Religon in Child Rearing

Something I was reading in another blog got me thinking about the place of relgion in child-rearing. It is a perfectly natural and understandable feeling that if a person should belong to a relgion, any religion and feel strongly about it whatever it might be they will want to teach it to thier childern and have thier childern come to cheerish it as much as they do, but I am not certain this is in fact the best idea. I belive that a person most take a step back though it might be difficult to do so. I would think that most parents, would want thier childern to grow up with the ability to think for themelves and make up thier own minds and be unique invididuals who do not just follow what other people say, but question things and explore and develop, and yet when a child is given pre-pacakaged relgious ideas from a very young age, that is the very oppisiste of that. I think relgion is a journay each person must be allowed to take upon thier own within thier own mind and soul, ultimately I do not think a person should be forced or brian washed to any beleif. Nor should thier exploration of spiritualty by hampered by any mental baggage.

Childeren should not be really imbued with any religon, for one thing they did not really understand, and for another I do not think it is mentally healty. It is possible for one to teach the vulaues of thier religon without acutally teaching the philosophies and theologies behind it. I was rasied in a household where there was no religon to speak of, not to say my family was athiest, but it just was not something my parents tought to the childern whatever theye beleived in, they allowed thier childern to find thier own spiritual paths. I remeber when I was younger I had this vauge concept of God and some masculine singular being that was suppose to be the creater and ruler of all, becasue one cannot help but to be exposed to such in outside influences, but it never quite felt right to me and I never really grasped this concept or accepeted it as truth for me. I always felt a natural draw to nature and at night would sometimes talk to the moon, or I would address Mother Nature as if it were a living entiity. I remember when I was young I sort of grudingly accpeted God becasue I did not know there was any other options, but it never felt right or true. Then it was not untill I was in highschool when I became aware of Paganisim and found that was what my calling truly was.

When I think of how many people I have met whom were brought up in very strong Christain and Catholic familes, and how many of them after growing up have renouneced those beleifs, were also left with feelings of angst towrd them and feel a negitivity to these religons, and I cannot help but to wonder if this is not in part to do with the fact then when they were too young to really know any better were force fed such ideology.

My sister now is a new mother and she has choosen the Pagan path as myself and she is debating now what she should do about the relgious question, becasue she dosen't really want to brain wash her child into having to accept her own beleifs, but she wants to teach the Pagan vaules of being respetful to nature and enviromentaly responseable and comtrable and caring to animals, as well she knows her child will be exposed to religons that she dosen't agree with.

9:18 AM - 8/17/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

Offering a Different View

After molling it over a bit, there is something which was posted as a comment in my blog which I would like to respond to. But before I begin I wish to say that I am not doing this to be hostel or to bicker or any such reasons as that. I do not want my intentions mistaken. I am doing this as an intelligent evulation, and offering an alterntive point of view. This comment I will be responding is as follows.

I will comment on your statement on your reference that Jesus was a prophet, Bush has made the same mistake, Jesus was and is the Son of God, now in the Christian Bible Jesus was referred to as a prophet by His apostles etc because at that time they did not realize exactly who Jesus was ie....In Matthew 16.....When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
My point here being that while it was appropiate for many in Jesus' day to refer to Him as prophet out of ignorance simply because they "did not know Him" its not the case for us today.

Now, it is true that if one follows the Bible then yest Jesus was the Son of God, but no everyone nesciarly holds that view. So my refering to him as a prohphet was not nessciarly out of ignorance nor was it nessciarly incorrect of me to do so.

For one thing, I do not follow the Bible and I am not a Christan and do not belive in the Jedu/Christain God, with this being said, it would not be accurate for me to refer to Jesus as being the Song of God, for I do not belive in that said God, but it is prefectly conciveable for a person to belive that Jeus was a living breathing person who really walked the worth without accpeting that he was nessciarly the Son of God.

