Feelings torture us in our waking hours and chase us in our nightmares

Voice:  Bill!Bill:  I thought I heard a voice.Voice: Bill!  This is a Message from Heaven.Bill: I don't believe this.  Is Heaven on speaking terms with the world?Voice: Not often.Bill:  Why me?SilenceBill:  Speak, Lord.  I listen.Voice:  We created all things in the universe ? the vast reaches of galaxies and the magnificent life on earth. Among all life forms, We endowed man with a superior intelligence, to recognize events around him and to fashion an immense host of feelings.  Feelings warn him of danger, drive him to work and make him love and protect his children.Bill:  But, Lord, feelings drive us mad. We cry in sadness and weep in shame.  We are burdened by guilt and goaded by ambition. Feelings torture us in our waking hours and chase us in our nightmares.  Could you kindly take back this gift of feelings?  Not wanting to hurt Your feelings...Voice: When you were a young civilisation, you needed feelings.Bill:  Nobody could ever need all that pain.Voice: Aeons ago, feelings guided men.  Fear made him run away from the roar of the lion.  And love prevented him from eating his young.  But, across millenniums, you have grown and accumulated wisdom. Now, you really don't need the crutch of painful feelings. You can walk free!Bill:  Save me from jests, Lord.  How can mankind ever be rid of pain and fear, anger and jealousy? Those emotions take hold, even before we realise it.Voice: Yes.  That is the order of things ? the way the system works.  Your purpose in life is to live it fully against its immense odds.  Left unsolved, those difficulties caused you pain, anger, or frustration. Emotions were the supreme gift, which forced you to solve those problems.  But, across centuries, you have accumulated wisdom.That wisdom resides within you.Bill:  But, Lord, where does such wisdom reside within me?Voice: Within your nerve cells.  We gifted you with more than a hundred billion. Each cell perceives, remembers, recalls and recognizes.  You see and remember the sunset to recognize the approach of night.Bill:  But, Lord, I feel anger and hatred, pain and disgust. Where do these reside?Voice: Nerve cells fire to stir your emotions.  If one fires, you feel dread.  If another fires, you feel pleasure. Your own scientists discovered these age old secrets.