{Editor's note: This diary fits into the dkos universe because the battle between Democrats and Republicans can be parsed with this issue. You decide.}
I'm often perplexed why people feel compelled to look to organized religions for direction in their personal and spiritual lives when the shortcomings of these belief systems are obvious to anyone paying attention. Sure, it's easier to buy what's off-the-shelf but each of us has the ability to tailor a belief system that fits our individual needs.
The major monotheistic religions, and this is just my personal theory and I could be wrong, are just one person's, or one politically motivated group's, specific agenda wrapped up into a mystical taco shell. With the right timing, effective marketing, dedicated personnel and acquiescent throngs many personal philosophies could have/will become main stream religions. It has been said that what separates a cult from a religion is one hundred years.
More after the jump...
Personally, I attended a Methodist Sunday school and bible school as a kid and was exposed to the midwest evangelical forces from early on. None of the bible stories and the usual Christian stories made any rational sense to me so I questioned them. Lesson: a free mind is not rewarded in a Christian community.
Nonetheless, I continued on my own spiritual path. Over the last 35+ years, I've developing my own intellectual/spiritual belief system that has worked for me and has given me the personal strength and moral compass to live a good life and to challenge other belief systems that don't help the common good or the individual and, more importantly, to call Bull Shit on those who use a main stream belief system to further their own political or economic goals at the expense of others.
It can be quite a liberating experience when you realize that you really won't go to heaven/hell based on your adherence to certain dogma and that you really can be a happy, liberated and complete person without some predefined dogma. I've worked out the following set of guiding principles that I now use to guide my own life. If these can be used to help someone else, great.
Use it, modify it, create your own. Just take a hard look at what has been spoon fed to you and question it.
Pursue intellectual enlightenment
Pursue cultural enrichment
Pursue peaceful resolution of conflict
Believe in the equality of all people
Believe in the sanctity of life
Corner stones of this belief sytem:
Strength, honor, compassion and wisdom
Question of the day. For those of you who have "rolled their own", what is it that guides you?