I can choose to belive that Jesus was indeed a true historical figure that acutally lived but that he was a mortal man and a leader of a new religon. No different then Sidharatha who later became known as Buddha, I can belive that there really was such a person as Sidhartha that was the founder of Buddism, without belive that he himself became a God.

Also you have to consider the views of other relgions, for example Muslims view Jesus as being a Prohet within thier relgion without seeing him as being the Son of God. And the Hindus even accept Jesus in their relgion and they belive he was an avatar to Vishnu.

3:12 PM - 7/5/2006 - comments {1} - post comment

Contemplating on Religon

This is just a random though which I have had, and decided I wished to put out there, though I know that many will most likely not agree, that is quite fine by me.

Contorary to what most people beleive Christanty is in fact not a true monothesic relgion, though they like to say that they are, and it is true that they do only worship one God, but if you look at it closely you will see what I mean. For starters if you go back to the roots of Christanty, it never started as a beleif in just one God, in the very begening it started out as a polothesitc reglion, the now Jedu/Christan God, orignally started as being little more then a tribal God, and one of many such Gods, and basicaly the tribe which worhisped him decided that he was surperior to all the other Gods, and that all the other tribes should abandon thier own Gods to worship him. But they still acknowleged that other Gods were in exsistince they only saw those other Gods as being inferrior to thier own God.

The whole One and Only God, monothestic thing was something which began to develop over time, it never started that way. It was never as if one day someone just woke up and said, "hey wait a mintue there is Only God" Basicly it began more or less as a "My God is bigger then your God" thing, and it was through the demorlization of the other Gods which began to give people to interpet it as monotheism. But even so there was never an offical denial that other Gods did indeed exisit they were just seen as lesser Gods.

If you look at the wording in the Bible itself it states,

"No other Gods shall be worshiped before me" 

Now that line does not conclusively deny the exsistince of other Gods. Nowhere in there does it acutally refer to the Jedu/Christan God as being the One and Only God.  If you think about it the line is more of acknowelgent that there are indeed other Gods, you should not worship them, you should only worship me. This is not about montheism it is about surpemecy which are two different things. To view something as inferiror is not to deny that it is in exsistince.

If you really think about this deeply and take the time to mull it over, if Chrisanity was true montheism and if the beleif was sincenrely that the Juedo/Christan God was in fact the One and Only God, and that no other Gods exsisted at all whatsoever, then why would have to address something which was not even there?

If the Jedu/Christan God was truly the One and Only God, then he would not have bothered to tell people not to worship any other Gods, but there would be no other Gods for people to try and worship, and a singular God would not insult himself by giving the title of God to lesser beings.

For instance like look at it this way. With the whole contriveroy over the Presidency and did Bush really win, or did Kerry really in. No one follows Kerry as an alternitve President, even though he might have been more popular. No one refers to him as being the President, and Bush does not have to make statments saying that No other Presidents will be followed before him, because there is only one President like it or not.

And it would be the exzact same way with relgion if Christanty was truly monothesitc. Granted, there are some obvious differences as by law Kerry could not try and act as an alterntive President, but people can still belive what they want reguardless, and if they so choose to worship a wheel of cheese as a God, but the point is such things would not have been acknowleged as being Gods at all in the Bible to begin with if there was in fact only One true God

Now granted Chrsitans today can refuse to acknowlege any other such beings as being Gods, and they probaly will, but even so that does not change the words used in the very text they follow, that is just thier opinion of it.

2:33 PM - 7/5/2006 - comments {2} - post comment

Hands of Fate

I have been doing some thinking and relfecting lately, and it strikes me as strange sometimes how things tend to work out. It is the strangeness of events and encounters that leads me to belive that there really are no true conincidences or accidents, but that there is another force envoled, a guiding force that helps lead the course of things. That everything happens for a reason. I see it as being like little milestones fate has left to lead up to one particular event.

