24th February 2013, 2:26 AM
8 years ago when this thread was created I'd probably identify myself as a Catholic and today I'd more properly sum myself up as "Catholic but in an I don't give a shit kind-of-way." I have zero faith in God and by no means am I a practicing Catholic, but it's still a part of my being and I don't think I'll ever shed that part of me.
But I've been doing a lot of tinkering over the years. I'm starting to dig astrology and voodoo and all kinds of spiritual practices. I believe in ghosts. There's all kinds of life forces out there.
I've also been doing a lot of reading and research from an academic perspective. I'm still in school after all these years and in the past few it's been the topic of freedom of religion that's interested me most. I've spent a great many hours and a great many pages shed about the Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada and the United States, and the many many Supreme Court battles and prolonged efforts of civil disobedience in the face of widespread persecution in order to affirm the right to practice their religion freely. Do you wonder why they can just come onto your property, knock on your door, and spread the good news of God? Because that specific practice has been given constitutional protection. Stuff like that I find tremendously inspiring, so when I see Christopher Hitches-style militant atheism I'm sort of left conflicted because, freedom of speech on one hand, it's sometimes seriously denigrating towards a civil right of paramount importance, a right that some groups have fought with unbridled bravery and determination to protect. I sometimes wish that atheists would stop appointing themselves the magistrates of logic and reason and understanding as if people of faith, even those with fundamentalist convictions, are incapable of having those qualities. Why can't we all just love one another.
But I've been doing a lot of tinkering over the years. I'm starting to dig astrology and voodoo and all kinds of spiritual practices. I believe in ghosts. There's all kinds of life forces out there.
I've also been doing a lot of reading and research from an academic perspective. I'm still in school after all these years and in the past few it's been the topic of freedom of religion that's interested me most. I've spent a great many hours and a great many pages shed about the Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada and the United States, and the many many Supreme Court battles and prolonged efforts of civil disobedience in the face of widespread persecution in order to affirm the right to practice their religion freely. Do you wonder why they can just come onto your property, knock on your door, and spread the good news of God? Because that specific practice has been given constitutional protection. Stuff like that I find tremendously inspiring, so when I see Christopher Hitches-style militant atheism I'm sort of left conflicted because, freedom of speech on one hand, it's sometimes seriously denigrating towards a civil right of paramount importance, a right that some groups have fought with unbridled bravery and determination to protect. I sometimes wish that atheists would stop appointing themselves the magistrates of logic and reason and understanding as if people of faith, even those with fundamentalist convictions, are incapable of having those qualities. Why can't we all just love one another.