Perhaps I should give some background to my conclusions of my faith. I was raised a Baptist. I attended a small Hispanic mission church for much of my youth. My parents are devout Christians. As I did grow up in the Bible belt, I would say most of my environmental influences would be geared towards a Christian society. My inspiration for finally getting around to writing this segment is a conversation I had with a young black women. My criticalness of the black community has long since been documented, but this particular conversation really stirred my interest. I only point out the fact that the woman was black because of the uniqueness that every culture faces in regards to how it perceives religion or lack there of in some cases. We all saw how easily religion was used as a tool to sway votes in the '04 election, as well as it continues to be used to push radical ideas all across the world from terrorism to economic reform. Anyway, as the conversation progressed the woman was telling me about her one child, which at this point was ok. Then she progressed to tell me about her hardship and dealing with expecting another child. At this point it was still ok. She continued to tell me how she was proud of herself for finishing high school and hoped to one day go to college. She was telling me how she didn't care much for the father and had no interest in finding him, because as she put it, "I don't need him in my life." Now apparently this was a long held feeling so I pushed the issue as to why she would become pregnant if she despised the man. She told me that "it just happened." I quite frankly asked her if she'd ever heard of contraception to which she dismissed. I also asked her if she'd considered an abortion, to which she told me, "He ain't worth having no abortion over." Although I was very perplexed by her line of reasoning I continued to push the issue. She became defensive, and told me that she was doing all things right by following the path of her lord and savior Jesus Christ. <Sigh> and this is the inspiration for my writings. Before abruptly ending the conversation I asker her if she was following the will of her lord and savior when she was sucking someone's dick that she didn't even care for.
Since when is it ok to completely do things wrong as long as you claim to be doing it in the eyes of the lord. I'd like to be god for one day. So I could bitch slap every single person on the planet that prayed to me for such stupidity. What the hell reasoning is that? I can completely mess up my life and do everything wrong, but as long as I go to church on Sunday and ask for forgiveness I can do no wrong. Remind you of anyone? (Smirk) People have ceased to use religion as a driving force for good and not relegate it to a resulting force for bad. What is religion today that is not an excuse for our misery? Do you see people in the ghetto's condemning the drugs, violence, sex, and crime? The same people that complain about it are the culprits! And I'll even take it to the next level, when Dr. King stood before the church and implored them to rise up against racial oppression, do you believe he intended for 50 years later for people to be now using that as a crutch. The black church is well aware of its problems. Have you seen any preacher stand up and call out the black men in this country for infidelity, the tens of thousand of illegitimate children born every year? Have you heard of anyone calling out the black women for their degradation of themselves? But if someone feels like they waited too long at a Denny's then we need to have a march on Washington. Religion was a tool that was used to rally and inspire a guiding light. Now it is nothing more than an excuse to do what you want to. Why can't we attack education and health through our churches? What is religion today? It is massive tax free churches used as nothing more than social gatherings. It is a billion dollar a year industry of digital bibles, conferences, wwjd shirts, a passion of the fucking Christ type bullshit movies and a slew of other stuff that we engineer to make money. People say that society has gone farther away from religion. I think on the contrary; religion and society have become one. If you truly walked in the light of any god it would be an active path, not a reactive path.
Generally people simply follow what they have heard or were told. I must make it clear that this is NOT having faith. Just like reading the 'Turner Diaries' and then claiming to be a follower of Hitler does not make you a Nazi. People don't come up w/ their own ideas. People don't apply modern reasoning to these things they are told. They don't analyze things. If you can't question your faith then you are flawed. Yes, that is right; you SHOULD question your beliefs. What kind of stupidity is it to think that everything in any one area of humanity is perfect? We don't address any other facet of our lives in that regard except the one thing that is supposed to be driving our lives. Can you see the flaw in that? What if we took our government to be perfect the way it was? What if the 40th amendment was written to say that all other governments were wrong, ours was the one true government. What if the 41st amendments read, 'to question your government is wrong'? Isn't that what our faiths' tell us? If we accept this train of thought, aren't we doomed from the get go?
As for me, what do I believe? I know there is a god. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. To me I don't think of god as someone standing on some mountain, or a man nailed to the cross, or some damn statue. I think of just some being that is greater than you or me or anything that has been see or heard. And I believe this being is good. I look up to it, but I don't always rely on it. I rely on myself and the people around me. As I get older I expect my faith to continue to evolve as all things in life. Maybe I'll figure it out soon or later. Until then, to me, my faith will be what it is intended to be, exactly what I choose.