What do you believe? Where do you go when you don’t fit the model?
What do you believe? It seems simple to answer for some people who have firmly planted feet in one area or another. One says, “I’m a Democrat!” or “I’m a Christian!” or an or “I’m an Environmentalist!” while happily smiling and shaking hands with Joe Schmo and Sally Bag-o-nickels. But If you’re anything like me, the lines and limits aren’t so neatly drawn for you. Thus a dilemma arises.
Growing up I was the type of kid who asked questions, heard answers and then formed my own opinions about the world spinning under me. I asked all the questions in the known Universe from little things like, “Who invented underwear?” and “Why do baby’s cry?” to the profound childhood query of, “Mommy, is there a toy store in Heaven?” to my loving mother gently replied, “I don’t know, but there could be.” Around age seven when I asked about when the Jewish family across the street believed in God, I got the kind reply,, “They believe in God… they just don’t celebrate Christmas.” So basically, I was the Socrates of little kiddies, minus the students.
The same spirit of questioning stayed with me me though to high school when my new knowledge of the Protestant Reformation had me questioning my Catholic faith and my knowledge of the two party system had me voting Independent by age 18. I now consider my a Libertarian: I’m socially liberal with the exception of my pro-life stance, and fiscally conservative with my full belief in the free market and overall capitalism and my belief that socialism goes against human nature. These days, I’ve also been listening to philosophy podcasts from UC Berkley to generate ideas for my screenplay. So my brain has had a lot of time to think about beliefs in general.
Yet my religious affiliation is boarder still. I’m currently a practicing Catholic but my inner most being still has a sense of exploration. I have many interests in the philosophical parallels between the teachings of Jesus, the Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Krishna, and Mohammad as is evident in my doing my comparative scripture study in the past two weeks. This week my beliefs were tested even more when a Youtube user invited me two nights ago to watch his videos on Islam when while looking up a single text in the Qu’ran, (Koran) I ending up reading a few chapters and finding so much of my “personal” faith in it (if not all of it through the “lens of my own interpretation” of certain texts).
So in the spirit of my own weirdness, I’d like to ask you what you believe. You can post any view, so long as it is not hateful or violent. Even if you think I’m crazy, I don’t mind hearing it. So come on and wax poetically!
Excellent post. I was and am an inquisitive person and the only thing I believe for sure is that I still want to know more. I don’t have a particular political affliation but I’ve started saying I’m a member of the Purple Party just so I can join the party fun. As for religion, I was raised Christian and still feel that if I had to choose a category that would be the one I’d go with. If you haven’t explored it you might want to check out the Quakers, I find their philosophies to be very in tune with my own. Although, I have looked at the religions you mentioned above as well as many others (which is ok according to Quaker beliefs) So yeah. I guess I’m still looking and learning and trying to decide what to believe
Comment by eclecticbird — July 25, 2008 @ 12:11 am | Edit This
Amen! Trust me, I love God FULLY!
Comment by mikeywriteswell — July 25, 2008 @ 1:58 am | Edit This
“Sally Bag-o-nickels”…well done.
God can be scary.
areyoulistening.today.com
Comment by seano47 — July 25, 2008 @ 11:15 am | Edit This
I am super, super, not religious. But here’s my thing. I think that, quite frankly, most religions are very similar. They express similar things: a higher purpose for life, a story of how things got to be the way they are, and a moral system by which we should live. Not only that, but between the extent of the scriptures, the ambiguity of the language, and the effects of centuries of translations from different languages, it’s often possible to find whatever meaning one wants in the scriptures. For instance, even people espousing the same brand of Christianity might have different answers, based on the same set of scriptures, to any of the questions (what is the purpose of life? how did things get this way? how should we live?) Look, for instance, at the ongoing debates (Catholic/Orthodox v. some Protestant sects, Orthodox v. Conservative v. Reform Judaism, extremist v. liberal Muslims) about whether the same set of laws can be applied in modern life, or whether the moral values remain constant, but specific rules change (i.e. including women in the standard of how “man” should treat “man.”).
Basically, although I’m not religious, I fully support everyone who is. First of all, just because I have no reason to believe something doesn’t mean I have a reason to disbelieve it too. I don’t believe in ghosts or UFOs, but I don’t NOT believe in them either. My lack of experiencing these things doesn’t diminish other people’s real experiences or perspectives.
In a similar way, just because I don’t believe in God doesn’t mean that I’m closed to the possibility. Also, I think that religion (within some limitations) is a positive influence. As long as people arrive at the same, essentially good, moral values, I don’t really care how you get there.
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Comment by gamingtips — July 28, 2008 @ 3:58 am | Edit This