Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass..... Christmas Day, 2006..... Do we need a God? My answer will probably surprise some close to me, because my answer is a resounding "YES"! I am an admitted agnostic leaning toward atheism, but I do believe anything you can cling to that gives you peace is your personal right and is to be respected and protected. So why am I the way I am and most everyone else the way they are? It is my opinion that whatever religion you were born into, that's what you will be in adulthood. So, if Hinduism had been the religion in America from the beginning, then Hindu's we would be today, and no matter which religion you put in first, that's how it remains. It hasn't always been that way. A thousand years ago you would have been whatever the King said you would be and died happy with his choice for you. Had it not been for Charlemagne, Christianity might not have flourished to its position today. We all look to those we admire in choosing what we will be and how we will think, and that's where I started getting off on the wrong foot with things. I was born into a devoutly Pentecostal family that according to conversation God was present at all times. But it was a house of hypocracy, brutality, dishonesty, and just downright not worth a damn for much of anything. After a rousing night at church you might very well be awakened by my Grandmother who would tell you God spoke to her and told her to do it just before she beat you to smithereens with what ever she could get her hands on. Yet this woman died believing in her heart she had lived a worthy life for God. Most of her children were worse than her. I started trying to get away from them at thirteen and got the job done at fourteen. Although in modern terms I had a childhood that would certainly qualify for a life of therapy, I never had such a thing. I've lived my life trusting in myself first and choosing very carefully who I would put on my most trusted list, and it isn't a very long one. I've always been a voracious reader and hungry to know how things worked, and if possible, why they worked, and religions were always at the top of my list. In my life I was afforded the opportunity to travel the planet, and in doing so I also had time to look in depth at facts of religious history, and in fact watch most of them in practice. There I opened such a Pandora's box of confusion and silliness that I could not in good faith join anybody's plan for connection to the Almighty. The facts of all religions only fed my problems. I finally came to the place that my position would be to treat all fairly and with respect, not cheating or lying to those I come in contact and not have any thing to do with what religions are, which is manmade. If there should be an Almighty who will judge me when I'm done, I will rely on that power to appreciate me for using the brain I was born with and waiting to explain myself at that time. Religions are steeped with narrow mindedness and when opposing viewpoints come face to face the debate winds up to be only a reaffirmation of faith and happiness of the one blessed and increduality that others can't see it that way. Unfortunately facts aren't nearly as important to them as they are to me, and it is impossible for me to live without factual clarity, and it takes much more for me than the average to sign on to anything. So How can I say God is important if I feel the way I do? Simple. I think we must have a moral compass of some kind as a nation, and I also think if so many find happiness in their connections, then by all means pursue it. But I could easily do without the by-products of religions, which are wars, misunderstandings, suspicions, mistrust, brutality, loss of human rights and denial of education. Merry Christmas, or whatever fits to All...................