Up until a few weeks ago, I was a Christian. I'm not anymore, and I'll tell you why: I never really believed all of that in the first place. I tried, I truly did, but the guilt that I felt whenever I told anyone that I was Christian should have been a dead give-away. I only believed it because 75% of the rest of America does. It wasn't my true belief; I believed it, or tried to, because everyone else did, so I accepted it as the truth.
I'll be callling myself an agnostic from now until I find a religion that suits the few beliefs that I have retained. That's assuming that I will find a religion that suits me; I may never find one. The following are the things that I've realized that I do believe, which are a cross between the best parts of the Bible, Star Wars philosophy, and my own beliefs that just sort of popped in from nowhere.
- Individual truths are only opinion. Every issue that can possibly be debated, no matter how trivial, carries an Absolute Truth. The Absolute Truth is just that: the absolute, undisputable, total truth. Individual truths are the way that I see things; the Absolute Truth is the way that God sees things. And unlike my individual truths, which are really only opinions, Absolute Truths are just how things are. This concept becomes easier to grasp when one thinks of God not as an actual human-like creature but as a sexless, formless entity. I look at Absolute Truths in the same way that scientists look at scientific laws, such as the Law of Gravity: you can argue and debate until you're blue in the face, but no matter how much of a case you make about something, it won't change the Absolute Truth. My truths are how I think that things are; Absolute Truths are how things are. And only God really knows the Absolute Truth about anything.
- Hate, in all of its forms, is wasteful and weak. By all of its forms, I mean all of the other emotions that are tributaries of hate, such as anger, fear, scorn, and other negative emotions. Any and all negative emotions lead to hate, and when one hates, they are weak. To hate is to give in to evil. Hate is wasteful. Why waste time, energy, and effort hating things/people when you could be using that time and energy for the purposes of good, or at least in a more constructive way? Hate is not strong. A lot of people - mostly unenlightened, immature people - think that when they hate something or someone, they've won. That's not so. When you hate someone/thing, the object of your hate has won, because it/he/she has caused you to expend your precious time and energy hating it.
- I don't believe in enough of the Bible to devote my life to it, but there are a lot of parts with which I wholeheartedly agree. I believe that there are such things as sins against God and that God forgives them, but I don't think that there are quite so many sins as the Bible insinuates. Hate is a sin; lying with the intent to deceive is a sin; stealing is a sin; and murder is a sin. Also, I believe that in order to be truly enlightened, one must give of oneself to the less fortunate. In Christianity, this is known as loving thy neighbor. Treat people as you would have them treat you in their situation.
- I don't think that God is mean. I think that God rewards enlightened people in the afterlife by letting them in on all of the Absolute Truths that he/she could ever want to know and by giving him/her the fulfillment of all of his/her wildest dreams. The enlightened afterlife is basically the Joy Channel, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. If a person is not enlightened by the time he/she punches the eternal time clock, God gives them another shot at earthly life until enlightenment is achieved.
- When one finds one's purpose in life and fulfills it, then one is enlightened.
- There's a little piece of God in everyone. If everyone were to find that little piece of God in everyone they meet, the world would be peaceful, so everyone should try to find it. Everyone is good at heart.
- Sex, alcohol, drugs, and other earthly pleasures are not bad unless they become more important than enlightenment. Everything in moderation is okay.
I'm sure that I'll be adding to this as I realize more of my true beliefs. This has all been so sudden that I'm sure that I'm forgetting something. I can't be certain - no one can - but I'm pretty sure that all of the things that I've written are Absolute Truths. At least, I hope so.
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