Maintain Control After Major Changes

                There’s something I've noticed about people who make major life changes regarding their religion. They do one of three things: Completely wipe clean the slate, disregarding everything they've ever been taught and start from ground zero; Others move to a similar belief with similar blinders they place over reality that make as little sense as the one they came from; The last group is the one who evaluates one thing at a time, and takes away as necessary. There may technically be even more “groups” but for the sake of this discussion these are the ones I want to focus on.

                The first group, the one that goes to ground zero, often leaves just for the sole reason of being able to experience life. Understandable in many situations as there is undoubtedly a lot of life to experience. What often happens though is that they show no restraint, they make huge changes one right after the other without thinking them through. This leads to bad life choices. I will not tell you that you cannot go to ground zero and build yourself without bad decisions, because with the right maturity you could. Those with the right maturity probably didn’t make the before mentioned belief change just for the sake of experience however. It’s important to always make your belief changes on the basis of what you actually believe yourself, and in my opinion it’s a bad idea to do away with everything you have been taught at once.

                The second group is one who really only changed the name of their belief. They weren't happy with their previous belief system so they took one set of blinders off, and put another one on. Often just as judgmental as the belief they left in the first place. These people often think they are “free thinkers” when in reality they have only exchanged one set of biases with another. These to me are the height of hypocrisy. Sure, many of their biases they change are for the best. Often times they treat women better, and other demographics. But then they still rationalize the claim of sending others who don’t fit their belief system to burn in an eternal fire. They exchange one hells punishment of good people for another.

                The third group evaluates their beliefs one by one. They don’t cast away everything at once, but rather after they have decided they do not believe what they were taught they decide to think about the positives about what they believed. They keep one works with their new paradigm and discards those that no longer apply. There are many moral things we are taught growing up that really don’t have anything to do with the religion, they are just good common sense. As you make your life changes I challenge you to make them slow. I would like to see more people who discard their belief system not lose control of their lives and do stupid things right off the bat just because they can. One of the first things you have to learn is to show restraint. Not because an all-powerful god will punish you if you don’t, but because there are consequences to your actions.

                I am someone who left their belief system because it did not align with my convictions. One of the primary things is I cannot believe in something that allows for anyone to burn for 10 minutes as punishment, let along thousands of years eternity. And yet I see people leave their religion because they decided it wasn't right for it to be so judgmental, and they adopt one that still allows for good people to go to hell. They spend a lot of energy trying to convince others that they will go to hell for being gay, or not accepting Christ as their lord. But seriously? Our human morality would not allow that type of punishment, so why would a divine god’s morality allow for that type of punishment? I don’t want to get too far off topic here, but I do think that you should consider every part of what you believe. Don’t discard it until you have evaluated it according to your own human convictions. You are not required to believe something just because it’s in a book. You can still believe in a god without believing that he is a ruthless dictator full of love. Books are written by men, nothing is without human ideology in it. Consider for a moment that maybe your god didn't write the bible, maybe man did. You can believe in a god that does not require you to be judgmental toward others and think that if they don’t receive a revelation they will go to hell. Discard those pieces that you can’t really believe in your heart. For me, I will fully admit that I can no more believe in a god who will let children die of malaria in Africa than one that would send people to hell, but I want you to evaluate things with your own convictions. If you wouldn't do it, a divine god wouldn't either. If you wouldn’t let children die in the millions from disease, chances are a divine god wouldn't either.

                I get asked a lot, what if you are wrong? What if God is real and you will go to hell for your unbelief? Men have believed in gods for all of human history. Even much of Judaism is stolen from a mixture of older religions. Which god then would I choose to serve? There are thousands of gods that people believe in the world, and I just happen to believe in one less than you. So I ask you, what if you’re wrong and Allah is the one true god? What if he punishes you for eternity for believing his prophet Jesus was God in flesh? Are you willing to take that chance? Of course you are. For the same reason I’m willing to not believe.

                I will take a moment to say that I don’t think Christians or anybody else is evil. I think that it works for a lot of people. I’m only telling you that you don't have to believe the parts that don’t align with your morality. I don’t mean morality as in “I feel like I should be able to do anything I want”, I mean you can still support human rights that others in your belief system don’t agree with. You don’t have to believe in hell as an actual place. You can be accepting of those who don't agree with you. I can 100% respect that type of Christian. One who doesn’t let a book tell him who’s a bad person, but one who can judge for himself.

Eyes on the Horizon

I was on my way to work tonight and I started to think about what I would change if I could go back in time to when I was a kid with the same knowledge I have right now. My young mind would be at first overwhelmed by the life experiences of 25 years, but would gradually adapt and apply the knowledge to try to make my life better. I concentrate harder on school, especially math. Knowing now that I personally learn best through competitive scenarios, I may try to go to a public school so that I can do my best to learn faster than the other students. Once I’m in high school I take community college classes concurrently to position myself to get into a major university. I am also doing self-taught learning to give myself an extra advantage over everyone else. By my current age of 25 I am nearing completion of my master’s degree in Computer Engineering. The only thing that was really different growing up this time was my self-confidence to accomplish my goals. I no longer think that I’m not smart enough to be one of the best in my profession. I know that I can do whatever I want. I thought to myself, I wish I could go back and live my life differently.

