Morality and Ethical Questions

One of my favorite television shows of all time is Charmed. I grew up with it and even have a tattoo of a triquetra. One episode that has stuck out to me throughout the years (Apocalypse Not) involves Phoebe asking her sisters a question about ethics: If you were in a burning building and had to make a choice between saving one sibling or five strangers, who would you save? At the beginning of the episode, they both answer one sibling, but by the end, due to events of the episode, when all three are asked the question again they change their answer to five strangers.

When I was in college, a professor asked the class the same question. He also followed up by asking similar ethical/moral dilemma questions, including the famous trolley question. I'm sure you've heard of it. You are standing at the lever for a trolley track. The track divides into two separate tracks, one with one person tied to it and one with five people tied to it. As of right now, the trolley is on track to run over and kill five people. If you do nothing, those five people will die. If you pull the lever, they will live, but the other person, who would've otherwise survived, will die. You don't have time to make it down to the track and untie them. There is no possible way to save everyone. What do you do? What are the ethical implications of your choice?

On the one hand, if you don't actually pull the level and make the choice to kill someone yourself, then you didn't really kill anyone. You didn't really kill those five people; someone else tied them to the track. You simply chose not to act at all because you didn't have time to save everyone and you didn't want your action to have the direct result of murdering someone else.

On the other hand, you technically have the opportunity to save four lives. By choosing to kill one person, you let five other people live. Only one life is lost instead of five. You save more lives that way, four more to be exact. However, then you undoubtedly did make the choice to kill someone. You made the choice to flip the lever. That one person who would've survived would now be dead because of you. But five other people who were doomed would survive.

Is it more ethical and more morally correct to let more people live even if it means you have to choose to actively get involved and make the decision to kill one person? Or should you never choose to do anything that would kill someone even if it means more people will die if you don't?

There are variations on this question of course to make it more complicated. One of the more common ones I've seen is that you are standing on a bridge above the track. A fat person is standing next to you. They are fat enough to stop the trolley. If you push them over the bridge, they will land on the track, get hit by the trolley, and die, but it will prevent any of the people tied to the track from dying. Would you push them over? Often, the same people who would flip the lever say they wouldn't go so far as to push someone over the bridge. Why is that? What difference does it make if it's just a matter of "five lives are more important than one?" Is it because pushing someone seems more violent than pulling a lever? What causes the difference in answers?

What if you personally know the one person tied to the track by themselves but you don't know the other five people? If the one lone person tied to the track is a friend, family member, lover, etc. and the five people tied together are strangers, does that make you more likely to let the trolley kill five of them rather than flipping the switch? Often, people who would otherwise say they would pull the lever would suddenly change their minds and not pull it if the one person tied up alone was a loved one.

But what if it were opposite? What if the trolley was headed towards the one person that you knew and cared about and you had to make the choice of whether or not to pull the lever and have it instead kill five strangers? That would involve actively making a choice to kill five people rather than having it go on course to only kill one. This particular scenario is rather similar to the burning building question from Charmed, with the extra moral implication of not only would you not be saving the five strangers, you would actively be pulling the lever to kill them.

Then of course, there's another famous question that I've heard asked a lot: If you could go back in time and kill Hitler when he was just a baby or a small child, would you do it?

I recently heard another one, a rather interesting one at that. Let's say you are a paramedic and you come to the scene of an accident to find that the victims are your spouse and their other lover. You are the only paramedic at the scene. No one else can get there in time. Both are still alive, but your spouse's chances of survival are slim to none even if they receive medical attention right away. Their lover, on the other hand, will definitely survive but only if they receive medical attention right away. You only have time to give medical attention to one, because by the time you get to the second one they will surely be dead. Do you: A. walk away and save neither of them, letting both of the cheaters die because you are hurt and betrayed B. attempt to save your spouse first, knowing that it will almost certainly be a futile effort, and let their lover who would have otherwise survived die or C. save their lover and let your spouse die, since you know their lover will definitely survive with medical attention and that your spouse will almost certainly die anyway?

All of these scenarios are things that the average person would never find themselves in or hopefully would never find themselves in. The most realistic is the original Charmed example I heard of the burning building and the least realistic of course is the time travel. However, they are interesting questions for self-exploration on our views on morality and ethics. What would your answers be?

My Answers (not based on what I think would be the most ethical option, but what I would really do in the situation)

For me, personally, I would likely flip the trolley switch to kill one person instead of five unless the one person was a loved one. If the one person was a loved one and the other five were not, I would not flip the switch. If the trolley was headed toward the one person originally and they were a loved one and the other five were not, I would make the choice to flip the switch and kill five people while letting my one loved one live. This is assuming that everyone tied to the track was a healthy adult, as the question becomes much more complicated if that's not the case. I would likely never ever think of throwing the fat person onto the track in the first place so it's highly unlikely that I would ever do that. Even if for some reason the thought did cross my mind, I would almost certainly be physically unable to do it. If for some reason the thought did occur to me and I was suddenly strong enough to pull it off, I still almost certainly would not do it. I absolutely would never do it if I knew the fat person personally and/or if all the people on the track were strangers.

As for the burning building, if the five strangers were all healthy adults, I would let them die and save my sister. If they included children, such as a family of five, then I would save the children instead. It's what my sister would want me to do.

For the paramedic example, well, I personally would never be a paramedic so I would never be in the situation. However, let's say for example I was somehow in that scenario. I would try to save my husband first. I would certainly never walk away from them. Even knowing that my husband would almost certainly die anyway and even knowing that his lover would have lived with medical attention, I would still try to save my husband. I would want the last thing he saw in his life before dying to be me trying to save him and being with him. Even though he betrayed me, I would still try. I wouldn't be able to ignore him. I wouldn't have withheld the medical attention from his lover out of jealousy or malice, and certainly if I could've had time to work on her too I would have, but I wouldn't be able to just ignore my husband in his last moments, even if the cost was her life.

The Hitler one is probably one of the most controversial questions. It could never possibly happen, but it's an interesting scenario to think about. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would not go back in time. However, that's more to do with me being afraid of the butterfly effect than it is of me refusing to kill a child that hadn't done anything evil yet even though I knew they someday would become one of the most evil people to ever live. I wouldn't want to mess with time travel. However, it would be very hard to live with knowing I could have saved millions of people from a horrible death (most of whom would be dead by now anyway from old age though) if I had just been willing to go back in time, murder one child, and then quite possibly cease to exist since both sets of my grandparents may have never gotten together had circumstances surrounding the time period of WWII been different.

I'm interested to hear other people's opinions on these questions! Do you agree with me? Would you do something differently? Let me know what you would do and if you know of any other questions post them in the comments!

CDD- Abuse Disguised as Religion

Warning: This post has adult themes and describes abusive and violent situations. Those who are underage or who may be triggered by this are advised against reading this post.

Abuse has a long history of disguising itself as religion. People have been saying "spare the rod, spoil the child" as an excuse for child abuse for centuries. People have been quoting the vow for wives to "obey" their husbands as an excuse for having controlling and often abusive marriages. People have used the Bible to back up their beliefs in slavery or to excuse extreme homophobia. It's a shame and disgusts me to no end how often people will ignore the commands to love others and treat them as we would like to be treated and instead try to use the Bible to excuse our own hatred. It's nothing new unfortunately, but there is a new movement in Christianity that is much more proud and upfront about their abuse, and its often tied to bdsm and sexual perversion.

