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what do i believe in?
Jul. 14th, 2011 03:32 pmthis is a tricky question for me. i don't tend to think about it a whole lot, but i think i've got something now.
i'll start with with something i don't believe in, which is probably one of the reasons i've had trouble with this sort of thing >.> i don't believe there's a god for me, not a person anyway. what complicates this is that i DO believe in other people's gods <.< i believe that they are real for the people who believe in them. that makes it sound like i don't believe that they're really real though, which is wrong, i do, i just don't believe that they're MY god, if that makes any sense. there's just no space in my head for the idea that there's a person somehow looking down and watching me and influencing things, even in a quite limited sense. i think for a while now i've been struggling to reconcile this with my fairly intense dislike of atheism. <.<
what DO i believe in, then? i believe in Logos, that there's a purpose for the world, and on a smaller scale there's a purpose and a path for every person who ever lived and ever will live.
i believe that every path is different and distinct, that each person has to find a place in the world for and deserves both the freedom and the support they need to do so.
i believe in belief. that sounds pretty meta, but i mean that i believe that faith is important and has enormous value to those who have real faith in something worthwhile, so long their faith doesn't bring them to infringe on other people's freedoms. Also that each person's faith and spirituality is unique and distinct, even for people who belong to the same religion.
these are all big, sweeping beliefs about how faith works for everyone rather than little, personal ones about how it works for me, but having sorted this out in my head i think i might be able to come up with a post about that too sometime.
i'll start with with something i don't believe in, which is probably one of the reasons i've had trouble with this sort of thing >.> i don't believe there's a god for me, not a person anyway. what complicates this is that i DO believe in other people's gods <.< i believe that they are real for the people who believe in them. that makes it sound like i don't believe that they're really real though, which is wrong, i do, i just don't believe that they're MY god, if that makes any sense. there's just no space in my head for the idea that there's a person somehow looking down and watching me and influencing things, even in a quite limited sense. i think for a while now i've been struggling to reconcile this with my fairly intense dislike of atheism. <.<
what DO i believe in, then? i believe in Logos, that there's a purpose for the world, and on a smaller scale there's a purpose and a path for every person who ever lived and ever will live.
i believe that every path is different and distinct, that each person has to find a place in the world for and deserves both the freedom and the support they need to do so.
i believe in belief. that sounds pretty meta, but i mean that i believe that faith is important and has enormous value to those who have real faith in something worthwhile, so long their faith doesn't bring them to infringe on other people's freedoms. Also that each person's faith and spirituality is unique and distinct, even for people who belong to the same religion.
these are all big, sweeping beliefs about how faith works for everyone rather than little, personal ones about how it works for me, but having sorted this out in my head i think i might be able to come up with a post about that too sometime.
