Prepare the Altar.

Welcome to the round up. This is the paragraph that explains where we have been so far and transitions to where we are going. I think it is going well so far, but there is some room for improvement, and most dangerously, there is enough that still needs to be done that it might go horribly wrong. The biggest problem for me is not using the word so as an opener.

In all seriousness, we have learned that identity is not a choice, and we also learned that it takes a whole bunch of new agey words and concepts to define one's identity. For those who read yesterday's deliniation of the facets (i Had to use the word facets in a sentence because someone was using the word today non stop, but mispronouncing it. There are many faucets to this case. In order to understand what is going on we need to examine each faucet. It drove me up the wall so much that I needed to write a Wheatonesque parenthetical after actually using the right word in a sentence) to ....does anyone actually remember what I was saying before the parenthetical breakdown? Me either. Ok, yesterday we used different categories to define our own identities.

Some astute people may have noticed that I left something important out. Beliefs. I touched briefly on world view, but I specifically wanted to give this aspect of identity it's own top billing.

I did this because, it is my belief that beliefs are a strong force that implore people to behave in a certain way.

Beliefs are some of the strongest factors in our behaviour because they define our world view and speak to our desire for perfection of the future self.

Most of us are stuck in what is called present bias. We think more about the person we are right now, and less about the person of the future. Wer tend to pamper ourselves right away, rather than plan to pamper our future self. Mostly we do this because we like to think of our future self as being perfect. We think this person is going to eat better, live better, treat people better.

Think of it this way, you purchase a steak and asparagus. That night you are trying to decide what to have for dinner. You can only have one or the other. Someone with present bias (which is most of the honest people in the world. The rest will lie in exactly 12 seconds) will eat the steak and say to themself, on Monday, I am going to eat my vegetables and be happy about it. You see, the real you is in love with the steak and so you pamper yourself with it, telling yourself that the you of tomorrow is a better preson and will do the right thing.

Beliefs are much like us trying to work towards that better us. We select a series of thoughts and ideas that allow us to comfort the present self with thoughts of a stronger future self and future world.

I have no interest in going in to a discussion of spirituality at this point. The truth of religion is not what we are discussing here, merely the psychology why we choose religion and belief structures.

We use these beliefs in a ritualistic fashion. Ritual is a strong factor in ourlives because it brings on strong emotional memory. It is sort of the reverse of insanity, which is to say, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result.

Our past experiences are tied to emotion, some good and some bad. We seek out with great passion and fervour the good and avoid the bad like the plague (unless we are maladaptive, in which case we seek out the bad to reinforce our skewed mental image of the world).

It saddens me to realise, I have no ritual. I have no experiences which I seek to relive.

Because it is December, I think about all my Christmas rituals. None of which I have kept or find specific interest in.

I used to desire the advent calendar. When I was a kid, I would do the advent thing every year. Each morning i would run to get my little piece of choclate. BTW, have you ever noticed that the low quality chocolate in those things tastes the same no matter where you are in the world? Creepy. Anyway, when I tried to recapture that as an adult, it just felt flat. Oh, for the geeky, I just learned there is an app for that. No kidding, you can download an advent calander app for you iWhatever, and every day you get a fun little winter/christmas themed little animation. There really is an app for everything.

I used to watch the Grinch every year, but that too has never been the same since living in Ottawa. It just now reminds me of bad feelings.

I seem to have gotten off the track of beliefs, but I think we all understand how these beliefs dictate our desired actions and feelings. Your beliefs unfortunitely hit the breakwater of your actions and emotions. This cognitive dissonance is what allows Christians to beat their wives, Muslims to kill people, Buhdists to do anything, and Athiests to be kind (just kidding atheists, don't hate me because I am sarcastic).

The point is, when we have beliefs, no matter what they are, we are forced to try and behave like our beliefs dictate. The trouble of course present bias. It allows us to break our belief structure b ecause on Monday we will be more Like Sidartha/Jesus?Satan?the great pumpkin.

Ritual is the form many of these beliefs take because we strive to reexperience anything and everything that once made us feel good. Whatever made us feel loved, cared for, whole, other adjective.

For those reasons, belief and ritual are a huge factor in our identity. We place a lot of value on how we hope the future will be, and without belief and ritual to lean on and look forward to respectively, we become lost in our own actions only. Most of which would make us feel crappy if we didn't know for a fact that on Monday the diet starts.




P.S., this post is gonna seem a bit disjointed because I removed a huge chunk, and that cripled the flow in the middle, but it was necessary, and I didn't want to not do this piece in its entirely.

In which I blow up my world....

Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.


I use this little piece of dialogue from the fat man's epic religious movie because it is killing me to see the hypocrisy and lack of devotion to what is supposed to be core tenets of certain faiths.