What I'm talking about is called Christian Domestic Discipline (though there's nothing Christian about it in my eyes) and it's an insidious movement of abusive husbands and brainwashed wives. It's truly one of the most awful and evil things I've ever come across.

In these CDD marriages, the husband is viewed as the head of household (often shortened to HoH) and has full authority over the wife in all aspects of their lives. He is responsible for her spiritual well being as well as her physical, sexual, mental, emotional, and financial well-being. She is supposed to submit to him in all things. They claim there is biblical evidence for this, and unfortunately because of Paul, they aren't entirely wrong. Of course, I think that's complete and total bullshit, but I'll get more into that in a different post.

Quick side-tracked rant though before I move on: It really IS bullshit. It's also bullshit that the Catholic Church won't allow women to be priests. Jesus didn't just choose male followers, he chose women as well, and revealed himself first to the women when he was resurrected. The earliest leaders in Christianity were women, slaves, and the oppressed. Women were priests in the earliest days of the Church. Paul partnered alongside them and then forgot them and took over. He was a typical man in that sense. Jesus didn't say that women should be subordinate to their husbands or silent in the church, Paul said that long after the crucifixion and resurrection. While women were forming the earliest churches and gathering believers, Paul was still persecuting and executing Christians. Nothing pisses me off more than this. NOTHING. Rant over though, because this is another post for another day.

Alright, back to the point. In order to enforce her submission to his authority in all things, the husband reserves the right to literally beat her into submission. Often this takes the form of a list of rules he creates for her to follow. Some examples of rules I've seen include informing him if she goes out, coming home by a set curfew, asking his permission to do certain things, avoiding certain dangerous things such as texting while driving, eating a healthy diet he's approved for her, wearing only modest clothes that meet his approval, abiding by a budget he's set for shopping, fulfilling all household duties such as completing errands on time, keeping the house clean to his standards, preparing dinner on time, etc., only using respectful language while talking to him and/or others, not swearing, going to bed by a certain time, avoiding certain activities such as certain websites or television shows or staying off the computer after a certain time, etc. Does this sound like a list of rules parents would have for their children and then ground them if they break them? Because that's what it sounds like to me. It sounds like the husband treating his wife like a child. There is no equal partnership in a marriage like this. There is no respect for the wife as an adult and an individual. It's literally treating your marriage like a parent/child relationship. It's disgusting.

If she breaks the rules or otherwise acts "disrespectfully" then he has the "right" to "discipline" her. The "discipline" often takes the form of grounding, time outs, writing lines, or spanking. You know, like she's a fucking little child. Except I don't believe in spanking children, but regardless, these punishments are exactly that; this is treating her like a child. When I say spanking, I don't even just mean with an open hand. Some of these couples go so far as to include paddles, belts, whips, canes, etc. Some wives don't even have to break the rules for their husbands to decide to beat them. Some couples participate in "maintenance" or "reminder" spankings, which essentially means even if she follows every single rule, does everything according to his standards, treats him with full respect, and always submits to his authority, he will still give her regularly scheduled beatings anyway just to make sure she never forgets that he has the authority to beat her if it becomes necessary and that she should submit to what he decides is best for her even if she doesn't think she deserves a beating. I've seen husbands schedule these beatings as far apart as monthly and as often as a few times a week, though not all participate in the maintenance/reminder spankings. Some of these women literally get beaten by their husbands every single day of their lives.

Some of the couples I've seen participating in this are young newlyweds. Others are of retirement age and already grandparents who recently got into the movement or who have been practicing something similar to this for decades but never had a term for it before. Some were couples headed toward divorce that decided to try this to save their marriages. In my personal assessment of the situation, I would say that the vast majority of these couples, or at the very least the vast majority of the men, are people who have a sexual fixation on giving or receiving pain. I'd imagine the majority were first interested in bdsm, then felt guilt over sexual perversion, and decided to try to find a way to justify it as something "Christian" instead of something sexual. Either that, or the husbands know damn well they're only in it because they get off on beating their wives and they needed to find an excuse to get their wives to agree to it instead of running to a domestic violence shelter as fast as they could (which, by the way, is undoubtedly what should be happening because these marriages are some of the worst domestic violence and abuse cases I've ever seen).

The most despicable thing of all is that there are ministers and preachers out there who know this is going on and encourage it! There are counselors and therapists out there who give advice on how to do this instead of advising the women to leave and telling them that it's abuse. I'm not just talking about maybe one or two people, but it's actually a growing movement. Even if the wife tries to talk sense into her husband by going to her priest or marriage counseling, it's becoming more and more likely that they'll agree with him. There are many women who seem deeply brainwashed into the movement who now have blogs encouraging other couples to get into it and even publishing books about it, claiming that when their husbands beat them its a sign of love and devotion to her well being, its a sign he cares about protecting her and saving their marriage, and that CDD changed their lives for the better. They claim they're still pious people and that this is what the Bible says marriage should be like and what marriage was like for the majority of human history (unfortunately, they aren't wrong...). They claim it has nothing to do with bdsm or sex. I call bullshit on all of it. This is 100% bdsm, and just like the rest of bdsm, it's 100% abuse. The underlying biblical and historical "evidence" for it is also 100% misogyny, plain and simple. This is hatred for women and severe abuse disguising itself as religion. It makes me sick.

One final note: If you are a man who would ever consider getting involved in Christian Domestic Discipline, leave my blog, never speak to me, and please never get married. If you're already married, just file for divorce. Stay away from women. Go fuck yourself.

EDIT: I originally wrote this in October because it was National Domestic Violence Awareness month, but as usual for me, it sat in my drafts until November. However, unfortunately, discussing domestic violence and spreading awareness about it needs to be a year round thing anyway, so I'm posting it now. If you are a victim of any kind of domestic violence, there is help for you. Even if you initially consented to a relationship like this, I promise you can still get help getting out of it. You can visit this website for more information (which includes a link you can click on the page if you need to quickly exit the site for your safety) or call the national hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE). Make sure that you call from a phone that your partner can't trace.

Altars

What an eventful couple of days it's been...

Last night my dogs got a hold of some chocolate and ended up eating an entire 11oz bag of Hershey's assorted miniatures, which contains primarily milk chocolate but also a few dark chocolate in the mix (very bad for dogs!). That resulted in me paying a fee to speak with animal poison control, attempting to make them throw up the chocolate, going through vomit looking for the candy wrappers to see what they ate and how much, and cleaning up diarrhea. What a night! I ended up not going to sleep until 2am, called into work and told them I'd either be late or miss today and that I could make up the hours later, and then called the vet first thing in the morning. They told me to monitor them closely to check for certain symptoms and if I see those to bring them in for blood work. So that's what I've been doing.

Meanwhile, my mother in law came over to help out because we had carpet installed today. The original plan was for her to let the guys in for the carpet because I was supposed to be at work by the time they got here, but obviously things weren't going according to plan! Within an hour of the carpet being installed, one of my dogs had an accident on my brand new carpet. I almost had a full blown mental and emotional breakdown due to the stress. Finally, after cleaning it up, my mother in law helped me to set up and organize my new walk in closet. We've been remodeling the upstairs of our house for a year and the bedroom and walk in closet are finally move-in ready! I spent a few hours organizing clothes and still have plenty more to do. The bed will be moved up this weekend once my husband comes back from his business trip. I already bought a full matching bedding set and curtains. I even have a small piece of art work I bought at the Renaissance festival of a dragon that matches the color scheme that I'm planning to hang up. I'm excited to find a few accent pieces to complete the room, such as lamps or picture frames.

