A Conflict of Interest

Preface:
I originally was going to compose a semi rant, semi offensive display of emotion with regard to what I call the “for sure”. A tactic that has become so en vogue that it is to be assumed that people will not be accountable to their commitments from the very start. Expecting a call back? An on time arrival? Lunch Friday? Dinner Saturday? A timely response? “For sure!” exclaims the pupil with zero accountability and functional reliability. Perhaps I will pontificate on that at a later date, because just as I was preparing to write it, I stumbled onto an article on cnn.com which got me so pissed and horrified that I could have gone into a blind rage (this of course following the article listed just before that where the “Bailout” is dissected and all costs tangible and intangible are revealed – that too shall wait for another time). The reason I will brush those two items back a day is because while I like money, and it is important, and I believe your word is truly all that you have to yourself in this world – neither of these things can even scratch the surface of importance of morality and our decaying value systems within this country and among many other “progressive nations”.

Signs From Above:
I am not saying you turn your back on what science tells us, that would be stupid. You don’t have to follow religion to the core nor do you have to select any religion in particular. To learn from all of them would be best, to understand the reasoning’s behind many of the things that religion had been teaching since man’s creation. This idea of openly spreading the word of atheism by way of billboards saying “NO GOD, NO GUILT” is about the most reckless and completely moronic thing a person can do. It is equally as apprehensible as is forcing religion down your throat, so by putting billboards up you have effectively become the “hypocrite you claim to rival”.

Like this ridiculous Liberal society we have growing here already needs the enticement to shed EVEN more guilt and accountability. It makes me just sick to my stomach reading things like that. When I look through history books or just even stories from the past 100 years and I reflect on it and look at where we are as a society (specifically regarding how we raise our families, treat our spouses, and help those less fortunate) it makes me so disgusted that I can hardly breathe. I am not telling people they need to find God nor am I telling you to find a church of any particular denomination, what I am telling you is; the notion of actively ridding society of the positive influences of religion is a terrible mistake.

The Bad Religion in My World:
I openly will accept those of religious faith, as long as it isn’t thrust into my face or spoken to me with some sort of condemnatory fashion. It is only then that I take a negative approach to religion; those people who believe that they are of a higher brow, shall we say, because of their time spent muddling through churches and religious boot camps. Many people argue the hypocrisy of organized religion, by saying that more people have been murdered in the names of Gods than anything else, and while that is all true, the real hypocrisy comes for me from those people who think they are of a thicker moral fiber than myself for having been bamboozled into tossing their own money into the Church kitty. Those people to me are the laughing stock of humanity, they are victims of the ultimate gaffe, they’ve been turned jester by the head table. Religion is many things, some deniable, some undeniable, one of those undeniable things is the greatest tool of control ever devised. Nothing on this Earth has had the control of minds for such extended periods of time such as religion. It is undeniable, religion gets people to eat certain things one day and not others, go to work sometimes but sometimes not, marry certain people while not even consorting with others, salvage some only to enslave others, all of which is based on one groups opinion vs. the other groups opinion and the winner is typically determined by who has access to the most funds(honestly, it seems to me nothing more than a Global Party Lines System).

It is firmly my belief that while the question of whether there is a God or not is answered, that religion was devised as a real moral belief, a cure to unanswerable questions, something that was inherently meant for the good of humanity. Unfortunately, it was very early on adopted as a means of controlling people and fooling them out of their money and creating political property lines.

