Hezo Kittie

I need to take a Fat Deuce

...because it's been a while.

The Purpose-Driven Life is still not ringing any bells. I watched Warren's TED talk, followed by Dan Dennett's response, and I definitely felt much more aligned with Dennett's perspective. Warren and I simply don't really see eye to eye, for whatever reason.

What I really need to do is to find out what drove the ideas behind Christianity so close to home for me. I wonder how I've wandered through the summaries and Wiki pages of assorted philosophers who came up with clever theories that were fun to talk about but nothing more, before stumbling upon Christianity and having alarms go off.

Maybe Christianity has grown substantially over generations because it pushed just the right buttons, an evolutionary psychology that seems entirely reasonable.

Maybe it did because even if we have no evidence that any of it actually happened, it laid out a complex idea of a perfect love, one that we wish we received or learned from our parents or our friends or lovers. I've seen glimpses of it in my parents, who are so accomodating and never kicked me when I was down (even when we all knew I deserved it). But they've also been distant at times, and our lines of communication are far from ideal.

Virtually all religions and moral codes circle around the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. Note that it doesn't say how you are ACTUALLY treated. And so eventually I might feel belittled, or shamed, or humiliated, but that it gives me no right to respond back in that way.

I want to be treated with compassion and respect. And I walk by a sign on the way to class that says, "Religion is for the weak", and am reminded that sometimes I will not be treated with either of these. "Why can't you just find solace and joy in science and curiosity and secular humanism?" "Why do you need the Bible to tell you what to do?" "Why is Christianity so important to you? Haven't you noticed that it has become irrelevant for at least the past hundred years, especially with advancements in neuroscience?"

Even if the sign is just used to start intelligent conversation, it has some basis for the opposition, even if its not that harsh and straightfoward.

I need to now find how the Bible fits within the context of my life and what I've learned and what we know based on current scientific research. Warren's interpretation seems almost useless because he takes almost none of this into account.

I want to be steered away from the sentiment of "Get over it, it's not that hard", "You're being annoying", "Why are you so selfish?", "You're wrong" and more in tuned with "I love you no matter what. What's important to you is important to me."

I read an editorial by a gay woman that mentioned Prop 8 protesters who stormed gates of the Los Angeles Mormon Church and yelled obscenities to the people who walked in and out. She said that they cannot fight for equality by falling to the same tactics that made them feel marginalized. Stereotyping. Belittling.

Her response to the incident was very rational and subdued. It might've felt easy to fall into the, "The Mormon faith is the bane of our existence! Get them out of California!" trap. But to truly resolve the problem we really have to address the nature of the problem. If Mormons believe that allowing gay people to marry will defile the "sanctity of marriage", then the gay people will have to really talk to the Mormons and ask them what they mean by the "sanctity of marriage" and why they see marriage between the same sex in a different light as between marriage between a man and a woman.

This is all just hypothetical speculation. Summary: Everyone wants to be loved. Everyone deserves to be loved. I am trying to do my best to contribute to this awesomeness, but I'm human.

Oh yeah, I also randomly came across a blog from a writer for the UCLA newspaper who learned she has terminal cancer two months ago. She'd always been planning on getting a tattoo, and had a couple of ideas for it, but this one particular idea is being put on hold, because well, after learning she has cancer it's kind of redundant:

Memento Mori.

Ooooo spooky. God is dropping puns on me now. Haha what up TK