We decided to put my husband's dresser in the bedroom to hold the television and my dresser in the back wall of the walk in closet to hold a mirror and jewelry boxes. However, I'm going to have a decent amount of free space on the top of my dresser. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. I've always wanted a private space to set up a little altar and I think I finally have one! I'm going to set up a small discreet altar on my dresser in the walk in closet.

The space is already fairly private, but I still want my altar to be discreet. I don't want it to scream "altar" or "witchcraft" or anything like that since I know there will be other people entering my closet. I'm thinking I might go with an ancestral altar style. I want to find a decorative box to hold items such as my grandmother's jewelry, my rosary, my tarot cards, an athame, etc. Then I want to put up at least one photograph of my grandparents. I might also put up a few other photographs of other deceased family members as well. I have a huge picture of my great grandmother but I'm not sure if I'll have the space to hang it there unless I move the mirror into the bedroom. Then I would like to set up an incense burner, a few candles (specifically a purple one for my grandmother), perhaps a vase for purple flowers for my grandmother, an offering bowl (I have a few I made in high school), and a chalice. I also have a large assortment of little religious items such as angel and saint statues, holy water vials, crosses, etc. so I may set up some of those as well.

I'm going to wait until the bedroom is completely set up before I start on the altar. However, I am really looking forward to this new project. I've always wanted an altar but never really found the space or time to set one up. I'm so excited that I now have the perfect place and opportunity to do so! This realization is the one good thing out of the past two days of stress. I can't wait for my husband to come back from his business trip tomorrow. The dogs and remodeling are really tough to handle by myself!

NaNoWriMo

Anyone planning to participate?! For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which is November. It's an annual one month challenge for everyone to attempt to write a 50k word novel (or get 50k words into a novel that they can continue to write after the challenge is over). It's a great group of people that organize "write-ins," create challenges for each other, and they have a website where you can keep track of your goals. It's a fun thing to be involved in, allows you to explore your talents and creativity, and everyone encourages each other to reach their goals. If you plan to participate, I highly recommend using Scrivener for writing.

I've been trying for the past few years but never hit 50k words. In fact, for the past few years I've worked on the same novel but I'm only about 20k words into it. Although, I've done a lot of planning, research, outlining, etc. and wrote excerpts from various parts of the story that aren't in order. That one was really fun to work on because it required a lot of world building and I was able to create an entire fictional religion, complete with deities, rituals, traditions, holidays, different sects of the religion, a full mythology behind it, sacred texts, etc. As you can tell from my blog, that kind of stuff is very up my alley!

This year I decided to work on a different new idea for a novel and take a break from my old one. I got excited about it early and already wrote about 10k words before November even started so I'm already 20% of the way to the 50k word goal on the first of the month.

I have a lot of studying to do this month too unfortunately so I hope I have enough time to continue with my novel. I have an important exam coming up a few days after Thanksgiving so hopefully I can succeed at both studying and writing for NaNoWriMo. Everything always seems to come up at the same time, doesn't it? Maybe it's just me, but it seems like I always have a hundred things going on at once or nothing at all and I'm bored out of my mind.

I'm going to try to carve out the time in my schedule for NaNoWriMo. I'm using the excuse that it's a mental and emotional health thing. It's self-care. I look forward to it all year and if I don't participate at all because I'm too busy studying, I'm just going to be left feeling bummed out, burned out, and upset. Let me know if you plan on participating too!

Image Source

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, Samhain, happy early Day of the Dead, All Saint's Day, All Souls Day, etc., whatever you celebrate! I hope that all of you that celebrate something at this time of year, whether it be for secular, religious/spiritual, or cultural reasons, have a great holiday! Have fun, be safe, and eat lots of candy! Post a comment letting me know what you dressed up as (if you did) and what you did to celebrate. Stay spooky, everyone.

Quiz: Which religion should you belong to?

I haven't really posted this weekend due to having a Halloween party that needed lots of last minute preparations and then I needed a day to recover, so I'm just going to make a quick and easy post and put off some of the longer ones I had planned for a bit.

I don't know how much weight I would put into their validity, but I took two online quizzes about religion and the results are in!

The first quiz I took was the Christian Denomination Selector. The list of options it tested for as well as my percentages for each are listed below:


Unitarian Universalism (100%)  
Episcopal/Anglican Church (94%)  
Liberal Quakerism (87%)  
Evangelical Lutheran Church (80%)  
Unity Church (80%)  
Eastern Orthodox Church (75%)  
Methodist/Wesleyan Church (73%)  
Seventh-Day Adventist (73%)  
Roman Catholic Church (67%)  
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (62%)  
Mormonism (60%)  
Presbyterian Church USA (56%)  
Assemblies of God (55%)  
Church of Christ (55%)  
Mennonite Brethren (55%)  
Orthodox Quakerism (55%)  
Southern Baptist (55%)  
Free Will Baptist (45%)  
Presbyterian Church in America/Orthodox Presbyterian Church (38%)  
Reformed Baptist (38%)  
Reformed Churches (38%)  
International Church of Christ (36%)  
United Pentecostal Church (36%)  
Jehovah's Witness (0%)

Honestly, I'm not that surprised that Unitarian Universalism came up first with 100%. In fact, it asked for a prediction that wouldn't affect your score and I predicted that I would match most closely with UU. However, I am a bit surprised at how many Protestant denominations came up before both Catholic and Orthodox.

The next quiz I took was Spirit Belief System Selector. This one took into account most of the world's major religions whereas the first one only looked at Christian denominations (although arguments could certainly be made that UU is NOT a "Christian denomination" but rather a pluralist church with Christian roots). My results are below:

 1. Liberal Quakers - Religious Society of Friends (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
3. Neo-Pagan (84%)
4. New Age (77%)
5. Orthodox Quaker - Religious Society of Friends (75%)
6. Mainline - Liberal Christian Protestants (75%)
7. Taoism (72%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (67%)
9. Reform Judaism (65%)
10. Secular Humanism (62%)
11. New Thought (60%)
12. Jainism (59%)
13. Sikhism (57%)
14. Christian Science Church of Christ, Scientist (51%)
15. Hinduism (50%)
16. Theravada Buddhism (48%)
17. Scientology (47%)
18. Islam (46%)
19. Bahai (45%)
20. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (43%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (40%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (33%)
23. Non-theist (32%)
24. Jehovahs Witness (27%)
25. Mainline - Conservative Christian Protestant (27%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (26%)
27. Roman Catholic (26%)

Once again, I'm not surprised that UU came up 100%. However, I wasn't expecting Liberal Quakers Religious Society of Friends to come in at number one. In fact, I'm not even entirely sure what that is. I'm also extremely surprised that Catholicism came in dead last. I honestly disagree.

If any of you decide to take either quiz or find a better quiz, let me know your results in the comments!

Sects of Christianity and Comparison with other Abrahamic Religions: Views on Idolatry and Iconoclasm

What is idolatry and how is it defined by different religions from a theological viewpoint? Put simply, idolatry is the worship of idols. According to the Bible, worshiping "graven images" (as in the example of the golden calf) is forbidden. Some also expand the definition to include worship of other people besides God (which makes sense, someone might say a celebrity is their "idol" but they don't usually mean they actually worship them).

