About a month ago, I
discovered my religion. And since then, my mother has been trying to
convince me that there is no One, no God, and no Goddess, and that in all
religions, the deities are symbols for love. My reaction was something along
the lines of ‘okay, you believe what you want and I’ll believe what I want’,
but these conversations also got me thinking.
Another thing that had me thinking was the fact that nearly everyone in a
given religion has some kind of slightly different perspective on it. No two
people are the same, so their outlook on their religion is bound to be
different. And if you’re trying to research a particular religion, it’s hard
to tell if you’ve got a reputable source- after all, everyone looks at it
differently. In one of my mother’s attempts to get me away from this “cult”
(which it is not), she tried to poke mud at the places I was getting
information out of. And these places are not other people, these are books
and websites. But this conversation rose what was perhaps the only valid
point- there is no way to tell if someone is telling the truth about a
particular religion. They might believe what they say is part of that
religion.
And then, more recently on the Fedora Chronicles forum, there was a
discussion of how the scientists think they’ve found pieces from the actual
Noah’s Ark, and a lot of people were saying that real proof of the Bible’s
truth will only lead to people producing fake evidence that what’s been
found is false. I haven’t yet joined this discussion, because my views on
the subject are somewhat unpopular. But there are people who will feel
vindicated by this finding, because they will believe it to be true. There
are others who will believe this to be utterly false and disregard it. My
own personal views on this subject don’t matter here, but I do think that it
can’t do any harm to say that these are pieces of the actual Noah’s Ark. It
might weaken further the separation of church and state, but that’s a
subject for another rant. As far as people’s beliefs go, the only ones it
will affect are the ones who already believe it to be true, and it will give
them added fire in their beliefs.
So the conclusion I came to was this: we each have our own truths. To this
person, there may be no higher powers; to that one, everyone who doesn’t
believe as they do might be going to hell. What matters is that it is true
to the person who believes it. As long as you are sincere in your belief, it
does not matter to me that you believe I’m a sinner. That’s your right as a
human being. What matters to me is that you have a belief that is true for
you. You have your truth. I have mine. Let’s all go out and have dinner.
Kira Schiavone is a high school student who's working on becoming a
professional writer, and enjoys reading and writing rants for the
Fedora Chronicles.
