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well, last saturday was my birthday and i spent a bit of it with my biological father, Steve. (he's the nice one) and also at the time i needed to update my email addy with him... rather than do that, i just gave him the url for my journal. so, i guess he'll be reading it a bit, maybe not. i dunno. also, in one of his emails he recently sent, he asked me about my religous preference. which is actually something i haven't given a ton of thought to in a while. i was raised in a few different churches of various denominations. a few shades of protestant:: a smattering of non-denominationalists, and a holy rolling penticostal, some bible thumping bapstists, and a dab of lutheranism. pretty much covered the board for your christian right upbringing with a plaid paint. and i bought it, too. now, i wasn't ever your nazi hitler youth style guy. i was always called on to play "devil's advocate" in group discussions. or so it seemed. when it came to racial issues, abortion, prayer in school, separation of church in state, yadda yadda, i just didn't seem to see eye to eye with most of the group. and i wouldn't let them get away with "now, i'm not a [racist, fascist, whatever], but [insert hypocrisy here]..." not that they were bad people, by any means. but, eh. we had different political views, for the moment. that was about my 8th grade year. about that time i also started reading serious books, yellowed paper, big words, stuff to make you grab your thesaurus, dictionary, and encyclopedia. rand, sartre, unamuno, kant, heidegger, camus, aquinas, pascal, machiavelli, tolstoi, solzhenitsn, and yes, the bible too. by the time i stopped, i had read through the bible front to back more times than i can count. i started to think, i started to stretch, ask questions. and the more questions i asked, the less answers i got. at least to my satisfaction. "you have to take some things on faith" seemed more of a cop out than anything else. and i asked quite a few people. when i couldn't get anywhere with my pastor, i went to a friends priest, and on down the list. my problems that had started as political had turned theological, idealogical and then ontological. i'm not going to say there weren't other circumstances; i was a teenager, angsty in my own way. i was eager to point at faults and not so quick to try and see the reasons behind the issues. but in any case. it all came to a head on wednesday night. i pulled my best friend at the time into the basement of the church for a talk. i pulled out the class bible, as i had stopped carrying mine, and asked him if he believed in it, front to back, every page. and he said he did. so i read him a bit. "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If They shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." (Hebrews 6:4-6) at this point i don't know if i was making much sense, i was pretty much balling my eyes out. i knew it was talking about me, or someone like me. but, i basically asked him if he thought that was true or not and tried explaing that i felt like i had lost my faith, didn't see how i could find it again. i don't know why i had him down there...i had made up my mind about it at some point, maybe he was supposed to give me the answer somehow, a light was to touch his head and he'd just know what to say. he didn't, i ended up sitting in the dark basement till after everyone had left, then let myself out of an old door no one used.i don't know if that was actually the last straw right there, or if it was other things(tm). but, i haven't been able to bend my head to give it more than half a try since. i was 16, i went to church for another 2 years with a chip on my shoulder, always looking out for what was wrong about it all. the pastor telling dan what to do from the pulpit when he was invited to lead the choir at a different church, the petty old women with their little chicken fights, the number of times the ushers said "father" when they prayed over the offering, the deacon with the red-nose... and yeah, the way some people hid from society and their own family what was actually going on in their hearts and minds. it was petty and i feel bad for wasting the time being angry about it. but, i managed to bring out of it a somewhat decent set of morals. i don't look for forgiveness for anything i do, rather i simply accept responsibility for my own actions and hold others responsible for theirs. i can't and won't forgive someone 70 * 7 times. i believe in ultimate free choice and ultimate responsibility. i don't think my personal philosophy is any better than anyone else's, i just think there are some truly loathsome people. but, i don't have the time to waste actively hating anyone. i really don't know how to end this. i guess if you really wanted to pigeon hole me. i'm an athiestic existenialist, with definate objectivist leanings. and it works for me. oh well. [ end rant ]
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amused
mellow