another post about why i suck

now i know what i am fighting for.

and what is that?

milk.


i just finished watching cinderella man. if you haven't seen it, see it. it's good. but this post isn't about the movie. it's about me.

the setting for this movie takes place during the great depression, depicting the hardships endured as families starved, froze, fought, cried, and died. lucky for us that time has passed. the great depression of the first world is long gone and we are no longer daily confronted with the gross inequalities and suffering of the world. it's still there, now it's easier to look away. around the world thousands of children, women, and men are starving to death. within miles from my apartment there is a family who is hungry, cold, and fighting to make it through the next few months. i don't know them, but i know they are there. they are everywhere. misfortunate may have hit. abuse may have left them abandoned. injury. illness. alcohol. drug addictions. it can be any of a dozen reasons. they are there and we look away.

i look away.

here i am. warm in my apartment and typing on my desktop with a highspeed connection. my laptop is in my bag. there is my ipod. there is my digital camera. there is my stereo. there is my cell-phone - complete with mp3 player, camera, media player, camcorder, the works. i've got a working car. clothes. i buy $4 lattes. i eat out all the time. i drop money on books i don't have the time to read, cds i could easily download, dvds i don't watch, clothes i don't need, and other things to add to my pile of shit i don't need.

i look at all of this. i ask myself why. i hate myself. i go to sleep. and tomorrow i wake up and forget all about it.

sometimes i comfort myself by believing that i'm doing some good. i give a little here and there, pat myself on the back, and reward myself with more shit. and that's what it is. it isn't stuff. it isn't junk. it isn't crap. it is shit. piles of it. stinking up my room and my whole person.

there is no lovely end to this post. if there was one, it'd be a lie. i've tried before, but i failed.

and i'll fail again.

munich

i saw munich tonight.

incredible. powerful. disturbing. beautiful. touching. moving. emotional.

go see it.

new books

one book for school. one book to understand another. one book to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

where i stand: on being a religious agnostic

re•li•gious
adj.
1. having or showing belief in and reverence for god or a deity.
2. of, concerned with, or teaching religion: a religious text.

ag•nos•tic
n.
1.
a. one who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a god.
b. one who is skeptical about the existence of god but does not profess true atheism.

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this post comes with a risk of alienating myself in church and extinguishing what little dating potential i had left in happy valley. some of you knew where i stood. some of you may be wondering. some of you may have had no clue. some of you have worried. some of you could frankly not give a damn.


i used to have a faith that was unshakable. blessings, ordinations, and setting aparts commented on this faith. i served a mission in hawaii and shared my faith and testimony on a daily basis. i knew god lived. i knew joseph smith was a prophet. i knew. i knew. i knew.

seven months ago i proclaimed myself an atheist and decided i would never again set foot inside a church. i was done with god. i was done with religion. i was done with everything. i declared it a permanent decision and considered the case closed.

what happened? what led up to this? to be honest, i’m not entirely sure. it wasn’t a single thing, but rather a conglomeration of many that just seemed to be too big of a burden to overcome. the seemingly unprophetic role of president gordon b. hinckley during 9/11 and the iraq fiasco. racism and sexism in the church. aspects of the book of mormon. anti-intellectualism in the church. metaphysics and the rejection of miracles. the problem of evil. space-time. religion as an opiate. the christian right. the lack of condemnation of the inequalities of the world. an overly byu-ish student ward that i hated going to. the list goes on…

individually, i could handle these. i had an answer and response to each one. together they were just too much. i gave up. occam’s razor. the principle of parsimony. one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. choose from a set of otherwise equivalent models of a given phenomenon the simplest one

the ensuing months after my declaration of atheism were the worst months of my life. i was constantly depressed. it seemed all meaning from my life had been stripped away. it sucked. i hated life and the world around me.


a few months ago i decided to step back into a chapel. for some reason i actually enjoyed it. i found it fun and engaging. the talks and lessons were still boring, simplistic and way off the mark of where they should be, but nonetheless i didn’t hate it. i could speak without being instantly ostracized as some wacko. i haven’t missed a meeting since.

over the past few months i have regained a love of the scriptures, joseph smith, church meetings, student wards, and religion in general. i found a way that they could truly have some valid meaning in my life. they seem more applicable and meaningful than they ever did before. real motivations for daily living. they are even more true than they ever were before.

though i now consider myself quite religious, i am agnostic. i don’t believe that god actually exists. i don’t believe that he does not exist. i just don’t know. the scriptures are true for me, but that doesn’t mean that they come from god. it doesn’t mean that they don’t. i disagree with them in many ways, but i still see them as very applicable in my life. the book of mormon is a masterpiece in almost every sense. it is a powerful piece of liberation literature that strikes harshly at the gross inequalities of the world. unfortunately most mormons who believe in the book, have no idea what they believe in. they embrace the book, but not one of its primary messages.

though i find sacraments and rites (such as the sacrament, temple, etc) fascinating and an important part of communal worship, i don’t participate because without belief i don’t think it’s appropriate to initiate myself into that aspect of the community. i don’t pray. i don’t pay tithing because i can’t support a lot of the actions the institutional church will use it towards. besides an occasional coffee, i’m ‘temple worthy’.

jesus was an amazing person. son of god? i don’t know. i do know that he knew how to love and was a prime example of how we should live. if i can only manage to be half the person he was, i’d be one hell of a man (no pun intended).

all around me in this world i see pain and suffering. i see gross inequalities and injustices. i also see good in this world and potential for even more good. i see religion(s) as a powerful way to make wonderful changes in this world, if people would be only willing to shake off the chains of prejudice, pride, and piety that act as opiate on them, and begin truly believing their religion.

all i hope to do is what i can. i’m small. i’m insignificant. i’m nothing. but i can still act. i still have the ability to create a little change. to bless the lives of other small and insignificant people like me. to alleviate a small portion of pain and suffering in the world. if there is a god, i’m sure that is what (s)he really wants.

i don’t know what the future holds. maybe some day i will truly believe again, maybe not. for now all i can do is embrace what i have, find some meaning in it, and try to do some good.


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(post script) please do not comment this with your testimonies or criticisms of religion. any other thoughts, questions and comments are appreciated.

wittgenstein on modesty

i was reading wittgenstein's tractatus on the way home from school and came across this passage...

4.0002 ...Language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized.

this analogy may have worked back during the first world war as wittgenstein was writing this in the trenches, but i think after seeing me in my form fitting jeans, he may need to reconsider things.


and no; i don't really wear form-fitting jeans.

sugarbeet - technically a virgin

this comes from the recent sunstone...

“TECHNICALLY A VIRGIN”
MOVEMENT TAKING OFF

By Roy Thorne

OREM, UT—A new movement intended to promote chastity and virtue has become the new “hip thing’” among LDS youth. Promoters say the “Technically a Virgin” movement is a “realistic answer to the vexing problem of teen sexuality.”
Tiffany Bingham, a junior at Mountain View High School in Provo says she feels “way better about myself” ever since joining the movement. “It used to be, I’d be out with Jared, my boyfriend, and we’d start fooling around, and I’d feel all icky and sinful afterwards. But now I think, ‘Hey, technically, we didn’t break any, like, major-type commandments.’ So it’s all cool.”
And Heather Hanson, a senior at Timpview added, “It’s like Sister Reeves, our awesome new YW leader says, ‘There may be a stain on your skirt, but there’s no stain on your soul.’”