My Way Of Thinking

I've been thinking a lot lately about the things I believe and the way I behave.  I've been thinking about things that make me me, like being an atheist, or being gay.  And I've been thinking about philosophy and how people decide what to believe, how to behave.  I've decided, after all this introspection, that it's time I start to organize and codify my philosophy on life.  These points that I'll bring up, probably over the next several entries, will show what I think is important, and the keys to what makes me the person I am today. 

Of course, life is an ever-changing journey.  A true life philosophy should be flexible, fluid.  Not rigid and unchanging.  This is one of the problems I have with religion.  Religion tends to be dogmatic and limiting.  It doesn't take into consideration that everybody is different, from diverse backgrounds, and with different formative experiences.  This is wrong.  That is right.  There's no wiggle-room.  No room for actual growth.  It mostly seems to be a case of "submit or die."  Or at least suffer an eternity in torment AFTER you die.  Same thing.  It's inflexible, and not for me.

So, here's what I believe.  These are my rules to live by.  Like all people, I'm fallable.  I may hold an ideal as something to strive for, but I won't always achieve it.  But the important thing is I continue to strive.  And, if I can stick to these points, I feel I'll be a better person for it.  There's a lot to, this, so this will take several entries, I'm sure.

Without further ado, and in no particular order:

• Pursue your own happiness.  What this means to me is that you are responsible for your own happiness.  Daydreams and fantasies are fine.  But they don't actually accomplish anything.  So, if you want happiness, reach for it.  Nobody else is required to make you happy.  They should be focused on pursuing their own. 
  What does this mean for the individual?  How do you pursue happiness?  You recognize opportunities.  If I see something that will bring me happiness, I go for it.  Maybe it's a new book, or game, or some other material consideration.  Or maybe it's being open to making a new friend.  I certainly pursued happiness when Bill first made a romantic overture to me.  Be open to the things that make you happy, even if it means leaving your comfort zone once in a while.
  Of course, there's a caveat.  If video games make me happy, then this edict seems to suggest I forego other things to get those games.  But if I buy video games at the expense of paying my bills, then I'm going to be creating unhappiness.  The stress and worry of how I'll be able to pay rent or if my power will be shut off contribute to unhappiness.  So, a rational person has to weigh these factors in their pursuit.
  The bottom line is, I have the right to be happy.  But that doesn't mean someone else has the responsibility to make me happy.
• Don't interfere with other peoples' pursuit of their own happiness.  In fact, if you can bring happiness to someone else without compromising your own or someone else's, then do so.  The world will only be a better place if everyone wants to improve the quality of life for all.  If you just have individuals or groups acting selfishly, then some people may have a better life, but they leave the world at large in a worse position. 
  This actually plays into the previous rule.  You are the most important person in your world.  The people you care about are important to you, so you should want them to be happy, and feel loved and important.  The best way to do that is to help them achieve their own goals.  To bring them pleasure.  To let them know how important they are.  They'll feel better, and so will you, because you're propping up the people that make your own world interesting.
  But even people you don't know deserve to live their own lives as they see fit.  They should follow their own paths to joy.  If it doesn't hurt you or anyone else, then why interfere?  In fact, help them out.  Every little thing that you do for someone can snowball into big things.  It makes the world better, too.
  But if they decide what makes them happy is, for instance, rape...then their pursuit is harmful to others and not covered by this rule.
• Never be ashamed of what you like.  I just don't believe in the concept of a "guilty pleasure."  If it pleases me, why should I feel guilty over it?  If it's a song I love that other people think is cheesy, or uncool, then why should I be embarrassed?  I'm not the one with the issue.  If you don't like something, don't expose yourself to it.  But don't limit me on what I like.  Don't try to make me feel like I have to hide it.  Whether it's the music you listen to, the movies you watch, the books you read, the people you're attracted to, or anything else, don't be embarrassed or ashamed.  You don't need validation from outside sources.  You validate yourself.
• Try new things.  It's really easy to become stagnant.  You fall into a routine, and it's comfortable.  But, to grow as a person, you need to step outside of your comfort zone once in a while.  This one is hard to do for a lot of people, myself included.  You like the things you like, so you become comfortable just doing those things.  But how many new things are you missing out on?  Right now, my favorite food is tacos.  But maybe there's another food out there that surpasses tacos in every way.  If I don't try new things now and then, I'll never discover a new favorite. 
  This one is admittedly hard, and one of the things I fail at regularly.  But I think it's important.  For me, I've been trying to find new music and read different types of books.  I may not like everything I discover, but I feel enriched for broadening my horizons.  Of course, this can apply to all aspects of life.  Don't be afraid to be daring or bold sometimes.
• Explore when you have the opportunity.  This ties in to the last point.  Much like trying new things, go off the beaten path from time to time.  Take a new way home.  Go for walks.  Drive through unfamiliar neighborhoods.  The best way to expand your horizon is to go toward it, so to speak.  Change your viewpoint and gain new perspective.  You may learn a lot about where you live, the people around you, or even yourself.

