Hiya. Just a new member here, so I guess I'll say a little about myself.
As far as religion, when I was young I was a Jesus freak. One of the funnest things I could think to do as a kid was to go to Sunday School, and later, to my youth group. But even at a young age I didn't buy a lot of what my church was saying about the Bible. I simply read it and interpreted it differently than how my church told me I was supposed to interpret it.
By high school I was strongly questioning Christianity, especially when I realized I was gay and I had to listen to my peers going on about how gays were sinful, diseased, etc. I studied a lot of different belief systems. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Satanism, etc. While all of them provided interesting insights, I found it difficult to decipher which of them would be "the one truth path." And then in college I studied philosophy. I read Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, etc. and what it taught me was how to use critical thinking. That is the ability to look past my own biases and prejudices and to be open to any answer as long as it was supported by reasonable evidence.
So I went out into the world and I forced people to defend their position and I found that the more you questioned people's beliefs in their religion, the more it was revealed how little they actually know outside of their respected holy scriptures. It seems when it comes to morals, everyone I have ever met relies on their feelings and reason to decide what is correct for them to believe. Some people give this very human trait a name like the "Holy Spirit" or "Karma" or whatever, but it's always the same. Sadly, I found the more you push it, the more self righteous and defensive people become, largely because of how aware they are of how intangible their beliefs really are. When I learned psychology I came to understand this was an emotional defense mechanism that people commonly use to avoid anxiety brought upon them when they are forced to contemplate their belief system. Even on this forum I see so many common defense mechanisms being used, like some of the delusional projection I saw in the homosexual thread.
In fact, all this was ultimately how I got over all the guilt my church and peers instilled in me for being gay and I was able to develop my own moral propositions from the world around me.
As far as politics, I've always been a lefty libertarian. I read works by people like John Smith and Ayn Rand, and I went through an anarcho capitalist phase, but I found it all just wasn't applicable to reality. I don't think any pure political ideology is, simply because humans are imperfect. I think political beliefs are largely situational and dependent on things like your upbringing, peer groups, social class, etc. I chose Pinko Commie, not because I believe communism works in the real world, but simply because I'm sympathetic to communism. Personally, I favor responsible capitalism. It really is complicated business separating politics from economics.
Sorry for the long intro, but that is me in a nut shell.
As far as religion, when I was young I was a Jesus freak. One of the funnest things I could think to do as a kid was to go to Sunday School, and later, to my youth group. But even at a young age I didn't buy a lot of what my church was saying about the Bible. I simply read it and interpreted it differently than how my church told me I was supposed to interpret it.
By high school I was strongly questioning Christianity, especially when I realized I was gay and I had to listen to my peers going on about how gays were sinful, diseased, etc. I studied a lot of different belief systems. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Satanism, etc. While all of them provided interesting insights, I found it difficult to decipher which of them would be "the one truth path." And then in college I studied philosophy. I read Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, etc. and what it taught me was how to use critical thinking. That is the ability to look past my own biases and prejudices and to be open to any answer as long as it was supported by reasonable evidence.
So I went out into the world and I forced people to defend their position and I found that the more you questioned people's beliefs in their religion, the more it was revealed how little they actually know outside of their respected holy scriptures. It seems when it comes to morals, everyone I have ever met relies on their feelings and reason to decide what is correct for them to believe. Some people give this very human trait a name like the "Holy Spirit" or "Karma" or whatever, but it's always the same. Sadly, I found the more you push it, the more self righteous and defensive people become, largely because of how aware they are of how intangible their beliefs really are. When I learned psychology I came to understand this was an emotional defense mechanism that people commonly use to avoid anxiety brought upon them when they are forced to contemplate their belief system. Even on this forum I see so many common defense mechanisms being used, like some of the delusional projection I saw in the homosexual thread.
In fact, all this was ultimately how I got over all the guilt my church and peers instilled in me for being gay and I was able to develop my own moral propositions from the world around me.
As far as politics, I've always been a lefty libertarian. I read works by people like John Smith and Ayn Rand, and I went through an anarcho capitalist phase, but I found it all just wasn't applicable to reality. I don't think any pure political ideology is, simply because humans are imperfect. I think political beliefs are largely situational and dependent on things like your upbringing, peer groups, social class, etc. I chose Pinko Commie, not because I believe communism works in the real world, but simply because I'm sympathetic to communism. Personally, I favor responsible capitalism. It really is complicated business separating politics from economics.
Sorry for the long intro, but that is me in a nut shell.
