December: Contemplate spirituality.

December

Contemplate spirituality.

- Research the top ten organized religions

- Lightly look into fringe religions

(Late at posting! Whoops.)

Anyway...

Many will argue that being spiritual only adds to the experience of life. And for some, that doesn't necessarily mean being religious. Growing up, I associated the two synonymously. Even today, I'm not sure that I can split hairs to find the difference, but it's something I could explore this month.

The important thing is, I've decided that looking into other religions could only help with tolerance of different ideas or of different personalities. I believe that by not understanding a problem, we create conflicts stemming from ignorance or denial. Those who outwardly protest homosexuality or abortion or mental health problems are essentially screaming that they don't have a clue how it all works. Not knowing creats fear, which begets hatred.

So I hypothesize, anyway.

Alright. To be clear from the start, I don't hate religion. I believe in God, only the one of them. Organized religion kind of makes me cringe just because history shows us clearly what masses of people are willing to do in the name of religion. And let's be real, the bible was written by human beings. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that humans come with some faults. So while I have problems with organized religion and believing every word of the bible, I believe in God because of the real presence I've felt in my life.

I digress slightly for the first note of the month. 

Basically, I want to explore spirituality and religion this month just to expand my field of knowledge and fight back some ignorant tendencies. Perhaps if we all truly understood the religions that comprise the Middle East, we'd be more understanding of their needs as a people. I'm not saying anything to support taking action or the opposite, only stating that I think we could all stand to learn a bit about other religions because of their cultural ties.

We'll see. 

In short, I'll spend this month looking into religions from around the world in the hopes that I'm gaining more ammunition to fight negativity in daily life, among other benefits.

-Jamie