As an example of what I mean, the odds are that if I never had met Eric (my ex) and ended up having that disaster with him then I would probaly neveer would have turned to the pagan personals in my quest to make a new life for myself and then I would never have met Matthew. I see it almost as if somehow Eric was needed in order to get me to where I needed to be to discover what I was really looking for. Fate put him there in my way, though unlike what I had oringally thought it was not becasue he was the one who was to be my soul mate but becasue it was being with him that made me realize that I was at a time in my life where I was really ready to have a life comonapion, and that is what led mt to seek the service of personal ads. If I had never met Eric then I probaly would have the same attitude I did before him, before Eric I never acutally made any effort to truly meet anyone I just figured if it was ment to happen then it would happen. But after Eric I sort of gained a new prespective and thought I still put my trust in fate I decided that if I really wanted to be with someone then I would have to put myself out there and be active in finding them. And now I am with Matthew, and I am very hopeful for our future together, he is an amazing guy and very good to me. Though this is a more exereme example little things like this happen all the time, sometimes they may be small sometimes they may be big. But everything that happens does so precisesly becasue of the steps leading up to that moment.

Another examaple is how I met my now best friend Fred, one day one a whim when I was bored I decided that I would make an aol blog, it was the first blog I had ever done, and before that point I was never really into blogs and had no real intrest in having one but then I was just like what the hell and made one to give me something to do, it was becasue I had made that blog that I then stumbled upon Freds blog and it caught my eye so I read it and ended up leaving a comment and at this point my blog was still new so I told him to check it out sometime, well he happend to IM me after reading my comment and from there we just really hit it off and discovered a lot in common and are now really close friends.

Though I do belive in free will and that we can alter our courses by the actions we choose, and I do not think everything we do is pre-ordained I do think there is some fate envoled and perhaps somethings that are just ment to happen, and obsticels, or stepping stones, or other people are put in our path to help lead us to these things. Though ultimately I think the individual still has the right to decide what they are going to do and are not led by puppets. For example though the event with Eric is what led me to the peronsal ads I do not thing anything acutally forced me to use them, I think that was my own decision, just the thought of doing so would never have even been there if I had not had that experince. Same thing with Fred, I do not think I was forced by anything to make a blog, that choice was my own, but there were perhaps other things that led me the moment where I would even consider doing so.

2:56 PM - 6/21/2006 - comments {1} - post comment

Manifestation

11:48 PM - 5/9/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

Self Set Rules

I stumbled upon something upon another blog that sounded kind of interesting called The Bitch Club, it sounded like the type of thing I might be able to get on bored with and I considered submiting my blog, after reading thier rules I thought I might stand a chance at getting accepted, but alas I shall not, because it has always been one of my rules not to join anything, no matter what it be, any sort of club, orginization, order, regligous group, etc..., I stay free lance and free style unattached, a rouge and an outsider feeling completely free of having to conform to anyones rules and guidelines, and I have very recently learned the great importance of not breaking ones own rules, that is the overall point of this post. To stree the importance of not breaking the rules you set up for yourself.

I think we all have them, standanards, guidelines, rules, that we set upon ourselves, things we tell ourselves we will not do, I have a few, and sometimes in some situations it might be tempting to break these rules, or bend them, sometimes we might try to make excuseses and find reasons why this particular situation is an exception or different so it would not really count, but you are still twsiting your rules, and that is a big no no, remeber there was a reason why you set those rules to start with, and if you let yourself break them, in the end it will come back around on you.

I say this because I was in a sitution in which I broke one of my rules, I tried to tell myself that it did not really count, that the circumstances were speical or different in this case, so I was not really breaking the rule, but I was, and now I am paying the price for it, it seems. So I cannot let myself make that mistake again, I must hold myself from here on to the rules I set for myself no matter how harmless or tmepting it might seem to break the rule. 

10:52 AM - 3/31/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

What is reality?