History lesson time: Do you know what some of the main causes were which lead to the Great Schism (the split between the Church in the East and West, causing it to form the Roman Catholic and Eastern/Greek/Byzantine Orthodox churches)? Two of them were idolatry and iconoclasm, which is using religious icons depicting Christ or other religious figures. Ironically, at that point, it was the Roman Catholic Church that had a problem with the iconoclasm in the East whereas the Byzantines were defending the use of religious imagery and statues. Later on and today, many Protestant denominations have a problem with the Roman Catholic Church's supposed idolatry and iconoclasm.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a Protestant friend about idolatry and the veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church which I was reminded about today because of a post I saw online. Apparently, many Protestants have an issue with what they perceive to be idolatry in the Catholic Church. The main concerns I've heard are that 1. Catholics pray directly to Mary which is a form of worship that should be reserved only for God, 2. Catholics pray directly to the Saints and Angels, again a form of worship which should only be reserved for God, 3. The idea of venerating certain dead Catholics as "saints" goes against the Bible, 4. The Church hierarchy and role given to the Pope goes against the Bible and makes him an idol, and 5. Many of the stories and feast days regarding saints and icons of Mary are based on earlier pagan traditions.

I can understand their cause for concern. Perhaps, if I too viewed religion as "you can only ever acknowledge this one deity and pray to him alone or you'll go to hell," I'd view it the same way. However, as I'm sure you can tell by now, those aren't my views. I also don't think that's what Catholics are doing anyway. Catholics look to Mary, the Saints, and the Angels, as those who are in heaven and who have the access to and trust of God, and therefore they should be looked up to as examples and can intervene on our behalf.

I'm going to use the example of Mary here since that's what the discussion with my friend was mostly about. One of the most well known and common Catholic ways to venerate Mary would be the Rosary. The Rosary starts with the Apostle's Creed, a creed stating that they believe in one God and Jesus is the son of God and God himself, followed by the Our Father, again a prayer directly to God. These prayers are stated before any of the many Hail Mary prayers begin. Then let's take a look at the Hail Mary. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Simply stating that she is full of grace, as Christians believe God's grace is a gift to us all, and that the Lord is with her, not the same thing as her. "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." There's biblical evidence for her being blessed among women, chosen by God, and acknowledging here that she is the mother of God's human person of Jesus. The phrase "among women" again reiterates that she is a woman, just like us. She may be blessed among women, but she is still a woman, not a goddess. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." Again, referring to her as the mother of God, not god herself, and asking her to "pray for us" rather than praying to her. After each decade of Hail Mary prayers, you follow with the Fatima prayer directly to Jesus, "Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy." and the Glory Be, which gives glory to the Trinity alone. Finally, at the end of the Rosary, you say the Hail Holy Queen, which again asks Mary to pray for us so that we can be made worthy of the promises of Christ. The Hail Mary is the prayer said most often during the Rosary by far, because saying the Rosary is asking Mary to intervene on our behalf. However, every mystery revolves around the life of Jesus and that is what we are supposed to me contemplating and meditating on during the Rosary. So while I personally don't even see it as a problem if we were "worshiping" Mary, I still do not in anyway believe that's what Catholics are doing when they say the Rosary. They aren't so much praying to her as they are talking to her and asking her to pray to God on our behalf and chanting a repetitive mantra to aid in their meditations on Jesus.

Then, to get back to the issue of iconoclasm, Catholics and Orthodox believers are no longer facing such accusations from each other or other Christians in great numbers. Even Protestants get involved in a fair amount of images today, although it was a bigger issue for earlier Protestants and certain denominations. However, other branches of the Abrahamic religions' family tree feel quite differently about it. For one example, let's look at Islam. Muslims are not supposed to have any images whatsoever of Allah or Muhammad. Meanwhile, in nearly all sects of Christianity you can find crucifixes with the image of Jesus on them or pictures of Jesus being spread around or hung in the house. With Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the vast amount of famous paintings and sculptures are far greater, but nearly all Christians are involved in iconoclasm to some degree. With Judaism, you can't even speak or write the full name of God. And of course, neither Islam nor Judaism accept the doctrine of the Trinity, viewing it as polytheistic and blasphemous.

I can't sit here and honestly say that I don't think any of these other religions have a point or that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't occasionally cross a line when it comes to idolatry. For example, it always seemed like idolatry to me whenever the priest calls up his parishioners to kiss the cross during Holy Week at the end of Lent. The crucifix that hangs in a church is not really Jesus and kissing it definitely feels like a throwback to worshiping the golden calf. It's a man made object meant to decorate a church. It may represent God, but it isn't God itself. Why would Catholic priests encourage people to come up and kiss it?

Overall, however, I don't have any problem whatsoever with people praying to more than one deity or praying to those who have died, yet were shown to be the greatest followers of God. It's even less controversial when the prayers are actually just talking to those people and asking them for guidance or to pray to God themselves. I don't think that praying to Mary, the saints, and the angels, or asking them to pray on our behalf is idolatry and I don't think that having religious images is the same thing as worshiping those images, therefore making it different than true iconoclasm. There's only one thing that I can think of where the Catholic church seems to actually blur those lines and that is the kissing of the cross. Other than that one example, I seem to be standing again with the Catholic church here, at least on this one individual issue.

image source

Religious Reading

I want to read the sacred texts from many different religions to better educate myself on them and to better form my own views and opinions. It's specifically important to me to read the Bible since I was raised Catholic and biblical ideas shape so much of western civilization and continue to influence our society today, especially in the United States. However, they tend to be long, ancient, and difficult reads, making them hard to tackle.

So far I've completed the Torah, which is the first part of the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament of the Bible, consisting of five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That was easy enough to get through. I continued reading after that and am now stuck about a third of the way through the Old Testament and haven't had enough time to read more in nearly a year. Yet the Bible remains permanently on my "to read" list (or I suppose my "currently reading" list would be more accurate) and I haven't let go of my goal of someday finishing it. I think I've made significant progress! According to Goodreads, I'm over 20% of the way through the Bible. It may have taken me three years or so, but I put a nice dent in it.

Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity to read many other original texts. As far as eastern spiritual, philosophical, and religious traditions go, I've read the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, a central text to Taoism. I've also read many ancient mythological/religious/spiritual texts including ones from ancient Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse religions. I've studied a fair bit of other religions, but only through reading sections of their primary texts and secondary sources, not by reading their primary texts in their entirety.

I want to compile a To Read List made up of entirely books that are spirituality/religious based, but also more specifically, a To Read List of the actual sacred texts themselves. As I read each item on the list, I'm going to try to compile my thoughts here on this blog.