I don't want this rant to turn in to, oh well you are talking about religion, not faith. To that end, let me neuter you now. Faith is a deeply personal matter which is between you and your God. It is only between you and your god and it takes place inside your own mind. It dictates your behaviour and informs your actions. Religion is what you project to the public. What you espouse to others and what you gather to celebrate. Any time you tell me what you believe to be the ultimate truth is in fact religion. It is a series of beliefs based on whatever text you tend to follow. If you want to tell me that there is a difference between what one believes and what one has faith in then you must give me a better argument, since in the end, actions speak louder than lip service.

All that being said, I am tired of closed minded lip service payment to ideals I hold dear.

You see, I believe everyone needs to be loved, and everyone needs to be accepted and treated with respect.

I am told that this is the main ideal of Christianity. I am told that Jesus was all about loving thy neighbour as thyself. A beautiful ideal to be sure, yet one no one seems to have a hold on in any meaningful way.

I heard this morning, a man claiming to be a christian in one breath, and calling a politician a whore and making fun of her.

"..just because she liked to sleep with oily drunk men..."

This was a characterization of something the woman said, without actual claim to her past. This christian decided to make fun of her and belittle her based on no evidence. He did not love his neighbour.

In the last few weeks, a man in the position of being a christian leader wanted to burn books and treat others with great disrespect. This man did not love his neighbour.

Last week, I was unable to do things on my own. I asked for help and was denied because the person projected their belief, which is not based on anything other than opinion over interpretation of sayings in a book. How can I say this? Well the fact is, they are putting their own belief on something they do not like, while ignoring the things that he does like which also break commandments. He did not love his neighbour.

I listened to two people argue over what damage atheism is doing to the world. One person claimed atheists are the worst thing in the world. He ignored the fact that as many atheists are working towards the betterment of their fellow man as Christians are. He ignored the fact that people like me devote their being to helping others and merely dismissed me and those like me as evil because we are not spreading the word of god.....as he sees it. He did not love his neighbour.

What do all these people have in common? They all not only claim ownership of the truth, but they also all influence the opinions of my friends.

I want to love my neighbour. I want to devote my life to improving the lives of others. I want to treat others with respect and caring.

I do not want to hold beliefs that would have me wish my son be stupid rather than gay.

I do not want to reject human beings because their beliefs are different than mine.

I do not want to belittle another person because I want to neuter their ideas.

Intolerance is not solely in the purview of the secular.

As I type this, a priest just said, and I quote: "you are like a chatty cathy doll, you never shut up." He does not love his neighbour.

I am tired, and I am not interested in hearing about how we can love god and not love each other.

Life is too short to live for death. Life is too long to live for yourself.

We need to look at our religious texts, and we need to look at them critically. We need to not blindly believe in something.

We need to see how the one hand says love, while the other teaches intolerance. We cannot pick and choose if we claim to believe in the word. We either believe in all the words, or we believe in none of them.

Picking and choosing which items are still relevant and which are outdated is ridiculous. I like this idea so I am going to go with it, but boy this is not tastey, let us reject it.

If you are going to reject homosexuality, then you must reject female teachers.

If you are going to reject premarital sex, then you must reject blind people.

When a person says it matters more what is in your heart, it doesn't mean that you get to ignore the other things, merely that following the rule of law is not enough.

Nowhere does Jesus reject the law, just that he claimed wanting to follow the law is not as important as believing in the law.

In the end, the only thing I want is to hold my own spirituality in my heart and spend my time making the world we live in a better place.

Too often people are only concerned with the afterlife. They see this world as flawed and not worth saving. Thus they work towards the next life. They believe in saving souls so they can join them in the afterlife.

I want to see this world improved. It is flawed. It is broken, and so are the people who live in it. I see it as a world worth saving. I see people as worth saving now.

When your belief is based on the destruction of the world, how can you work to improve the world? When all you do is designed to protect you when the world blows up, or you die, how can you work to make this life and this world better? You do not love your neighbour. You fear your god's wrath.

There is a war for my soul. It is happening here and now. I intend to give it back to me. I intend to be accountable to myself, my loved ones and my neighbour. I intend to let my neighbour define what loving them is, not some book which is full of intolerance and hate.



I know this will upset a number of people, but in the end, I cannot live with hypocracy and rejection.

I had a whole other entry lined up and scheduled. I have moved that schedule to another time in order to get the rest of this off my chest.

One final note to those who might say I am being selfish and hypocritical by rejecting some of my neighbours, I say this to you, I will love my neighbour until they reject my love and make it impossible for me to love them. There are tough choices in this world, and the fact is, judging people is not what I want to do, but like all humans I cannot avoid it. All I can do is try and live my life and treat everyone equally.