The Good Religion in My World:
Religion has had many impacts that are invaluable, the code of ethics and morality being the most important. While George Carlin did a magnificent job deconstructing the Ten Commandments, he did bring to light the need for some civil suggestion. I think any religion is what you make of it, there can be something for everyone. I think everyone should have the right to investigate all they want and if we conclude there is no god through science, then we have a hell of a lot of History to teach others on how not to let “group think” bring you down. I think that without my experience being around religion, I wouldn’t have the value system I have today and I wouldn’t hold people to the standards that I try to hold them to. I firmly believe that without my mother’s strong faith in Catholicism I would likely not believe many of things I do today regarding helping those less fortunate and being a good person, no matter what the stakes. I think without religion to provide a fear of high power, people don’t have the fortitude to forge ahead and actually do the right things, especially when it is at their expense. Without the need for guilt people will act with total disregard, something they basically do anyways now. Religion has begun to take a back seat, and with that people think they are the higher power, selfishness has begun to be the most common trait among people and it is disgusting. With reckless behavior and selfishness we have seen the family values originally set in place by religion begin to erode away and now it is becoming socially acceptable to have children out of wedlock and to carry on out of marriage relationships, as a result we have little boys and girls growing up without any sort of guidance or structure. All of this results in them repeating the same mistakes. It becomes the cycle of life and nothing can stop it except those who lead by example, only those of us who try to lead by example are rapidly becoming the minority among this society of self-serving individuals.

I believe with the loss and the demonization of religion we are seeing the morals and values religion was once responsible for teaching, going to the wayside. I don’t even want to imagine what will become of our society if we continue to shun away from the good things of religion, we should be following a certain code, that code organizes our efforts. I want to see people go back to a time when family values meant something, where a man was honorable to his wife and family because it was more than his desire, but his responsibility, a time where the wife took the time out of her day to teach and comfort her children, to instill the things that every child should have. Those feelings of love, accountability and desire to become someone your family can be proud of. It is religion that offers this, nothing else can teach this lesson because if you do not fear something higher than yourself, then there is no incentive to actually carry it out. Very few people are strong enough to understand what their potential is and actually achieve it or even have the grit to reach for it.

My Religious Position:
I was born Catholic and to a large Catholic family, I was baptized in the Catholic Church and probably about a dozen times more in each of my aunts, uncles & grandmothers sinks’. My mother is without question a person of strong faith as was her mother and her before her. While my father and his family didn’t take to Catholicism like that of my mother, he had little influence on me regarding the Catholic Church. So in my own opinion, I would say I have tried to make an educated (as much as is possible) decision on my faith. I was enrolled in CCD (which didn’t quite work with my system of beliefs at the time) – nothing to do with the church as much as the games and “controlling” manner or teaching that I found to be egregious at my ripe old age of about 8. I went to public schools until I enrolled at Marquette University, and there I had the chance to take a handful of classes concerning religion. Two of them were absolutely great, very engaging, very worthwhile and beneficial. The third, a complete waste of time and oxygen. The first two were conducted by open minded men of religious faith, with hosts of knowledge and education on all religions, they made sure to relate to you no matter what your belief system. They were representative of all the good religion can provide for people, especially in shaping a good moral mindset and value system. The third was what I would say is one of the biggest reasons religion is such a combustible topic. The third wasn’t even a religion class per say, it was actually a Philosophy class tilted into the warped mind of a religious zealot. A person who decided it was his place to change the words and thoughts of Socrates and Confucius to fit the religious beliefs he himself had. He did more harm to my feelings on religion than anyone to that point had ever done. Without question though, the previous two professors of religion had the biggest and most positive influence on my religious thought process and on how I treat others. After graduating from Marquette, I feel I really had the opportunity to make my own selections in life, I no longer had anyone to answer to, this for me is the time when you become the man you want to be going forward.

For me, I am not the one to answer the big question, is there? Or isn’t there? I chose to take an objective look and approach to God and say, perhaps there is a God, perhaps not, too. Science has come a long way since the beginning of time and it is my belief that possibly within my lifetime we will have all of the answers to the beginning of evolution and if that is the case, it would appear the answer to that "big question" was “perhaps not, too” and I am OK with that. I don’t find myself in hysteria over my life and position in it. It doesn’t really matter what I think, because whether you are a person of faith or not, the end of days is out of your hands entirely. But to understand that it isn’t (nor should it have ever been) a question of his God or mine, or a God or none, because for me there is so much that can be learned and taught about the human element by just reading or watching faith based things. Following religious codes doesn’t necessitate you having to be a believer in that particular God, at least in my belief system. I can worry about that down the road, I can be a good person, someone respectable and know that I have done everything I can to; help those less fortunate, support my family unequivocally and to successfully reach for my full potential in everything I do.