What I will say right now is that I find the Old Testament very interesting from a historical perspective. I LOVE LOVE LOVE ancient history. I was a History and Classics double major (Classics meaning Classical Civilizations, so focused primarily on Rome and Greece but also included some Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Medieval stuff as well). I love learning about Canaanite and Hebrew mythology, cultures, and society, as well as that of their neighbors in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

You can learn so much about life then from the Bible. Everyone's so busy arguing about whether the theological aspects of the Bible are true or not, that they don't focus on the educational historical aspect. And god forbid when I do bring it up, they say something asinine like "oh yeah, I'm sure it's historically accurate and they really fit every animal on earth on one boat." No, assholes, that's not what I'm talking about. That particular story of Noah's Ark is no more historically accurate than the story of the flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, because both are myths. However, WE CAN LEARN FROM MYTHS. We can learn about the fears, values, and beliefs of the people who believed them, we can learn about their society and culture. The myth of Noah's Ark was Hebrew, but it originally came from Mesopotamia and the flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, although some changes were made when the Hebrews adopted it. The Sumerian version had the gods destroy mankind because of the noise they made, whereas the biblical version saw God destroy mankind because of their evil ways. These are two vastly different ways to view the gods they worshiped. One destroyed their own creation due to being annoyed at them and viewing them as an inconvenience. The other destroyed them due to regret over creating beings who could be so evil. This suggests to me that Sumerians viewed their gods and religion in a much different way than Hebrews viewed Yahweh. And why did the myth focus on a flood? Perhaps that's not readily evident if you only look at the biblical version of the myth, therefore causing people still to this day to search for some evidence of a widespread flood throughout the Mediterranean region or worldwide flooding to back up the myth, but if you look at the Sumerian version one major thing sticks out to me. Sumer was located in a floodplain in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Floods happened often, could destroy their homes and crops if they were too severe, and could literally cost them their lives. Floods were something they feared if the flooding got too bad, but living in a river valley was necessary for their agrarian society and the earliest civilizations. The rivers provided them with their very livelihoods, but as with anything in nature, could also just as quickly take their lives away. They probably also wanted an explanation for why the flooding happened, so of course they looked to the gods, as all societies did at this time. It makes sense that they would think if the gods were going to take out their wrath on them, that they would do it with a flood. In fact, a vicious flood probably did happen in Sumer at one point or another that caused widespread destruction in their early civilization, therefore causing the myth. Perhaps since the Hebrews didn't experience this constant dread, they were able to view their god as more benevolent (at least by a little bit, there are certainly many not-so-benevolent things in the Old Testament, and wiping out all of mankind counts as one of them).

I also had the opportunity to participate in an archaeological excavation in Israel at a site that was in use during the Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader eras, which was originally a small town which sprung up around a polytheistic Roman temple dedicated to a goddess. There were many Hebrew and Canaanite sites nearby which had already been excavated that I had the opportunity to visit. It was amazing to me to be able to see in person some of the things and places I read about in the Bible.

However, all of that being said, I felt that the Tao Te Ching was more spiritually enriching. The parts of the Bible that I read honestly feel more like a primary source historical text, written from the perspective of people who were there at the time and therefore held the beliefs that they held (which of course, that's what it is, I'm just saying that's all it feels like, it doesn't feel like a spiritual guide). It felt like reading Livy's History of Rome, with the exception of Genesis, which felt more similar to something like Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days. It definitely felt like a religious and historical text, completely with the theological aspects, but not so much how I view spirituality. Perhaps that's because the Tao Te Ching is more philosophical in nature. I'm not sure, but I'll see if I feel differently after reading more of the Bible.

Stay tuned for future reviews!
Image source

Practicing what I preach...

Everyone, more or less, wants to think of themselves as being a good person. Whether we define that by religious standards, legal standards, philosophical standards, or by some other set of morals, we all want to view ourselves as good people and will even go so far as to make excuses for our immoral decisions when we know we aren't being as good as we could be. I've been living that way for a long time.

There are certain ways I view myself. I consider myself to be a spiritual person. I consider the morality part of faith to be more important than the theological aspects. I try to be the type of person who helps out other people, through occasional volunteering, donating to charities, and being the first person to offer assistance when someone needs help. I call myself a feminist. I read books and do research into environmentalism, animal rights, and human rights issues.

However, whether I like to admit it or not, I know I make a lot of decisions that don't align with the way I view myself or the person I want to be. I want to be the type of person who would never intentionally do something that could hurt another person, especially those I consider friends or family. I want to be a loyal person who would never betray the people close to me. I don't want to be the person who is always in the center of drama, gossip, rumors, and arguments. I don't want to lie, cheat, or otherwise be dishonest and hurtful to others. I don't want to be the type of person who talks about people behind their backs, judges them for things I've done, or makes fun of them. As a feminist, I want to strive for solidarity with other women and I don't want to ever pit myself against other women. As an environmentalist, I want to take an active role in recycling and leaving a smaller carbon footprint. As a human rights activist, I don't want anyone to view me as someone "safe" to vent to about their racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, or religious prejudice views. I want to be the person who is brave enough to stand up to them when they do. As someone who loves animals, I want to lead the way for compassionately caring for companion animals and humane treatment for farm animals. I'd like to even go so far as being vegetarian or vegan someday. I want to be the type of person who goes out of my way to care for the poor, the sick, the elderly, the needy, and children. There are many things I'd like to do and certain things I strive to be, yet I continuously fall short of the mark and make excuses for my own immoral behavior in order to live with myself. For quite awhile now, all these things that I know I shouldn't do are exactly what I've been doing.

Starting today, I want to start making some very serious changes in my life. How can I talk about spirituality, faith, feminism, and morals while living a completely immoral life? I'm a hypocrite. I've known that for a long time but didn't want to acknowledge it.

I don't want to get into details about some of the things I've done that I'm not proud of. This blog isn't a confessional, it's a public forum, and my failings are no one's business but my own. However, I am making a promise to myself and making that promise public that starting today I will be actively making a change. From now on, I will think before I speak and act. I will contemplate my decisions before I make them. I will take the time to ask myself, "if I do this/say this/choose this, can anyone get hurt?" If someone else tries to drag me into something that's immoral, I will stand up and say "I don't agree with you and I don't want to be involved in this." I might not be able to change other people's minds, but I can let them know without any uncertainty that I do not encourage their beliefs or behaviors.

It's time to make a change and start being the person I want to be.

Let's Talk About Sex- 20 Questions!

If you grew up in a religious household, especially if your family's religion is one of the Abrahamic faiths, you likely equated sexuality to sinfulness. Unfortunately, many of us still view it that way, even if our concept of religion and sin has changed. My definition of a "sin" and your definition of a "sin" might be different and both of our views might be different than either of the religions we grew up with. So let's explore that for a moment. When I define sin for myself today, I don't view it the same as the Catholic church. I view it as something that goes against the Divine, that goes against my own well being or the well being of someone else, or something that is intentionally harmful. That being said, let's look at some of the things that religion does, or alternatively does not, view as a sin when it comes to sexuality and explore our own opinions on the topics.

Important Note: For the purpose of this post, look at the word sin as "morally and spiritually wrong" when I discuss my views on it. Do not use your religion's definition of sin.

Disclaimer: I'm discussing MY OPINIONS and giving different ways for us to explore these topics together. I'm not making blanket statements about what's right or wrong. You must decide for yourself.

Warning: The topics and language used in this post are for adults only and will contain sexual content. Despite this blog being mostly family friendly, this post is NSFW. 

1. Is premarital sex a sin?

In my opinion, absolutely not. Here are the questions I ask myself: Does it hurt anyone? Does it hurt me or my partner? Is it a way for you to show love for the person you're with? Is it enjoyable, safe, consensual? Would it be unwise to rush into marriage with the person or are you unable to marry them even if you wanted to? Are you responsible about it? Do you feel ready? I feel like sex is a very personal decision and only you can know if you're ready or if you should have sex with a certain person. I don't think that it's a bad thing to have sex before marriage. In fact, I lost my virginity a good eight and a half years before I got married and I don't regret it nor do I feel any guilt about it whatsoever. I have nothing to feel guilty for. I was ready and I made the choice that was right for me.

