ziplock

As a kid, I was never exposed really to religion in any way. Though my mom's side of the family was catholic, my uncle had gone to a catholic private school. There, he was molested... My mom was going to go to a similar private school, but my uncle stopped my grandparents from doing it. That's when my mom's family stopped going to church, my mom became VERY anti-religious. My grandparents remained Catholic but refused to have anything to do with the church or establishment.

My mom's spirituality comes from her relationship with my grandpa on my father's side. He was in WWII, and had taken grenade shrapnel I believe to the leg. The field medic, with no anesthetics, managed to successfully hypnotize my grandpa and remove the shrapnel. After this point my grandpa was incredibly interested in hypnotism, and once he got back from WWII committed to that. He and my mom had a close relationship, he taught her hypnotism, practiced meditation with her, read various books of course. He gave her a lot to have and later on pass on to me, it's how I got Seth Speaks which was a pretty important book for me.

I hadn't really contemplated spirituality until I fell into a depression for a while around 15, 16. I find adolescence is where most people naturally start contemplating philosophies and spiritual concepts. Makes a lot of sense to me for various reasons but that doesn't matter.

It was at this point that I started questioning everything. Started smoking bud after antidepressants were a complete joke. Had a thought provoking mushroom trip that got me really interested in eastern philosophies. Started with Taoism, then I checked out Buddhism and Hinduism, Sufism, read a ton of the famous Greek philosophers, various Aboriginal beliefs, especially along the lines of Shamanism. Then I read tons about western psychology and science, physics, biology, astronomy... It doesn't really stop. I then started to compile everything I learned into my own belief system, and this is where I stand now.

As such, when I have children, I'm not going to teach them any one specific religion. I'll take them to a church sermon, I'll take them to a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple. Luckily in BC we have many of these, god bless diversity. I'll teach them that various cultures developed various beliefs. We're lucky enough to be in a time period where all these cultures are open and available to us, and that we should take advantage of this and experience the diversity.

I find there are morals and meanings in religion that are great for a child to know. But, I feel that many religions convey this message inefficiently, in that I believe I could do a much better job teaching the same things. I'll want to encourage and foster a sense of confidence, independance and individuality in my child. Help them be a strong, capable, compassionate, accepting, empathetic person, that can choose their path for themselves. I'll help them with any questions, I'll show them different beliefs and people, and be there for them as they walk there path. But I won't walk it for them, and I won't let some religion tell them how to walk it. I feel the only ones who can truely be responsible for that is themselves, and I have no position to take that from them.

I find religion, while fine and all, is impractical and out of date. I like the communial unity it brings about, but there are many negative byproducts of this that's observable in many of the followers. Which, is unfortunate, but understandable considering the inconsistencies involved in transplanting a 2000 year old text into a modern context. It's all about how one interacts with any specific religion that's important, and I want my child to develope and gain a sense of self before engaging in this interaction.

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Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane society.