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#239 - thanks be to Leah for some new topics!
12/08/01 @ 11:51 am

This amazing girl, Leah, keeps leaving me fascinating entries in my guestbook that really make me think. I was going to write an entry to respond to her first one, and then I got kinda sidetracked by life, and now I have a 2nd one that gave me even more juicy stuff to use. I really need to contact her and like, I don't know, hire her to give me stuff to write about once a week or something! In the meantime, I really need to read her diary at some point, coz she sounds pretty cool.

Oh, before I start, none of this commentary on my part is aimed at Leah. She just brought up some interesting topics, and these are responses to the ideas she proposed.

Leah #1
A couple things: first of all, you mentioned that you feel a lot of guilt although you are agnostic. I think this is pretty reasonable because there is a lot more responsibility to deal with when you don't have some omnipotent being to entrust all your concerns with. Second, anger needs an outlet, and I happen to think that screaming at other drivers is a great one, especially since no one gets hurt. You'd be amazed at the obscenities that find their way out of my mouth while I'm driving. Also, I am a perfect stranger and I like you; in fact, I think you're wonderful, flaws and all I'm not going to address every one of your worries because I can see that that isn't what you want. After all, you admitted yourself that worrying is futile. But I wanted you to know that I understand what it's like to worry so much and feel guilty about so many things, and be a good person nonetheless. My mom always said that I had enough conscience for two people, and I tend to view myself as inadequate in many lights, even though deep down I know I'm not. Now, I wanted to propose something to you. I find that my guilt and worries cause me to spend a great deal of time apologizing to people. Do you think that guilt/worry might be a sort of protection mechanism? It seems that, as long as we are hard on ourselves, we at least know that no one else will be any harder on us, or blame us any more than we blame ourselves. Just a thought.

This is very interesting. I don't know how to make the leap to "protection mechanism", but I sure as hell am my harshest critic. To a staggering degree. There is a secret, vulnerable place inside of me that thinks that I'm a bad person. And every time I make a mistake, *every* time, it proves that I'm a bad person. This usually surfaces most clearly during relationship problems. When my husband and I have a fight, bad enough so that I'm crying, half of me is insisting that I'm a horrible person, and I should beg for forgiveness right now. The other half thinks that's ridiculous. There's no such thing as a bad person, and just doing one wrong thing certainly doesn't make me evil! Things get very, very messy inside my head when I fight with the people that I love. I don't know how to conclude that that's a protection mechanism, but it sure as hell is annoying!

Leah #2
Anyway, about the God thing. My boyfriend told me that, in the eyes of God, all sin is equal. If that's true, then something that we consider petty, like lusting after someone (or something like that), is just as bad as murder. So I guess the problem is that society and God do not agree on all issues. It's only because of society that murder and rape are considered so terrible, while lust is not a big deal. So if God were going to prevent the murders and the rapes, he'd have to prevent all the other "petty" sins too, because they're all the same to him. But in doing that, free-will is lost. But God does not expect us to be perfect (hence the whole Jesus dying thing), and that is why murderers can be forgiven, because to God, sin is sin. It is only in the context of society that concepts of "really bad" crimes and "not so bad" crimes are developed. I guess we just have to keep in mind that the judgements of society are entirely different from the judgements of God. At least that's one take on it. It seems to make sense. Kind of. I dunno. God is dumb.

This is one of the many reasons why I don't believe the Christian god exists. Because half (?) of the Ten Commandments are a crock, and so is most of the Bible. Lust is a sin? Gluttony is a sin? All sins are equal in the eyes of God? What?

The movie K-Pax wasn't as great as I hoped it would be (but Kevin Spacey was, make no doubt about that!), but KS's character Prot had tons of great stuff to say. Like when he reveals there are no laws on K-Pax, and is asked what they do with murderers, etc. He says that everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. Everyone. And that's true. There's no need to talk about god & sin. There's just right and wrong.

And there's nothing wrong with lust. Nothing wrong with gluttony & slothfulness. The only true "wrongs" are when you hurt another person. So why bring god into it? Use your own heart to govern your own moralness, and keep your nose out of everyone else's business!

Anyway, my feelings on the topic run deep, and I could go on and on throughout the season about this. But I found myself losing sight of what Leah actually proposed, and moving on to my own rambling philosophy of life that has no end in sight, so I decided to just stop it here. Feel free to post in my guestbook if you'd like me to clarify anything.

PS to Leah: I *am* agnostic, but I was raised Catholic. Is the guilt really a big surprise? ;)

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