2. Is extramarital sex a sin? 

Yeah. Most of the time at least. Unless you have some kind of arrangement where you're both okay with an open marriage or want to have a threesome or something, but even then, even if the other person agrees, it can often still hurt or cause jealousy. And what of the other person? Will they be lead on? If it hurts yourself or another person, then in my opinion, it's immoral. Does that make you a bad person if you have extramarital sex? No, not necessarily. Good people can certainly do some not so good things. We all mess up from time to time. We just have to make amends and strive to do better. 

3. Are same-sex relations a sin? What about same sex marriage?

Absolutely not. I firmly believe that our sexual orientation is a natural part of who we are. It's something that we're born with. We can't change or choose whether we are straight, gay, or bi. The Divine made us that way and we are perfect the way we are. We should choose to live our lives as the truest version of ourselves, the way we were created to be. Look at it this way: if God made you gay, what right does anyone else have to say God's wrong? Being in love with someone of the same sex doesn't hurt anyone. However, forcing or coercing people into relationships with people of the opposite sex when they aren't attracted to them hurts both parties. Forcing people who love each other to be apart hurts both parties. Teaching people that the way they naturally are is somehow immoral, gross, weird, or otherwise wrong is extremely harmful to them and can cause mental illness, lifelong emotional issues, and suicide. In my opinion, being homophobic is a sin. Being gay or bi is not. 

4. Are familial sexual/romantic relationships a sin?

This is a tough one. Most of the time when people are in relationships with or engage in sexual activities with a family member it's because they were arranged marriages to a cousin or uncle, historically done to keep bloodlines pure, done in a culture where incest is defined differently (where only immediate family counts), or most often in modern Western civilization, it's because an older family member is raping a younger family member. I'd say that in the vast majority of cases, it's a sin (for the older relative or man who is forcing or coercing a younger relative or woman into it, not for the person who feels they have no choice or who are forced into it). In the rare cases where two family members are of the same age range and have an equal amount of power and choice in the situation but honestly feel attracted to each other, well...I guess it's a gray area. I might not consider it a sin in that scenario, but I feel like those scenarios are rare and usually a result of being raised badly/having a bad family.

5. Is sexual activities with a minor a sin?

Yep. That's my opinion. If you're having sex with someone who is prepubescent and you aren't prepubescent yourself, it's definitely, hands down, no matter what, a sin. Period, end of discussion. You're a child molester, you're a rapist, and you're a terrible person. Especially if you're actually an adult. If you were both children at the time, that is a really tragic situation. Usually that's the result of bad parenting, lack of supervision, and exposure to things you shouldn't have been exposed to. Often it's the result of one child coercing the other into it (especially if one is older). Depending on how old the other child was or how the situation played out, whether or not I would view it as a sin on their part would vary. However, if you were taken advantage of as a child, you absolutely did not do anything wrong. If you're a teenager having sex with another teenager and you're both minors, I think it depends on the situation. If you're within two years of each other, even if one of you is an adult, I think it's mostly okay. A 19 and 17 year old, an 18 and 16 year old, a 17 and 15 year old, a 16 and 14 year old, even a 15 and 13 year old, doesn't seem THAT messed up. However, even a teenager shouldn't be dating someone who isn't a teenager yet (unless it's like 13 and 12, just a one year difference, but 13 and 11 would be inappropriate). Someone in their twenties shouldn't be dating a minor (20 and 17 is too distant for my taste, but 21 and 18 is fine even though it's the same amount of years). Even if you're both teenagers and both minors, more than two years seems a bit much. For example, a 13 and 16 year old, in my opinion, shouldn't be dating, same with 14 and 17, or 15 and 18. When I was 16 I dated a 19 year old and my parents were very concerned. At the time I didn't see anything wrong with it. As an adult looking back, I absolutely understand. At nineteen he had been graduated for a year, had his own apartment, had his own car, worked full time, etc. At sixteen, I was in the summer in between my sophomore and junior years and didn't even have a license yet. A three year difference when you're teenagers is much bigger than a three year difference in your twenties. You grow up fast and are at vastly different levels of maturity. During that same time frame, one of my friends, also sixteen, was dating someone in his late twenties. What he was doing was absolutely 100% wrong in my eyes. She was trying to figure out whether or not it was technically legal or if he could get in trouble, but whether or not it was technically legal doesn't matter to me. It's still morally wrong. He was still taking advantage of her even though she thought she loved him. Another friend of mine was only 16 and making out with a 40 year old married man with children. He again was absolutely taking advantage of her, hurting his wife, and just all around being terrible. That's a sin. However, a friend of mine started dating a 15 year old when she was 16. At 18, he was only 17. Technically she was an adult and he was a minor but I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't think that's a sin. 

6. Is sexual relations with an animal a sin?

Yes, absolutely, 100%. You're terrible. An animal having sex with another animal is part of nature. They have their own ways of showing consent and unfortunately sometimes rape each other. However, an animal being forced into sex with a person has no way of consenting by human standards. Even if the animal somehow actually seems to like it, they can't actually give verbal consent. In my eyes, anything short of an actual "yes" in human sexuality is non-consensual. Most of the time, the animal doesn't even seem to like it. Most of the time it causes physical pain. Pain and lack of consent are both hurting another creature. Definitely a sin. 

7. Is pornography a sin?

Unpopular opinion time, but yes. Absolutely. Let me explain. Some of the people who are acting in porn genuinely like their jobs. They choose to do it of their own free will, they enjoy doing it, the people who work with them respect them, they respect the people they work with, it's a safe environment, and they mostly aren't promoting things that would hurt anyone else. Sure, it exists. It's rare, but it happens. However, the vast majority of cases are not like this. That scenario is mostly a myth that society buys into because it's what we want to believe. In reality, much of the porn industry works hand in hand with the sex trafficking industry. Many of the people in porn are literally forced to be there. They are being raped. Many of the "barely legal" pornos aren't legal at all. They're minors pretending to be 18 year olds who are pretending to be underage. The child pornography industry is also huge and goes hand in hand with the adult industry. What about the people who choose to do it, you ask? Well, many of them agree to specific acts, only certain scenes, or put certain actors on their blacklist. After the agreements are made, the scenes get changed. If they don't do it, they're labeled hard to deal with, makes it harder for them to get more jobs, they lose pay, and sometimes, they are just outright forced into it anyway. Many porn actresses have come forward with stories of being raped on set or having their limits disrespected. STDs run rampant due to being told they aren't allowed to use protection. Drug use is rampant due to it being hard to handle the scenes and lifestyle without them. Some of the acts in porn have gotten so extreme and brutal that women's bodies are literally being permanently damaged due to the stuff they are being required to participate in (such as double anal, double penetration, extreme bdsm, etc.). Many people who do porn do so because they feel they have no other options, especially once they get started. Whenever you watch porn, there is no way for you to be absolutely sure that the person you're watching A. is the age the porn claims they are B. is not a victim of sex trafficking C. wasn't being raped or coerced into it and had all of their limits respected, was fully consenting D. was sober and clean from drugs and therefore able to give consent E. wasn't harmed during filming. There is no way for you as a viewer to be able to tell for sure. Even the porn videos that have the actors say at the beginning that they consent or porn actors who say off camera or on their blogs that they consent have come out later and say that there were times when they were forced, coerced, badly hurt, under the influence, etc. or that they got started in porn underage. Even if it seems like a homemade film a couple decided to make and release together, there is no way for you to know for sure that it wasn't "revenge porn" (one partner decided to secretly share it after a break up). Aside from all of this, the porn industry has normalized painful sex acts and made men more likely to insist upon them and coerce women into it and has desensitized viewers to rape and abuse. I can provide links to many studies and statistics proving what I'm saying. Porn is rape on tape. Porn is a sin.