I have been talking to this aquaintince of mine, and he is really hung up on this whole idea about reality, and wheather it is real or if it is just a myth, and he has these therories about reality being all an illusion and that our own bodies are only illusion, and well I do have my own preceptions of reality, but I know that the whole question or reality is one that is common particuarly in philosphical debate and there have been seveal theroies and ideas about the illusion of reality, so I have given the matter some thought, and there are a couple problems with the idea that I have, which to me seem to disprove the reality as myth or illusion idea, though I am sure there are those that could try and dispell and debate my arguements, one of them I can even come up for a counter argument for myself, though it is a bit shakey I think and take some streaching, such is what philosphers do.

The first problem I have with accepting reality as a myth idea is this. If realiy was a myth or illusion then the "laws" of reality would be only illusion as well and would not really exsist. Now by laws I do not mean legal or moral laws, you will see in a moment what I am getting at. But if there is no reality and if there is one who has the precetpion to see beyond the veil of reality and knows it to only be a myth, then they should be free and unbound by reality, which means. There is no reason why a person could not jump off the end of the cliff spread thier arms and fly. The only thing the prevents a person from doing so now is the law of gravity, but that is a law that is a part of what we understand to be reality, so if there is no reality, and if a person sees that there is no reality, then there would be no gravity, and it would only be the preception of gravity in each indiviudals mind which keeps them bound to it. But if a person so past that and knew the truth, they would not have a preception of graveity so they should be perfectly capable of doing this. Though I have a feeling that if I were to ask me aqueantice who holds this beleif in the myth of reality if he could jump off a cliff and take off flying he would say no. Nor do I think he would acutally atempt to do any such thing or the obvious reasons, but that alone I think acts as a disproof to his theory.

Now there is the more complex issue that we could get into here about that, based on what we see as being reality, for instance suppose the earth itself is accepted as being an aboslute, it is understood as being real, and so that all the laws of physics would still hold in place. And it is only how we precive our lives on earth and ourselves to be that is the illusion. So gravity would still be in place, or would it? The problem there is, that the reason we know about the law of graveity or the earth even is through scientific study, but who are these scintensts? If they are part of the illusion of reality then how can thier worl be trusted to be real if they themselves are only illusion?

Another porblem is that if it is all just an illusion then how is it that everyone precived it in the same way? If reality was a myth then instead of just being one reality that we all have of the world there would be several seperate realities, which does exist to a certain extent but not as much as it would if in truth it was all just illusion. For example only a precentage of the world would have gravity becasue it is not something that everyone would precive if it was all purely a matter of precetpion. There would in fact not be just one world but several small worlds. Unless of course the illusion of the one reality is being projected upon us all by an outside source of some sort. And that can get into all sorts of questions about religon which I do not want to touch upon just now.

The other issue I had with the reality as a myth theory is sort of related to the first, but I have yet to think of a counter agrument for it. Which is that if reality is all just illusion and everything within it is an illusion then the person who precives this and is not fooled should be more or less invinseable. The example I use for this is, if a person was to shoot someone who knew that reality was all just illusion then he would know that the bullet was not real, but an illusion itself, and in he turn he was not real but an illusion and if two illsuionary objects were to pass through each other, it should be just like passing through air and no harm should be done. How can an illusionary bullet penetrate flesh which is not really there but only precived in the mind?

Well that is just something to think about.

10:54 AM - 3/10/2006 - comments {1} - post comment

A Lesson Learned

We are all familler with the old clique fight fire with fire, and even I had in the past made the folly of following this advice and doing just though, but I have come to learn that doing so really does not accomplish anything and it is just a trap to fall into, but I have recently come to discover a better way of doing things and adopted my own philosophy upon the matter.

Say, for instance you are getting into a debate, or having a disagrement with someone, and the other person goes off the deep end, and engages in offering a few low blows, and begins down the road of peronal attack, no intially you are angery and it might be tempting to respond in kind and start a flame war with this person, which would result in the constant bickering back and forth, and resolve nothing, as well as confirming thier assumptions about you, and making you both look like iditots, though it might feel momentrairly good to get in a few shots, as you would feel justified in doing so, it will not have any real effect upon them but make them angerier and cause them to retaliate against you and so on and so forth.

