The love of gambling, the false hope it offers, or its addictive nature has many people attracted to casinos, lotteries, and the many other games of chance. Like one of the early chapters that discussed possibility and probability, we sometimes ignore the true reality of the odds. Instead of faith, we put our trust in plain fate … the luck of the draw. The attraction of gambling and taking a chance becomes like the spiral pull of an evening light, which deceives and then misdirects the flight of a flying insect. Instead of using the Sun for its navigation, the insect is drawn by a manmade source of light. The end result is usually disastrous for the insect when it reaches the intense heat of this false sun.

Is the false light of gambling believed to be a quick way that avoids true work for a true day’s pay? So many strive to find happiness and their ultimate dream. Some are willing to let chance play a pivotal role in this fundamental pursuit. They begin to increase the chances they place, slowly but inevitably straying more from the safe navigation in the light of the day, to take alternate routes by the artificial light of the night. All of this in the hope of quicker riches. The draw placed upon them is real and powerful. It can be incredibly hard to avoid and is carefully crafted through enticing advertising or exciting and luxurious surroundings.

Maybe the excitement, joy, and revel in splendor is really not that far away from them. It is much closer than they think. Their stretch of living on Earth is relatively a very short span of time. This thing we call our life is but an small instance when compared to measures of time within the Universe.

Is there a heaven and is there a God? Does God exist? Is the concept of God, heaven, and an afterlife the real lottery? What delight and riches could possibly await us in this concept of a heaven? Why have so many people from ancient Egyptians to numerous religions throughout history and around this planet put stock into this concept of an eternal life and heaven? Why did independent cultures spaced by great distances and periods of time come to similar beliefs? Why is there this consistent fascination … why not just let go … why the need to cling and hang on to such concepts. Have so many people throughout all of time been completely fooled and how were they misled? Have they been trying to choose something? Choosing on this hope called eternal life?

We are different from animals and this statement may be contrary to what some scientists would have us believe. We cannot get into the minds of even the most intelligent animals whether they are whales, dolphins, monkeys, and so forth. Do they have hopes for an afterlife? Do they display any behaviour or preparations for an eternal life? My position is that they do not.

Then why do we? What makes us different? Is it just because we are humans, because we are so much smarter, because we seem to be in total charge of the planet, because we can do with it what we will, or because our intelligence allows us to philosophize and speculate? Being smarter or more intelligent does not rationally explain why we would have such beliefs. It does not make sense that there is a trigger point where you reach an intelligent quotient and suddenly you speculate about such things.