That's it for today.  Hopefully, if you read this, you gain a bit of insight into what makes me tick.  Until next time...

Becoming an Atheist

I thought I'd write a bit here about my path to becoming an atheist.  This topic comes up frequently for me, both at work and at home or in social situations.  These conversations run the gamut from philosophical discussions and reasoned debates to condescension and vilification for my "heathen ways."  In all cases, it's a topic I enjoy exploring, even if I'm not always the most knowledgeable of the various arguments or logical fallacies one sees in these types of debates.

I was raised in a Catholic household.  Church attendance was mandatory.  So was CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.  It's basically like Catholic bible school for children).  While we weren't so devout a family that our religion defined every moment of our lives, it was certainly a large part of my upbringing.  Something that I've always felt set me apart from most people is that I don't think I ever truly believed in any of it.  I tried to be pious because it was valued by other people.  If you show how much you love God and the bible and Jesus and all that, then people praise you for being such a good child.

I remember when I made my first communion when I was eight years old.  One of the gifts I got was an illustrated children's bible.  (The other big gift was an Atari 2600...which do you think was my favorite?  Video games ended up being a bigger part of my life than God).  I used to carry the bible around with me, and read it like it was a novel (and indeed, I do consider it to be a work of fiction, so it sort of is like a novel).  But did I believe what I was reading?  No.  I just liked all the praise lavished on me for being a good little Catholic.

This dichotomy of believe versus expectation actually caused me quite a bit of stress as a child.  I remember being told how important it was to say my prayers each night.  We needed God for protection, and it was important that I remember to include everyone in my prayers.  And I did all that.  The problem was, I always felt like I was just talking to myself.  And because I never would have thought it possible at that time to disbelieve in God, I just assumed there was something wrong with me.  Maybe I was praying wrong.  Maybe I was flawed in some way.  And these feelings of being flawed or broken both reinforced and were reinforced by my dawning realization that I was gay.

So, take my tumultuous feelings associated with being gay (which I realized when I was nine, though the suspicions about it were there even longer than that), and add a naturally obsessive compulsive personality, and it's a recipe for disaster.  I used to pray fervently for God's protection for myself and my family and friends.  But because I felt like there was noone listening, I began to feel like the people I prayed for were actually in danger.  And so I began praying obsessively, almost like a mantra that I repeated over and over in my head, hoping it would suddenly ring true.  And if I forgot someone I would start over.  And if I thought of someone else to include I'd have to start over too.  It really was a kind of hell, and I was all alone.  I couldn't discuss these thoughts with anyone.

Similarly, when it became clear that I wasn't going to be growing out of this whole gay thing, I began to pray obsessively for God to "make me normal."  There were times when I stayed up all night praying with everything that was in me.  Of course, nothing ever happened.  It never felt like more than thinking.  There was nothing there to hear me.

Those were the conditions that really eroded my ability to convince myself that God was real.  But it took a while for me release the guilt of disbelief.  That's the real damage done by religion in my opinion.  It sets you back on your journey to finding your own beliefs.  Some people never overcome their programming.  Most religious families raise their children in that tradition, and never explain to them that other beliefs are possible.  So, for me, there was a winding road of alternate beliefs before I felt okay with letting go of religion.  I flirted with Wiccan beliefs, but they just seemed silly.  It turns out that I was drawn to it because the mysticism of it felt like a game.  That's hardly a foundation to build a belief system on.

I went through a period around 13 or 14 years ago where I called myself an agnostic, but really I was just picking and choosing the parts of various belief systems that I found appealing.  I figured there had to be a god, because what created the universe?  This was, of course, before I understood the concept of infinite regress.  But the god I was choosing to believe in was pretty far from the Abrahamic God.  It was more of the detached watchmaker variety.  And karma seemed like a nice system, so I incorporated that.

Over the course of those 13 or 14 years, I began stripping away those beliefs to get at the core, which was my rational conclusion that there was no god at all.  I've been identifying myself as an atheist for the past several years now.  And I'm far happier for it.  I've been distilling all the extraordinary beliefs out there and finding the essence, which is a refutation of the supernatural.

Now, when people ask me what I believe in, I usually say that I believe in science.  I try always to find the reasoned, scientific evidence to formulate my stance on the world.  It's a process, and I'm not where I want to be yet, but I think with time, education, and the ability to step away from supernatural beliefs, I can get there.