Why i fast.

It is the fasting month and like every other fasting months I find myself trapped between reality and illusions, between spirituality and religious showmanship. I have no problem with hunger and thirst and already have forgotten the need for cigarettes. My problem is in not being able to accept the whole ball of wax about Religions as a whole. Even as I am writing this I am forced to listen to a preacher preaching from the next cubicle where an office staff has it going on from You Tube out loud enough. It seems like as i am getting up there in age my mind if not that which has evolved over the years into who i am is not quite comfortable with what is being fed to me through religious practices and belief systems.
Needless to say that religions have been hijacked by political entities to garner control over the masses where force and economic constraints have failed. This happens in all religions on a relative scale and in almost every country around the globe. Some of these have taken the worse turns that has till this date is causing untold miseries and environmental disasters all in the name of religion with the motto, God is on our side. The killing fields are scattered all over the world and humanity has become comfortably numbed in accepting the atrocities that is being afflicted by one group upon another. Picture of children screaming and brutalized forms scattered across the streets has now become a common sight being shared by viewers on the Internet - ironically to be 'shared and liked.
Perhaps in fasting these pandemonium, this chaos that is proliferating like mushrooms all around from one country to another is being made aware of as we each become aware in ourselves what it is like to be hunger and thirst that is suffered by those in the war torn zones. But i feel highly unlikely as i see the amount of food being consumed and the amount of money spent during the fasting month exceeds what is normally spent on a normal day. Instead of loosing weight I found according to statistics that more weight is gained during the fasting month by most. By right i believe it is during this month that each and every individual is left alone to his own devices in his relation to his Maker. This should be a time of absolute privacy where a man search his soul for answers with no interference from outsiders; he can choose to fast or not, it is simply between him and God.
Fasting is not merely abstaining from eating and drinking or harboring negative thoughts or unhealthy behaviors, fasting during the month of Ramadan is a month long purification of one's inner being and feeling the connection between one's self and one's Maker. In fasting one opens the door of one's faith towards the existence of the All Mighty and that you have come from Him and will return unto Him. During this Holy Month one is reminded of the covenant made between the Soul and God prior to conception; hence the Shahadah- There is none but Allah to be worshiped. 
As one's senses is being heightened through hunger and thirst, through abstaining of pleasurable and mind altering mediums, one becomes aware of the collective spirit that is suffering throughout the world and ideally would be more sympathetic and merciful towards the pain around us. It is in this sense that fasting in the month of Ramadan becomes a collective effort. Through our fasting as a whole we come to realize the need to help in easing the suffering of our fellow man and help to bring the conflicts to an end by whatever means possible. This is my reason for fasting during this Month of Ramadan; heaven and hell has very little to do with it.