It was at this point I stopped myself. I realized that while knowing what I know now I may make different choices, I would not have come to a place where I could make those choices without my current life experiences. I wouldn’t have the same amount of appreciation of overcoming and determination. I wouldn’t have gone through the circumstances that made myself the over confident and conceited individual I am today J. All in all I have had a good life. I may not have a master’s degree, but I’ve still managed to position myself well in life by giving 100% to everything I do. I have a great job, I don’t have any school debt, and I was able to save enough to make a significant down payment on my new house. There really isn’t any reason to wish that anything had gone differently. I realized that it is not only pointless to think about what could have gone differently in the past, it is unhealthy. How am I supposed to move forward with my eyes on the past? It’s impossible to do without consequences. Instead of trying to think of how I could improve my past, I can focus on improving myself now, and my future. I look into the future and all I see is possibilities. I can be anything I want if I have the determination to make it happen, and I believe that I do. What type of profession do I think that will be? Well, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be “when I grow up”, but what I mostly want to be is someone that is constantly moving. Constantly expanding himself. I only live once, and I want to experience everything that I possibly can. I want to get a degree for sure. But I also want to write novels. I want to go on adventures. I want to see the world. I want to live life. There is no reason to focus on the past when there can be so much in my future.

Always Moving Foward, While Never Judging

I have certainly participated in the occasional debate when someone is being particularly judgmental, however in general I’ve tried to stay away from the constant propaganda flooding the walls of message and ex-message believer walls. This is for a pretty simple reason, I’ve moved on. I understand why others feel the need to constantly try to convince others of their motives for staying with their belief system despite the double standard necessary to stay with it, and the reasons for the others to continue to try to convince the believers that their reasons for staying are not justified. Good for them. Personally though I’m too busy working on myself to bother myself with what everyone else believes. Some people are getting out of one pothole, and then turning around and yelling at those still in it without realizing that they’ve walked backwards into another. I have realized that there are plenty of potholes in front of me without having to worry about those behind.

Continue to challenge your beliefs, and assumptions. Keep moving and don’t stagnate. Don’t worry about those in the potholes behind you. You yelling at them telling them they are in a pothole will only cause them to yell back, without even ever considering that you might be right. Instead don’t judge them for believing what they believe. I am a firm believer that encouraging critical thinking will cause others to realize for themselves where they are standing. Tell a man who has always been in a cave that he is in a cave, and he won’t believe you. However, if you encourage him only to explore the cave, he will soon find the exit on his own. Does that mean you can never point out problems in their belief system? No, but I challenge you to reevaluate how you are doing it. Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine someone telling you that you are wrong, and try to figure out how best you can help others in a nonjudgmental way (while continually keeping your focus on bettering yourself) . More than anything encourages them to find the answers for themselves. You may be snickering to yourself knowing that I have not always succeeded at this, and you would be right. It is what I strive for, and I do my best not to be a hypocrite in the matter.

I would like to kindly point out that no matter whether you think that your thoughts came directly from a god, or whether you think that you think that you are just supremely intelligent and cannot be wrong about your core beliefs, you are incorrect in my opinion. There is no person on earth or anywhere else with all of the answers. Think a moment of all the different religions of the world, and whether any of them think they are wrong. How many believe they have absolute truth? Are you so deluded to believe that every other beliefs is wrong while yours is right, even though you wouldn’t believe what you believe if you were born in another part of the world? If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you would almost definitely be Islamic. If you were born in India you would almost definitely be Hindu. You’ve had spiritual moments? So have they. But there’s are of the devil? Well, maybe you are. I’m not asking you to change what you believe, I am only asking to consider for a moment that you could potentially be wrong. I don’t care whether you are a message believer, a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an Atheist or whatever. I’m asking you to challenge what you believe or don’t believe. I’m asking you to sincerely look at what others believe, and more importantly why they believe what they believe. Why does a Mormon believe Joseph Smith is a prophet? Do you know? Why do people follow Benny Hinn? Gandhi? Mohammed? Everyone believes what they believe for one reason or another, and too many don’t even stop to consider opposing viewpoints. All they care about is disproving yours, I want to throw out another challenge both to myself and you. Let’s never get caught in “exclusive truth” mode where we don’t think we can be wrong.

So what is moving forward for me right now? Next week I’m going to resolve to start exercising and meditating every day. I want to increase my self-discipline as well as my “mindfulness” of my body, surroundings, and mind.  I also sit and think about my assumptions about how I’m supposed to live life, and then challenge them to find whether they are just social norms, or the only way to think about the topic. The latter is rarely the case. I would like to start exercising again not because I want to be buff and look good so much as I want to feel good. I miss the feeling of being in good physical shape, you feel more alive. Life is short so I figure I should make the sacrifice to feel as healthy as I possibly can. I fully intend to become as much a master of my own faculties as best I can. I certainly have a long ways to go. Moving Forward, Never Judging.

I would encourage you to not only watch but think about this video (It's not made by me). Not only think about it, but I challenge you to pray about it. I challenge you to meditate on it. And lastly, I challenge you to try to understand those who do not follow the same belief as you. You never know, maybe your view could use a slight adjustment. I know mine definitely does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIErAz-ZO-I