8. Is supporting the sex industry a sin?

Yes, and for a lot of the same reasons that porn is. When you hire a prostitute, you have no way of knowing for sure whether she is forced to be there, whether or not she's a victim of sex trafficking, whether or not she's only doing it because she's homeless and needs to survive, whether or not she's under the influence and able to give consent, or whether or not she's a minor. You have no way to tell for sure that she is a legal adult doing it of her own free will because she enjoys it. Consent should be freely given and because the person actually wants to do it. If they fear for their survival if they don't, then it's not true consent. Buying sex is rape. Buying sex is a sin.

9. Is being a prostitute a sin?

No. Many do it because they are forced to or coerced into it or do it for survival. Many do it because they feel they have no other choice. Even if they do it of their own free will and love their jobs, it's still not a sin in my eyes. However, those that do it completely of their own free will when they could just as easily do something else and then speak up in defense of the sex industry are committing a sin in my eyes because they are selfishly ignoring all the others who don't love their jobs and speaking over them to make the sex industry look harmless.

10. Is masturbation a sin?

No. It's completely normal, safe, and healthy to explore your own body and experience pleasure. It doesn't involve anyone else and it doesn't hurt anyone else. How can it be a sin to touch your own body? It's yours. Your genitals are part of who you are. You have every right to masturbate and shouldn't feel guilty for it. 

11. Are non-traditional sex acts and/or sodomy a sin? (oral, anal, period sex, bdsm, etc.)

This is a hard one to answer. I don't believe oral is a sin, but I believe in healthy relationships it should go both ways and no one should be pressured into it. I don't believe anal is a sin, but again, only if both people genuinely enjoy it and want to do it. If one person is being pressured into doing something that they don't like doing or that hurts them, then the person pressuring them is committing a sin. I don't think period sex is a sin and I don't think periods are unclean in any way. They are natural and should be viewed as such. BDSM on the other hand...that's a gray area for me. For the submissives or bottoms, I don't view it as a sin. However, for the dominants, for anyone who violently and intentionally hurts another person, for anyone who gets off on the pain of another person, for anyone who controls another person, I absolutely consider what they are doing to be sinning. I view bdsm relationships to be abusive relationships. I view the dominants as abusers and the submissives as victims. Before you say "safe, sane, and consensual," just remember that I've seen how quickly it can go from safe to people literally dying from being choked. Remember that I have seen how quickly it can go from sane to people allowing their partners to permanently disfigure their bodies. Remember that even in abusive relationships people can consent to stay in them for various reasons but that doesn't make it any less abusive. People who self-harm consent to cutting themselves, people with eating disorders consent to starving themselves, people who kill themselves consent to suicide, minors consent to statutory rape, and sometimes victims consent to stay with their abusers. Consent alone does not make it a healthy relationship. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying it's a sin to give a slap on the ass or have rough sex where you push your willing partner against the wall to kiss them or to spice things up with a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. If my considering it immoral and abusive genuinely confuses you, you probably haven't been exposed to the ugly side of bdsm that I've been exposed to and whatever minor thing you're doing probably doesn't count as a sin in my eyes. 

12. Is rape a sin? How do you define rape?

Absolutely. Rape is one of the biggest sins you can commit. Rape is anything other than enthusiastic, willing, freely given consent between two people of age who are not under the influence, asleep, or otherwise in a state of mind to give consent and who are on equal ground without fear of saying no because of the power the other holds and who both have full knowledge of what is happening. What does that mean? If she's asleep, it's rape. If he's your student, it's rape (not talking college courses here, that's gray area though because of the risk of feeling coerced due to grades). If you have to beg her and plead because she doesn't want to, it's rape. If she agrees if you use a condom but then you intentionally secretly slip it off, it's rape. If you have to blackmail him, it's rape. If she's your slave, it's rape. Biblical times didn't consider that rape, but they should have. Just because the Bible doesn't say it's rape doesn't mean it's not rape. All rape is a sin.  

13. Is polygamy/polyamory a sin?

Another gray area. Technically, I suppose if everyone is fully willing, loves each other, and they don't feel any jealousy, then it wouldn't be. However, once again, that's rarely the case in reality. In fact, despite polyamory becoming more common in Western, liberal, sex-positive circles, it happens most often in Muslim and Mormon communities. In those cases, it's always one man to several wives, strictly heterosexual (meaning the wives aren't together), and the decision is fully left up to the man. This can absolutely cause pain and jealousy for the wives or leave them feeling like replaceable property who are unequal to their husbands. If it hurts another person, I generally consider it immoral. In the vast majority of cases, I'd consider it a sin, no matter what your religion says about it. 

14. Is birth control a sin? If so, what kinds of birth control are sinful?

I don't consider any form of birth control to be immoral or a sin. It's your body, your choice, and you should do what you need to in order to be responsible and safe. Taking medication isn't a sin.

15. Is emergency contraception a sin?

No. It's also not the same thing as abortion and doesn't work in the same way as the abortion pill does. The morning-after-pill will not terminate an existing pregnancy (pregnancy here being defined as a fertilized egg which has attached to the uterine wall, which is the scientific definition). It works primarily by preventing the fertilization of the egg in the first place but also by preventing fertilized eggs attaching to the uterine wall. 

16. Is abortion a sin? Are there certain scenarios when it is or isn't?

Ah, here we go, a nice controversial one to discuss to really get everyone pissed off. Let's start with the obvious. I absolutely 100% do not consider abortion to be a sin if the mother's life or health is at risk or if the fetus will likely die and only live a short painful life and/or be extremely disfigured. I believe it is the woman's choice. That means that if she chooses to carry the pregnancy to term despite the risks, her choice should be respected. It doesn't make her selfish to bring a child into the world just because the child may have "something wrong" with it. In the cases of rape and incest, I also believe it should be the woman's choice. I know someone who said he believes rape should always result in abortion and doesn't think women should ever choose to carry it to term. Again, I think her choice should be respected no matter what. So what of abortions where lives and health aren't at risk either for the mother or the fetus and where rape and incest play no factor? Well, I believe that early term abortion is okay. Late term abortion without good reason is what I do have a problem with. However, it's not even legal to have a late term abortion without a good reason and it's very rare for anyone to actually want one. Most of the time, late term abortions are performed on wanted pregnancies where something went wrong or they found out about a medical condition or risk late in the pregnancy. Very often, these are life and death cases. Therefore, I support them. For me personally, I would only consider it if A. it was very early on, absolutely no later than the first trimester, and likely only if it was in the first six weeks before the first heartbeat and brain activity or B. if my health or life was at risk or my child's life or health were at risk or there was something terribly wrong with it to the point where it would be cruel to give birth to it. So do I personally consider it a sin outside of the two scenarios where I would personally have one? Well...to be honest, yeah, I kind of do. However, I'm still pro-choice. I believe it's the woman's right to choose and if she happens to choose something that I consider a sin, it's still her body and her right to do so. If it turns out that it is a sin and she has to pay for it later, that's on her. If it turns out its not, then no harm done. Either way, we have to make our own choices and live with them. I wish nothing but the best for her. Abortion should be safe, legal, and accessible. We have the right to our own bodies. Even in Christian theology, we were given free will and what we do with it is up to us. If we go against God's word, that's on us too. I don't know if Christianity is the right way or not, I'm just saying that even as far as that goes, that's not necessarily a good argument against it. Even if it is technically murder, it's still someone doing something to their own bodies and I do view it differently than murder done to another person who isn't living in their body. A comparable situation to abortion wouldn't be someone outright murdering someone else, but someone refusing to allow another person to use their body to live, so such as refusing to donate their kidney to someone who needs a kidney transplant, refusing to donate part of their liver to someone who needs it, or refusing to agree to be an organ donor after death. However, most people are okay with those scenarios, don't consider them murder, and don't view them in the same light as abortion at all. For me, on the other hand, I do consider those a sin as well, which is why I'm currently going through the steps to see if I can donate my kidney to a family member. But once again, I believe it should be up to the individual's choice regardless of my personal belief of it being a sin not to do it. I know someone whose religion tells them it's a sin to sign up as an organ donor. He has one belief on whether or not organ donation or refusal to donate is a sin and I have the opposite belief. From a legal standpoint, I think he should have the right to full bodily autonomy no matter what and regardless of me not agreeing with him. 

