When I was a kid, I often heard older folks say, “two things you should never discuss are religion and politics.” Old folks new that people’s differences of opinions would lead to a social fracturing. They knew on a deeper level that people are allowed to have their own opinions, and despite the differences, it was important to stand up and fight for their right to have them. It was important to allow your neighbor to disagree with you, and thus allow yourself the right to you own, differing opinion.
So, rather than disagreeing out loud about the most sensitive opinions a person can hold, best to let it be, and hold the bond of society together.
Boy! Have things changed! Online, at least. From the reports I hear about people’s Holiday gatherings, intimate face to face interactions have not been well lately, either.
Often I think of something once told me by one of those old timers, that “if you could read the minds of all the people around you, you would not want to be around them.” I think that because of the influence of that statement on my world view, I see Social Media as the culprit that has emboldened people to speak out the secret thoughts of their minds, basically allowing others to read their thoughts.
I am sure you would find that I am like anyone else, holding deep opinions on both subjects that many might find offensive. Too many times, I have encountered among people’s religious ideologies the idea that everyone who does not believe as they do should all just be killed, and God allowed to sort it all out. If not that extreme, they often believe that the nonbelievers will ge their comeuppance in the end, sure they will burn in Hell forever after they die. Lovely.
Politics is probably even more difficult in a democracy because there is now great sorter to resolve everything in the end, though one is often invoked when politicians say things like “…and may God bless America,” or “God will hold us accountable,” though that one seems to be fading away, thankfully.
When someone in the political realm invokes God as their reasoning behind their actions, they tell me that their reasoning has not been thought out independently, and they are blindly following what has been taught to them from childhood. Not many people independently consider the origins of the Universe, the nature of mankind, and the reasoning behind morality and come up with the specific God of Islam or any of the many versions of it given in Christianty. And to say they are all the same is just lazy.
The Mormons who brought me up might say that I have denied the Holy Spirit which has witnessed to me the truthfulness of the gospel. The gospel as they know it, sure. Another Christian might say I was raised in a cult, and therefor never knew the Lord. Yet, I have had multiple instances of witness by the Holy Spirit. But I got out of my own head when I realized that many Christians get the same witness, the exact same feelings, the exact same logical conclusions of the source of those feelings, and what they were saying to my soul. How can the Holy Spirit bear witness that Mormon Jesus is true just the same as Christian Jeseus is, yet they are many different beings, depending on exactly which Christian you ask? Go to one church, and they claim ultimate truth, and in another, they claim it, yet in one, mankind can only be saved by good works, while in another, it is all upon only the acceptance of Jesus. Between them, they cannot work out the nature of salvation, the nature of God, or the nature of humankind. Could it be that it is all made up, and it is just a bunch of people who cannot agree on their imaginings, guided by a confusing old book of fables made up by ancient people who were trying to control eachother?
Either everybody gets the witness of the Holy Spirit, or nobody does. Either way, it does not bode well for the truth it is witness to.
Recently, the last of the Mormons in my family who might desperately care if I am going to Church or believing or paying my tithes or not, died. Paradoxically, she does not get to know the was wrong about the nature of death, or that she was wrong to fear it as much as she did, which always was the ultimate irony coming from a believer. I guess she doubted.
Free from religion, politics still haunt me, and likely always will, to the extent I allow it to. To this end, it is unfortunate that so much of my time in college was spent in classes on philosophy and political science. Habits of thinking were formed, and they are hard to ignore. Politics are visible, and affect us, unlike religion, where a person can just forget about it, and it will pretty much leave them alone, till they die. It seems to leave everyone alone when they die.
So, how do I break free from politics? Is it possible? Should I? As it affects things like the environment, from erosion to climate change, am I morally bound to it? No man is an island, after all, and even if he were, he would not be safe because of Arctic melting and seal level rise.
Perhaps politics is here to stay.
As for religion, I have put that one to rest for myself. As others may never, and there is nothing I can do about it, I will happily accept any decent human being who is willing to do the same in return. And honestly, most people are decent.
With the Mormon gone, and her narcissism along with her religion, I no longer need to worry what she will get up to next based on anything that might make its way back to her from my mind. This has been a sad familial condition that has lead to depression, and me not writing. Only a month after her death, I already feel much more free. It would never have been this way if I did not care what she thought. But I did. Free of that, expect more of what I do think, and my online journal to hopefully be my place to express freely.
I have recently paid the bill on this site. Now I intend to get value out of it. Religion and Politics be damned.