decade or so, and you have spent the required time to analyze what you are, and the components of the human experience, you will understand for yourself the message from all the great religious figures in history, the true foundations of religions - all of which have been corrupted to profit from the blind following and obedience of the masses.

What's needed is reality, observed reality as it actually is, eg truth, not belief/faith/God/etc. And when one does this, they will see that it's just like the Bible says: Satan owns this world, and satan is not a man/angel, but simply the temptations and lust for material existence. That is what binds our spirits to eternal hells and suffering. Yet, that is what most everyone lives for - and that's why most everyone is destined for hell.