Down with Big Brother

I think that I'm slowly changing my mind.

I've been wanting to say that the church is the right choice for anyone who sincerely feels that the church is true- I think I've been using the phrase "live and momentous option." But now I'm not so sure. If believing in church doctrine fosters bigotry, belittling, pride, elitism, and most of all if it hinders a person from thinking for themselves, then the option is momentous in a negative way and should be abandoned. Even if it simultaneously fosters service, devotion, prayer, modesty, and teaches peace, hope, and charity- real Christ-like love is not attained when any of the former qualities are present.

And I believe this is true not only for Mormonism but for any organized religion. Does God really want organized finger-pointing? Sadly, I think that many people belonging to any organized religion are too caught up in being right to be genuinely loving people. They may have their moments of charity and understanding, but there's no escaping the innate selfishness of the phrase, "I am right and you are wrong" -especially when we have no way of proving whose religious ideas are true. However, not all followers fall into this category. Some of my dearest friends (yes, some of them are Mormons) break the mold. And I am very blessed to have parents that are pretty open-minded as well. My mother has told me more than once that she wonders if in the end we will find out that none of the religions had it all right; more and more I am inclined to believe that she is right.

Life is about learning to love, and though almost any organized religion would agree with that notion, religious division frequently seems to prevent people from achieving true charity because they mistake pity for real love. I think a person is better off being an understanding atheist than a pitying believer.

What I'm trying to say with all of this is that I am feeling particularly disenchanted with organized religion in general and especially with Mormonism, since that is what I am presently most familiar with. I am not saying that it is bad to be a spiritual person or even a religious person- just so long as your religion doesn't turn you into a brainwashed raging finger-pointer on a pedestal.

Projections of Reality

We as human beings are professionals when it comes to projecting. From projecting election results to projecting our noses into other people’s business- it just comes naturally. In fact, we do it everyday. We define our reality by projecting what we want or need to be true onto existence. No matter how much we claim to be objective about our interpretation of what is real, we just can’t seem to escape subjectivity. We want something to be true, so we say it’s true and then find reasons that make it true, projecting our morals and measurements onto nature. This is true of religion, of social standards, and even what we consider to be the most fundamental laws of reality- being, identity, causality, and time. We can’t or don’t want to understand the world in any other way. This of course does not mean that all of our projections are false, but it certainly calls into question the soundness of our beliefs. So how, when so much of our truth is faith-based, can we claim that one way of looking at the world is better than another? It’s time that we start being more honest with ourselves and accepting that we are addicted to projecting. Hello, my name is draco and I am a bona fide projectionalist.