October 13, 2008

No, I'm not going to argue what God or whose God or anything of the sort. I'm not going to argue who's right or wrong religiously or spiritually. This is an argument about morals and values, rights and wrongs. It's about freedom and choice, action and inaction. It's an argument against using God as an argument.

A common theme in several religions and spiritualities that involve deities and "higher beings" of some sort seems to be that God is the one that determines the rights and wrongs of the universe. Whether you call it sin or karma, or maybe even have no name for it at all, that theme still seems to be there. Someone more than just our societies plays a part in what is deemed acceptable or not.

Those of us born one way may see another culture that runs things very differently, but we see them as being in the wrong. Likewise, they also look at us that way. We may see slavery and jump to how wrong it is, but the people in slavery may look at us and wonder what the fuss is about. (Yes, I realize this example alone is very broad and does not encompass the variety of practices and views on slavery and so may not always apply in every instance.) We can agree that the differences have been inbred into us by our societies. However, those societies are often shaped by religious values.

For example, the United States has many values based upon Christian principals. Considering that in every point in time a vast majority of the population was infact Christian, this makes sense. It makes even more sense when you consider that several of the religious minorities in this country share some of the same values. For example, Christians have a belief of "thou shall not kill." Wicca, a growing, but still minority religion in this country, has a belief of "harm none." Now each of these beliefs may be broken down into more defined beliefs (i.e.: military roles, self-defense, etc.). The point is, even with the minority faiths, it still adds to the majority idea that cold-blooded murder is wrong. Therefore, people assume that it is somehow God's will that we have come to our conclusions of right and wrong.

We've been raised to believe that things like communism, murder, prejudice (even though it's still rampant even here) are all very bad things. Yet in other countries and cultures, that may not be the case at all. We can see the good and bad sides to our own ways of doing things. However, we can't always see anything but either the good or the bad of something we are distant from. If we aren't raised in a communist country, we may never really understand the benefits of that form of government.

Where am I getting with all of this? Am I announcing that the world should turn communist and rape and murder each other? No. Not at all. I'm personally against such things. My point is, try to see from the other perspective. It's no good to just state that someone else is wrong if in their minds you are the one that's wrong. Ever consider they may be right? Or better yet, you are both wrong?

Then all of a sudden God gets thrown into the picture. How God got involved in the differences amongst the societies of man, I'm not really sure. I don't think God has anything to do with who is wrong and who is right. In fact, both sides of every argument in which case a deity is believed in will claim the exact same thing about God. "This is what God wants," or "This is against God's will." Yeah, whatever.

There has been and will always be at least one thing about myself (something I've said, done, or believed) that someone will be angry about if they knew. My having been a soldier. My being outspoken. My sex history. My choices. People I've dated. My political stances. Someone somewhere can (or has) held one or more of these or other things about myself under scrutiny. It's the same for everyone else. For some reason, every time something about myself gets put on the spot, God always comes up. There was always some point about God's will. Now this isn't always in the negative. Sometimes the argument is that something happened in the positive thanks to God's will. But, more often than not, it's to argue against me.

This is where I get angry. I'd really rather not be angry. So let's clear it up now and we can all go on about our lives without the anger.

Who is anyone to tell me or anyone else what is or is not God's will? It's God's will after all, and I'm pretty sure God will be the judge of God's own will. Look, it's nice and all that when something is beyond our control to make ourselves feel better by saying it was God's will, but really, be serious. It could not be helped. Let's talk about why it couldn't be helped, not lay blame.

Let's pretend for a minute that God does infact have a plan. Let's pretend God controls everything according to God's will. From this moment on and for the rest of eternity, it will be known that God does infact have fate all drawn out for us as has been implied heavily again and again by several faiths. Let's do it.

That now being the case forevermore, who is right and wrong? This fact isn't changing that I'm still Wiccan while others are Christian or Islamic or Buddhist or one of any number of faiths or "non-faiths." There are still rapists and serial-killers. There's still violence and prejudice. The economy still sucks and many of us are running out of a means to afford being unemployed. I'm still going to do things that some people are going to dislike or even hate. Likewise, there are ways of life that I'm going to dislike about others.

What does this tell us? That God's will is freedom of choice. God's will is freedom to do as we please, be our own people, learn from our own experiences, and live our lives they way we see fit no matter who else may disagree. No matter who or what "God" is to you. This is just the way it is.