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Mar. 27th, 2005 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickA friend's LJ discussed some unanswerable questions the other day, which got me to thinking about what I believe. And, well, it's Easter Sunday and I just wrapped up Buffy, which is a pretty moral show with lots of premarital sex, blood rituals, the undead, demons, and tons of violent murders. It seemed like a good time to talk about what I believe.
I am a godless heathen. If pressed on the issue, I will admit to being an atheist, but I don't carry a card about it or hand out pamphlets or anything. I'm not militant. (If it were up to me, militance would be socially discouraged for any faith or lack-of-faith position. Perhaps we could make it on a taste level with farting loudly in public?) I do not visit the fidels with explanatory pamphlets and I am not trying to sway ten more of the faithful from the fold so that I can earn a wide-slot toaster. (Atheists are nowhere near as organized in that respect as homosexuals, who have a scaled incentive program, with fabulous premiums, for converting hets to their way of thinking. I guess it's sort of a sexual Amway thing. My friend bkw wasn't willing to go into huge amounts of detail on it because I wasn't a member of the Secret Homosexual Liberation Front or whatever they're calling themselves this week.)
What do I believe?
I believe there is a right and a wrong. (This is what kept pissing off the preacher. He was like "How do you know?" and I was all I just know. Are you saying you don't? and he was like "What makes you so sure? How do you know? What do you base it on?" and I said I just am sure. Right is right and wrong is wrong and I can tell them apart. See, it's turtles all the way down for me and I don't really have a problem with that. He looked confused after that so we talked about anal sex instead. [Readers who do not know me in person may think I am making this up. I am not.] For a preacher, he talked a lot about buttfucking. And, y'know, I found his lack of faith disturbing. This man believed in virgin birth, resurrection, original sin, transubstantiation, the story of the great flood, and lots of other not-very-plausible things and he could not admit the possibility that I could tell right from wrong without a bearded vengeance demon in the sky to help me. Fuck that.)
I believe I can determine what the right and the wrong options are for any situation I encounter. Sometimes all the options will suck, but even in the face of great suckage, there will be a right option and at least one wrong option.
I believe it is proper, meet, and appropriate to choose the right. That is what shall be done. Sometimes I fail to choose the right, whether willfully or blindly or stupidly. I try not to beat myself up about the failures. I also try not to repeat them.
I believe in telling the truth.
I believe in the sanctity of property, mine and other people's.
I believe in being honorable in business.
I believe that people can change.
I believe in duty to family.
I believe in responsibility.
I believe in living so that I can look at myself in the mirror every day without hating myself or what I have become. (This is *not* the easy option and I really wish overbearingly smarmy religious folk would quit acting like it was.) Being a moral person is an ongoing thing. You have to keep after it, like uprooting the dandelions in your yard with a screwdriver. It's not exactly constant vigilance, not with the degree of humor surrounding Mad-Eye, but it's close. Do the right thing. Can you? Again? Again! Again! Not-the-mama! (*sigh* I'm channeling old sitcoms. Sorry.)
Things I should probably work on:
Charity. I'm not particularly charitable towards others, particularly those who are weaker, stupider, slower, or otherwise unable to keep up with the field.
Forgiveness. I don't do this well, either, though I do better for unintentional or accidental hurts than I do for intentional ones.
Patience... even in everday life (as opposed to on Big Moral Decisions), I could use some work on patience. The guy in front of me at the stoplight is not being slow off the green just to piss me off.
I am a godless heathen. If pressed on the issue, I will admit to being an atheist, but I don't carry a card about it or hand out pamphlets or anything. I'm not militant. (If it were up to me, militance would be socially discouraged for any faith or lack-of-faith position. Perhaps we could make it on a taste level with farting loudly in public?) I do not visit the fidels with explanatory pamphlets and I am not trying to sway ten more of the faithful from the fold so that I can earn a wide-slot toaster. (Atheists are nowhere near as organized in that respect as homosexuals, who have a scaled incentive program, with fabulous premiums, for converting hets to their way of thinking. I guess it's sort of a sexual Amway thing. My friend bkw wasn't willing to go into huge amounts of detail on it because I wasn't a member of the Secret Homosexual Liberation Front or whatever they're calling themselves this week.)
What do I believe?
I believe there is a right and a wrong. (This is what kept pissing off the preacher. He was like "How do you know?" and I was all I just know. Are you saying you don't? and he was like "What makes you so sure? How do you know? What do you base it on?" and I said I just am sure. Right is right and wrong is wrong and I can tell them apart. See, it's turtles all the way down for me and I don't really have a problem with that. He looked confused after that so we talked about anal sex instead. [Readers who do not know me in person may think I am making this up. I am not.] For a preacher, he talked a lot about buttfucking. And, y'know, I found his lack of faith disturbing. This man believed in virgin birth, resurrection, original sin, transubstantiation, the story of the great flood, and lots of other not-very-plausible things and he could not admit the possibility that I could tell right from wrong without a bearded vengeance demon in the sky to help me. Fuck that.)
I believe I can determine what the right and the wrong options are for any situation I encounter. Sometimes all the options will suck, but even in the face of great suckage, there will be a right option and at least one wrong option.
I believe it is proper, meet, and appropriate to choose the right. That is what shall be done. Sometimes I fail to choose the right, whether willfully or blindly or stupidly. I try not to beat myself up about the failures. I also try not to repeat them.
I believe in telling the truth.
I believe in the sanctity of property, mine and other people's.
I believe in being honorable in business.
I believe that people can change.
I believe in duty to family.
I believe in responsibility.
I believe in living so that I can look at myself in the mirror every day without hating myself or what I have become. (This is *not* the easy option and I really wish overbearingly smarmy religious folk would quit acting like it was.) Being a moral person is an ongoing thing. You have to keep after it, like uprooting the dandelions in your yard with a screwdriver. It's not exactly constant vigilance, not with the degree of humor surrounding Mad-Eye, but it's close. Do the right thing. Can you? Again? Again! Again! Not-the-mama! (*sigh* I'm channeling old sitcoms. Sorry.)
Things I should probably work on:
Charity. I'm not particularly charitable towards others, particularly those who are weaker, stupider, slower, or otherwise unable to keep up with the field.
Forgiveness. I don't do this well, either, though I do better for unintentional or accidental hurts than I do for intentional ones.
Patience... even in everday life (as opposed to on Big Moral Decisions), I could use some work on patience. The guy in front of me at the stoplight is not being slow off the green just to piss me off.
