Conserve

SO, lately, conservative religion has really been frustrating me greatly. I am a firm believer that progressive change is good. It may be difficult, but it is good. Conservatives have tried to give progressive a negative connotation. I have never ever thought that progress could be illustrated as a negative thing. BUT...amazing things are possibly when you're constituency exists on the idea of having unquestioning faith in things.

Some thoughts: I want you to go back in time, and think to yourself about civil rights efforts. Right of women to vote, blacks to vote, getting rid of segregation, freeing slaves. Anything that was done in the past and is today thought of with the mindset, "glad we did that" Think to who the largest opponent of any of these things was. It seems to ALWAYS be a conservative religious group. Even now, there are still groups who don't want evolution taught in schools, won't allow gays to marry, or don't want them to serve in the military. Religious groups. Religion is anti-progress.

I read the blog of a very conservative friend of mine and he makes lists of people to pray for and keep in your hearts. I think this is a solid thing. I think positive energy is good. If I am not well and I know there are tons of people out there thinking of me and hoping for me to get better, I am probably going to feel better faster or at least not feel as bad during the healing process. I think all that is good. What I don't get is when he is asking for prayer for people who are extremely depressed, or financially unstable, or have another problem that would be more adequately solved by something other than prayer. They're depressed? Go talk to them, set up a support group, refer them to therapists. They are financially unstable? Help them find a job, give them a loan, help them fix their finances.

Another thing, this person prays a big thank you whenever something good happens to him. He applied for and was awarded the chance to travel overseas and he thanks God. Whether God had anything to do with it I don't know, but why don't you give yourself some credit. You were able to seek this out, apply, and prove yourself most equipped for the job. YOU did that. YOU. Why don't you thank the people who have shaped you along the way. THEY made YOU into the person who is capable of such things.

Do you think Steve Jobs thanks God every day that he was able to sell millions of iPhones? I bet he thanks himself, his supportive family, and is extremely capable staff for thinking and developing both a wonderful product and marketing plan to make that possible.

My message may be this, I'm not sure, but here goes.

Dear Humanity,
Through fortuitous development of both our own and nature's doing, you have become capable of amazing mind-blowing things. Let's realize this. Let's stop thinking that the fortuitous things in our life are granted by a divine being. We now know that by doing a dance we can't make it rain. So let's stop thinking that by locking ourselves into a doctrine and it's rituals we can bring societal perfection. The religious raindance is a thing of the past. We may be sad to see it go, and the future without that to comfort you may be scary, but let's roll up our sleeves and stroll into the dark. Our achievements will be ours. We will have made things happen the best way for us. We will have engineered our success and continued advances. Let's get brave for once.
Love, Bryce

I read a quote on the 9/12 projects twitter feed the other day that illustrated to be exactly the conservatives wrong way of thinking. IT was something along the lines of 'it takes a strong/brave man to reach an arm into the dark in order to pull him into the light.'

Yeah, maybe, but a smarter man would shine a light into the dark, so the dark isn't so scary anymore. Let's set up a world where there is no dark, and where there is dark there are people working to shine a light on it, so the unknown is understood, because when something is understood it isn't so scary anymore.


ON a further side note.

One thing this blogger wanted people to pray for was a friend who was "misled" into thinking there was a heaven but not hell.

Do people honestly believe that there is a being of the underworld that's sole purpose is to claim damned people and torture them for all eternity? I mean that's just insane. I am not even going to go into the idea that an "omni-benevolent" God could allow the existence of such a place or being because even when I considered myself a Christian I though the idea of Hell was just insulting to the wonderful brain I have developed.