The beginning and end by Bob iwamasa

Jacob is God and smokie is the devil.I island is in our heads.

Jacob says that man is basically good and is a work in progress. He has free will do do anything he wants. He created him, but it all comes to and end (maybe when the show ends) or when we actually die but until then, we can do anything we want within our given capabilities.

Now,smokie says basically we are no good and all we do is "They fight. They destroy. They Corrupt. It always ends the same”
So the writers of the show say "What about writing a show called LOST where we write that Jacob picks some people to bring to an island where they can interact with one another to be judged as to whether they are indeed good as Jacob says or bad as the MIB/Smokie/Flocke says we are. When he touches the chosen people, he puts in their brains a connection to all the others he touches.
We are a work in progress everything we do, the choices we make cause us happyness or misery. God made us to have inside each of us good and evil. Some people are basically good; mother Theresa, Gandhi, Jesus, Mohammad, Gautama Buddha etc. others are bad Hitler, Madoff, Idi Amin, Gengis Kahn, Pol Pot, Ivan the Terrible,etc.

Appaently, the writers have decided that Smokie can decide whether to wipe out someone even if we don't know too much about them like the pilot who got pulled out of the cockpit, and others who we know something like Eko or Danniel but maybe they had to be cut short becuse the actors had to do something else; maybe the characters were just not that interesting.

Now let us say that these chosen ones are just like us in the real world. We can do anything we want within our capabilities,for example, if we go walking around the block by choice one day, then that is one story line if we chose to stay indoors on the same day and time, then that is another storyline. It doesn't have to be any alternate universe or time line. It is just another possibility of what can happen because of the choices we can make. So one can write a storyline where say Hitler comes to power and anoher where he doesn't... One where the bomb goes off and another where it doesen't.In the real world of course there is only one choice that we made. Its great to be in a place were we can see two different things taking place at the same time but in different timeframes and conditions we face.

To make it interesting lets write about main characters say Jack, Locke,Sawyer, Jin Sun, etc. and see what they would do under conditions presented to them like on an island which has unusual properties like a large magnetic pocket and can move. They all have flaws just like we do but some can redeem themselves.

Lets also say that if the person ends up doing something worthy and good, then he/she is released and returns to the real world but as a changed person.

Now it seems that Juliet would be a candidate for good since she sacrificed herself by detonating the bomb and is heard after she died on the island and saying "It worked".

Now is Lapidus a candidate? Is Illana, Dogen, Jack, Sun Jin , Sawyer, Rose,...? We don't know yet.
Is Ben a candidate? I don't think so. Ben says to Jacob before he stabs and kills him on the island saying "what about me"? Jacob says "what about you"? Sad Ben, you just don't get it, you think only about yourself.

Since the island is a creation of the writers, it comes from their minds and we can accept this, like some of us accept and know about God and the devil. We can't prove this but accept this by faith and records passed down from people who wrote the Bible, Quran etc.IF there were no humans would there be a God and Devil? If there were no one around and a tree fell in the forest would it have made a sound? It seems that we need to have the humans present and the forest and the tree inorder for the sound to be heard. Of course the vibration of the tree falling would occur but there would be no sound since there is no one there to hear it unless we get fussy with the words meaning. It seems as if humans exist then God and the Devil exist so it is all made up in our brains.

Man has inside him thoughts that can lead to good or evil, our choices ultimately make us a good or bad person.

If we do things for others and do not think only of ourselves we are good. If we only think of ourselves are greedy and bad.
I don't think the writers intend the "chosen" ones to go to heaven, they are returned to normal reality if they have "proven" themselves, a changed person, different they would have been if they had not experienced the island.

I would like the guys who remain corrupt to remain on the island forever, but maybe they are also released and returened to normal reality, unchanged. Maybe its just like that in the real works, these people keep on bumbling around doing bad or nothing worth while-after all its their choice. My wife Ruby says its the real world, some people change their lives for the better as they go through life an contribute in a meaningful way before they die whereas others who are jerks, or bad people remain bad and they die too just like good people but they have done nothing to make the world a better place and manytimes worse. I sort of would like the bad people to not return but then they must return otherwise the real world would have changed.

Maybe in the real world all this is taking place in their heads in the unconscious so no one would miss them while on the "island", nor would they know themselves what happened, even though it did happen since it was happening in their unconscious mind.
Afterall, all this thinking and trying to figure things out is taking place in our conscious minds and in the conscious minds of the writers.

The rest of the stuff Dharma folks, stations, plane breaking up, are interesting story boards to give the people a place to experience how each of them will respond to a situation; sort of like the imaginary place created on board StarTrek where people can play games.
In the end, the people who have resoved their own problems and devils will now be happy, those that do not will remain miserable and LOST forever.

In the end, I think that those names that are crossed off in the cave have won thier minds battles of good and evid and are happy. Locke will get married and be happy and walk again; Hurley already is happy, being CEO of businesses and helping people he will no longer be thinking he is cursed; Sawyer will meet Juliet and have coffee and find love; Myles will have a good relationshp with his mother and father Pierre Chang;Jin and Sun will be together with their child and Jin will no longer be working for Sun's father and Sun is now running the business honorably; Sayid will be with Nadia; Jack will be a happy surgeon and will marry Kate no longer feeling cursed by his father; Maggie will gain confidence and be free from the abusive boyfriend and marry Boone; Rose will be free of cancer and be with Bernard; Clare will be with her baby and raise Arron and be married to Charlie who has a career in a drug free music world;Desmond will marry Penny; Michael will come back and be wi! th Walt and Vincent; Eko will be with his brother and run a church, Lapidus? Allana?.

Widmore; Ben, Richard, Phil, Radzinski,Russian with eyepatch, Ethan, Eloise, Christian Shepard,will remain on the island which has sunk under the sea