This is a follow on to Who Am I? Realising you dont know. This was originally posted as just the questions detailed at the end of the essay because I couldnt explain in writing what was banging around in my head. I think its explained now so here we have the whole.

The original questions only post though got some really good responces and some healthy debate so is definately worth checking out the original post as well, but then I would say that! :)

This was actually recounted to me by a friend the other day who had been told this by the father, got that?

My very first books in school were of Jesus on water, Moses parting the red sea, Jesus feeding the 5000, Adam and Eve deliberating over the apple, Jesus healing and raising from the dead, Noah's Ark.

As soon as I got to school in the morning from the age of five through to eleven I was preached to by the headmaster, usually a saying from the bible and then we sang Christian hymns. All the major holidays in the year, Easter and Christmas were about glorifying religious iconography and repeating this message. I was essentially brainwashed from a very early age and it stuck deep, deep inside my psyche.

At the time of my great identity crises, circa 2002 my religious identity was technically that of a non practising Christian. I wasn't sure why though, other than I didn't find Christians to be very agreeable.

It felt very important to me that if I was going to find out 'Who I was' that I needed to start with my religious identity.

I started with a whole bunch of religion orientated questions that date back to the fundamental concepts I had been brainwashed with as a child. At the time I realised I didn't have a clue.

The questions are posted at the end of the essay with my answers as they stand today,

I did feel that if I could break down these questions and answer the 'why' I would at least have my feet firmer on the ground.

So I began. I listened to historical tapes and read books. Nothing dodgy or secret, just purchased from Amazon and the Teaching Company. I studied the life of Jesus, the world of Jesus, the emergence of Christianity after his death. I studied the religious writings of the time, saw how some of these became the New Testament. Studied the impact of Judaism on Christianity.

I soaked information up like I was a sponge. I studied the evolution of early Christianity into the Roman Catholic church, the middle ages and the impact it had on our culture even from then, the emergence of Europe through the first millennia, the emergence of England through the second. I studied the origins of Islam, what it stands for and its early history. I even studied the psychology of the mind, religion and existentialism.

You could of course study all this for a lifetime and not know everything in detail, but I had gathered a high level knowledge over a number of years, and is of course ongoing.

Through this, I now have a clear understanding of what I believe, feel very secure in my being here, what I stand for. Especially my place in all this.

No I don't think the story is a real account. As a whole its meant to symbolise mankind's connection with god

They represent mankind's affiliation with god and that god exists because he created man.

Historically its pretty certain that Jesus existed. There are just too many independent sources for them to all have made it up.

Since the time of Jesus there is no documented evidence that anyone has been able to raise the dead, walk on water and be resurrected from dead as described in the New Testament. In the time of Jesus it was very popular for people to claim a prophet could perform miracles. Jesus was by far not the only one, just the only one still followed in our culture. Miracles are events that cannot be explained by the laws of nature. I believe no man can escape the laws of nature and therefore that Jesus was very unlikely to have performed miracles.

The simple answer is No for the reasons I stated above.

No I don't have a soul, I have a mind that is a consequence of my brain, life's experiences and some inherited morals

When you die, your brain functionality will cease, your heart will stop beating and your mind or concious with it. If you have children I believe that some part of your mind and morality passes to your children. I havent quite worked that one out yet though.

Christianity teaches us the morals of life it wants us to abide by. Some of them are wrong and there are many worthwhile ones that are not included

No mankind like all of natures product are born with base morals, at least most of us. Unfortunately not rearing humans to a moral code can result in immorality, but then your probably defining immorality by Christian standards.

No to both. Hell is a construct to scare the living shit out of us. Heaven is man's answer to immortality.

Now then, yes I believe in god as a concept but not as a supernatural power, I even think I know where god is.

Q:If I don't have a soul what am I?

Homo Sapien

It seems the most likely origin for life on this planet based on the information we have at this time.

Yes, it does seem the most likely explanation.

Yes. To live, breed and die, just like the rest of nature.

I don't really know. We are technically bigger than most things on the planet, and there have primarily been more of us than anything else. Our brain does also seem to be more advanced than most others, although we have only really applied it in the last four hundred years.

No. The bible is the word of man, written around his need for a god.