I was not raised observing a particular religion. My mom's side of the family was Baptist, however, my grandfather became an atheist after serving in WWII (fighting in the Pacific Theatre) and didn't raise my mother in his family's religion (and my grandmother didn't seem to object from what I've observed). My dad's family is Methodist, but he never continued to observehis faithafter his parents stopped making him go to church. By the time I came around, may parents just told me they'd let me decide for myself what I wanted to believe.
Despite growing up listening to Christian Rock music, among other things, and being genuinely curious about people's faith, I decided that I couldn't subscribe to any one religion. I have, however, come to learn that there is a higher intelligence, or higher power; I just don't believe in any particular religion that rose up around the God of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) or any other for that matter. Since this forum is open to people of all beliefs, I just thought I"d give a little background.
I majored in political science for my undergrad work, but I took a lot of history and philosophy classes as well before studying public administration for my masters. My father"s side of the family is staunchly Republican while my mother"s family is liberal Democrat. I am in the middle (which is understandable; if not predictable).
My personal belief system, in regards to spiritual matters, however, is rooted in science, religion, and philosophy because I do not believe these are separate truths (even though each discipline tries to arrive at their own particular version of it). We live in ONE world (that we know of), so I believe there is only one truth, and I personally do not believe any one discipline has arrived to an adequate conclusion about it.
We will not know the truth in our lifetime, but anytime one of my liberal acquaintances tries to dismiss Christianity, I reply that stranger things have happened than anything presented in the bible. After all, where does the universe end? If you try to wrap your brain around it long enough, I am of the belief that it is irreconcilable (which is an example of my philosophic point of view emerging).
The only thing I believe in for sure, then, is nature or what Thomas Jefferson and other Deists like Ben Franklin referred to as "Nature"s God". Nature seems to have many more answers than people of faith, science, or philosophy are USUALLY readily able to admit. I believe we would be a much healthier race if we lived more according to nature"s law than our own. Hunting is part of the former while anti-gun and some anti-hunting laws are examples of the latter.
I wish our human population was properly proportionate to the world"s population of game animals as to allow people to hunt for ALL of our meat protein. Unfortunately, everyone is concerned with keeping everyone safe above all else (and disarmed) which, coupled with other concerns for safety, has resulted in our world"s human population explosion. For tens of thousands of years, our world population never exceeded 200 million people (as governed by Nature"s God/laws). Somewhere in the 19th century, however,we finally broke the 1 billion mark, and only since the mid twentieth century did we finally break the 2 billion mark. We are currently, as a result of the post WWII era, at the 6.78 billion mark!
Hunting, for me, serves three purposes: one, it is in harmony with nature so it spiritually drives me; two, it is a reminder to us, with every hunting restriction we have to endure, of this imbalance we have in world population; and three, it is an important tradition to pass down to our posterity because"in one generation not far from now"we will absolutely reach a point of critical mass where our resources will no longer sustain the human population. Many will starve and those that will be able to hunt for their own food will outlast the ones that rely solely on others to provide it for them.
Anyway, sorry about the long post, but I don"t think most people will read it anyway.
Not "religious"
Have you ever read the entire New Testament? If not..you really should..If you have..I'm flabbergasted at your remarks.
May The Sheep Be With You
