What does it mean to be open-minded? It's something that I personally strive for. I do my best not to judge others. But i think it's human nature to dismiss others' beliefs in favor of your own. So how can we battle it? And why? Maybe it's advantageous to an individual to be single-minded. But as a group of people- a culture- many cultures, isn't it better to understand one another? There would be less war (no war in fact), and everyone would get along. I probably sound like a hippie, right? Oh well.
I'm going to talk about religion now. I'm an atheist. Yup. Just saying that, I'm afraid of the judgment I might receive. I saw a post-secret once that read, "I don't believe in god," and it made me wonder- why does it have to be a secret? Why cant people just accept others beliefs? I understand religion pretty well, and I respect religion. I realize that there are benefits to religion. Churches offer a great sense of community. The idea of God gives some people better reason to live and offers consolation when dealing with death. But the people I have slightly less respect for are those that have blind faith. Those who don't have reasons to believe what they do. I've talked to many of my friends about their beliefs and mine. I've been to church. I've been on a church retreat. I've taken courses that delve into religions. So I like to think that i'm fairly educated on the subject. The beliefs I have are not blind beliefs. I don't believe them simply because someone told me to.
And that doesnt apply solely to religion. I'm fairly liberal, but that doesn't mean that I only talk to other liberals about politics. Heck, my dad and my older brother are both very conservative. I watch Fox occasionally- not because I agree with it, but because it's good to understand why other people think what they do.
I strive to understand other peoples beliefs. If you know the same facts that I know and you can draw a different conclusion than me, then that's great. If you and I have an hour long discussion on God, and you hear everything I say, and it does nothing to change your beliefs, I respect that. I even admire that.
But I think that as people, it's our duty to understand each other. If you believe differently than I do, I welcome you to share your opinions. tell me things I dont know. Preach god. I'll listen. But DO NOT close your ears when I try to share my opinion.
Even though I know no one is really going to read this, I'd really like to know what people think.
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When someone asks me, I identify myself as Catholic, but I make sure to clarify that this isn't a hard and fast rule for me. I openly admit that I don't completely understand the religion I appear to practice, but that I'm trying to learn more about it every day. Which is true.
ReplyDeleteMy reason for believing in God is that it's immensely important to me to believe in something bigger than me. I think, without my faith in the fact that there's something more to all this than what I see day-to-day, I'd be a lot more depressed as a person.
And as weird as this sounds, my belief in this has only been encouraged by science. I've taken a recent interest in astronomy, and learning about everything that had to happen and the fascinating journey that the universe has made before it got to this point really emphasizes for me that there is a God. This is a totally personal interpretation. A lot of people take it a completely different way, and that's completely fine.
I've always said that people should do or think whatever they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. This is where I take issue with the conservative platform, in general, and why I, in general, favor the liberal platform. To me it seems like, generally, the Republican party is highly Christian, which is fine and so am I and I think that's irrelevant. What I don't like is that the laws they fight for would discourage or make it difficult to practice other religions, effectively saying that people shouldn't practice any religion beyond Christianity. Democratic laws don't discourage Christianity, or tell people not to be Christian, or that their Christian beliefs are wrong, they just make it possible to have another religion than a Christian one. Which I think is sort of the point of government.