I don’t normally discuss things like religion or politics but considering Facebook has become a hotbed of activity for the civic minded, I’m at the point where movements are happening all around me and I’ve not thrown in with any of them. To be sure, I have no intention of taking a side such as republican or democrat, liberal or conservative. If truth must be told, I am more conservative than anything but where I differ from others, I have a lot of tolerance and acceptance for all manner of issues.
Take Religion for example. I don’t believe in ‘God’ in the traditional organized religious sense. Nor am I agnostic. I have a very complex set of beliefs that, perhaps like Mr. Hubbard, decided to use it in a novel (The Entropy Initiative). I firmly believe that there’s more to humanity than meat and blood, a random spark of electricity causing creativity, deja vu, love, hatred, sadness, etc. I’ve gone to great efforts to explain my beliefs in my book while keeping it exciting and action packed.
In brief, my beliefs are fairly Buddhist but the similarities are shy.
I don’t push these beliefs on anyone. It’s not that I don’t think people would benefit from feeling the way I do, it’s that I don’t think that something as personal as religion can be embraced through the arms and eyes of another. Convincing arguments aside, if your heart and soul don’t embrace faith, then chances are good that you’re not going to really benefit from that gift.
My beliefs can further be used to govern the concepts of same sex marriage. I don’t think about it on the physical side. Lawful definition of ‘marriage’ aside (and my solution is a little drastic, doing away with traditional definitions altogether but that’s neither here nor there) I believe that love is a spiritual thing. If I love a man or a woman, it’s our spirits that are touching and if we need to express that physically, that’s our business. Gone are the days that sodomy is a punishable crime and considering the world we live in, there are precious few happy moments as it is.
Ultimately, I have feelings that are contradictory to tolerance. They came to me as a child and I intellectually stuff them down and shut them off. Many people do not know the difference between compulsion and reality. They act out of passion and do whatever their hearts tell them. They should learn to keep it to themselves and think objectively. Will same sex marriage hurt a straight person? Will taking guns away from people who want to legally get them stop people getting shot? Will making abortion illegal make a better world for unwanted children?
Considering all of the above, I tend to look at the world with the thought ‘what is trying to hurt me’? Answer those questions above and maybe you can be happier. Maybe that’s my religions belief talking but I like to think that I’m a rational person who would rather see people happy than denied. I thought we left that crap back in the 1800s. Why do we need to impose beliefs or imperatives on those who don’t feel the same way as our majority?
We don’t. We shouldn’t. And when we do, we should be shamed. That’s my conviction and so far, it’s worked out pretty damn well for me.
