by TR Lore

Created on: April 06, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

All right, I am all for people having faith, believing in God, and so on. I really am. What I am not ok with is people trying to force me to believe what they believe, how they believe, and so on.... I don't even like talking religion with people I am close to, so I am not really inclined to share, hug, learn and grow with the strangers who come banging on our doors at seven in the morning on a Saturday, waving their pamphlets and alternative holy resources promising eternity in paradise. They want you to hear all about their beliefs, but their reaction to you trying to tell them yours is essentially as follows:

WHAT? HAVE YOU GONE MAD? IF I LEARN ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE'S BELIEFS THEN I MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING! IT MIGHT PROMOTE SOME SORT OF TOLERANCE OF OTHER PEOPLE AND THEN I WOULD NOT BE IGNORANT ANYMORE! AS A RELIGIOUS ZEALOT, I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT!

I have my own set of beliefs. I do believe in a higher power. I do believe in spiritual guardians or angels, and I believe in doing the right thing. I also believe that the creator gave us the power to think and made each one of us different for a reason. It definitely makes things interesting. If two people are exactly alike and believe the exact same way on everything 100% of the time, then one of those people is unnecessary.

Now, at present, my personal beliefs stem from my Baptist upbringing + paganism (Christianity is much more pagan than most people realize) + Gnosticism. I believe that most religious books are allegories and parables designed to teach us how to live a better and more enriched life. Don't take this to mean that none of the people in these stories existed. I just mean that we are told about them to learn from them. I don't think they were meant to be taken entirely literally.

Personally, I tend to picture the almighty as a woman. I will pause here to allow those who need to take a moment and a few deep breaths, as this sort of thing tends to make people have a total wiggins.

If you are ready.I shall continue.

I do this because when I imagined the creator as a man, I did not find it soothing nor was the experience reassuring. Males have inflicted an amazing amount of misery on me, so this is not a big surprise. This is not intended as a slight against all men. It's strictly a psychological thing for me. When picturing God as a man, he tends to come across to me as an uninvolved, uninterested. I don't feel like he will offer comfort or help. I don't feel like I can be open and really cast

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