Instead there is a better way of doing things, which I have found works quite well. I call it fighting fire with water, perhaps not very orginal, but makes sense does it not?

The idea behind fighting fire with water is this, do not respond to a person when you are angery, first take some time to get level headed, do what you have to do, rant off about the person to a friend to get it out of your system, or in a journal, take a walk, do something you find claming, whatever, once you have it all out, and do not feel the sting of anger then you respond to them. And you do so in a way that is rational, civil, and calm.

That is not to say I am suggestion forgiving what they have said, or exusiting it and letting it go unanswered, not at all, by all means confront them but do so with your wits about you, instead of just lashing out at them, point out to them the fallices they have made and reveal to them just what an ass they made of themselves without using any unescnary insults that will not help your cause.

If you do this, then unless they want to make more of an ass of themselves it will be almost impossible for them to respond in a ranting raving way, and they will be forced to put themselves in check and it will help to make you come off as being the more sane one which will garner more outside support to your side.

The reason I call this fighting fire with water, is becasue it is a very cool, calm, collected way of dealing with things, and it does quell the intial flame.

9:44 PM - 2/9/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

A Lost Sacredness

In this day and age it seems more and more the sacredness and purity of female beauty in all its shapes, sizes and colors is being lost. In this age of cosmic surgery, aging creams, popularity and obcession with make up, diet craze, all things that are natural and once were revered and considred beautiful in thier own way are being twisted and turned into something gortesque and wrong which needs to be fixed. In which now more and more women are holding the view man can fix, imrpove and make better what nature has crafted. Though many women will try and blame the media, hollywood, and the view point of men in this day and age, from where I see it more then anything it is the women who are doing it to themsels, the women who are responseable for this outlook more then any other source and they just look for outward excuses. And now, I am really flabergasted for what might turn into the latest new thing. It is an assulet upon the beuaty, and sacredness of motherhood, and all the asepcts of the female body when in a maternal way which were once revered and seen has having an allure. Now it is being viewed as something that needs correction. For one thing there is the disstress women seem to feel for the weight they gain during pregnancy though once a woman took pride in that. Now in LA a new surgery is being put into practice.  There is no gentle way to really put this, so just bare with me and be mature for a few moments. It is a vaginal cosmetic surgery which is intended to serve the purpose of tightning the vagina after it had been streached from child birth, or changing the apperence of the vagina.

I am left to wonder what happend to the days when nature was allowed to take its course and when a person took pride in being who they were?

7:44 PM - 2/9/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

Friendship

Friendship is a concept that it seems today so few people truly grasp and understand the meaning of. The word frienship now seems to be thrown around hapzardly and everyone a person might spend 5 mins talking to suddnely gets dubbed as a friend. But to me this a firend does not make. Friendship is something more then that. It goes beyond that. The word friendship should be as sacred and carefully placed as the words I love you. I have very few friends, becasue of this. I will not dawn just anyone I talk to as a firend. I have people that I like and that I enjoy speaking with but that alone does not make them friend. That just makes them aquintences. A friend is a person you can trust completely, someone who you do not fear you have to hide anything from but whom you are freely yourself with and share your thoughts and feelings with. A firend is someone who you can disagree with without it turning into a fight and without them getting angery with you. Someone you can be honest with. A friend is someone who should be family, even if not related by blood. Friendship should be a give and take relationship, a relationship where you are willing and wanting to do for them without exepcting anything in return and someone whom would do for you without a seceret agenade. Someone who will always make the time for you and be there when you need them. All too often it seems there are one sided freindships established, friendships that work more like the relationship between a host and its parasite where one person is simply using the other and only comes around when they need something. This a friend does not make.

3:00 PM - 2/9/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

Quote of the Week: Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up returning to that path which nature has marked out for him --Johann Wolfgang von Gothe

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