17. Is IVF a sin?

There are two main arguments that I hear against IVF. One is that doing that is unnatural because you aren't allowing God to decide if and when you should be pregnant. I think that argument's nonsense. Are you going to refuse medical treatment because it interferes with God's plan on if you should live or die? Certainly not. You trust that if God exists he/she/it/they likely created people to become doctors to help care for you. Same for IVF. The other argument I hear is that sometimes they will implant more fertilized eggs that can successfully attach and be carried to term and that therefore it's "abortion" because you implant more in the hopes that at least one takes and take the risk that the others will not. However, I don't even consider it abortion that early on (if it doesn't attach) and certainly not a sin (even if it does).

18. Is having unnatural childbirth a sin?

In the past, the Catholic Church has considered it immoral and sinful to help ease the pain of childbirth and some still consider it as such (although very few extremists do now) because pain in childbirth for all future generations of women was part of God's punishment to Eve. I don't even consider the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to be a true and historically accurate story. I believe it's a myth and that's what it was always intended to be. I believe it was written to teach something, to explain things, a creation myth like any other. The fact that there are people who would actively try to make childbirth as painful as possible because of this myth literally makes me feel nauseous and causes me to lose faith in humanity. The second argument I've heard is that using an epidural can cause risk to the baby and therefore it's selfish to do so. I disagree. It carries some minor risks, sure, but I don't think it outweighs the benefits and I certainly don't think it makes women selfish to use an epidural. I plan to use one if/when I ever have kids. It's certainly not a sin. 

19. Is marrying outside of your religion a sin?

No. You should marry who you love and who you want to marry as long as it's a healthy relationship. The only thing I worry about is that if two people have vastly different views on religion that it could cause fighting later on or one person may feel pressured to convert or give up their own practices. Things like this must be discussed thoroughly in advance, as well as how children will be raised if you have any. Communication and mutual respect is key!

20. Does a legal only marriage not done in a church count or is it living in sin?

I think it counts and I don't consider it a sin, but then again, I don't consider living with your partner outside of marriage as a sin either. If no one is getting hurt, I don't see the problem. 

If you have any more questions you'd like me to answer or if you want to discuss your opinions on these topics, just leave a comment!

Sects of Christianity: Protestant and Catholic views on Salvation and Predestination

I'd like to do a series of posts on theological comparisons between various sects of Christianity (as well as other series comparing the Abrahamic faiths, and comparing world religions in general). For starters, the simplest thing for me to focus on would be some of the big differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. I was raised Catholic and therefore am the most familiar with it, however living in the U.S. means that I have grown up around a variety of Protestant churches and believers. My family never seemed to view Protestants as that much different from us. When I was a child they allowed me to attend a Bible summer camp at a Church of the Nazarene with my friend, my sister's first husband was Lutheran and while there were occasional comments from both families about that, overall they approved since he was still Christian, one of my closest friends and a few of my cousins were raised Presbyterian (although most of my friends were raised Catholic and most of my town was made up of Catholics), and my mother had nothing bad to say about me attending a young adult discussion group for a non-denominational Christian Protestant Church (the church is tied to the Assemblies of God but the discussion group was open to any young Christian who was interested). At one point, my mother even expressed a desire to me to start looking into other churches as she felt disconnected to Catholicism, although she never went through with it. Due to all of this, I always had trouble understanding what the differences were between them until I received formal education on the topics.

To be clear, I understand that "Protestant" is a very broad title and not all Protestant faiths are the same. Protestants can include everything from Anglicans/Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, etc. to many newer churches as well. I realize that not all of them hold the same beliefs and I don't claim to know the differences between every single religion that falls under Christian Protestantism, nor do I even know every denomination. I'm no expert on the topic and I don't claim to be. However, I have studied the Protestant Reformation and some of the more common issues that caused Protestants to split from the Catholic Church initially. I want to focus on two of the differences I studied here.

The first thing I'd like to focus on is the idea of salvation. One of the primary differences between Catholicism and Protestantism (at least the denominations I'm familiar with that initially split off) is whether Christians are saved by works (Catholic) or saved by grace (Protestant). This concept boils down essentially to the question "do we get to heaven from doing good works or do we get to heaven solely by faith in Christ who offers the faithful salvation?" Catholics tend to believe that doing good deeds is what "buys" your way into heaven. You have to commit to not sinning and confessing if you do. This is why even the Pope recently said that atheists who are good people can still get into heaven, although this is absolutely a more modern Catholic teaching. The medieval Church also believed in selling "indulgences" which Luther had a major problem with and which the Church stopped doing during the Counter Reformation in order to stop losing followers by going along with some of what Protestants wanted. The idea behind indulgences was that someone could give money to the church in order to absolve their sins. I certainly agree with Luther on that front. Wealth can't buy salvation. I'm not even entirely sure I agree with the Christian concepts of salvation and the afterlife anymore, but I do know the Bible makes it clear that Jesus said it was difficult for the wealthy to get into heaven and advised people to give up all their wealth to follow him. Christianity started as a religion for the poor and the oppressed. However, I can understand the reasoning behind "giving to the Church" being an act of "good works," but I don't think that having more money means someone is a better person. I also don't agree that giving money to the Church is that important, especially when that money could be used to feed your family or donate to charity. I certainly don't think any human being has the right or authority to literally sell forgiveness of sins on God's behalf. So on the topic of indulgences, I certainly side more with the views of Martin Luther that helped spark the Protestant Reformation.

However, I do think there is something to be said for "saved by works". In my view, that means living a good life, doing good to others, helping other people, caring for God's creation, following the words of Jesus, etc. So literally doing "good works," not buying forgiveness. Indulgences is not an act of "good works" in my view. On the opposite side, you have "saved by grace" which means that as long as you believe in Christ you will go to heaven and if you don't accept Christ you will go to hell. I'm sorry, but I don't agree with that view at all. I'm sure it's evident by now considering I have a pluralist blog, but I truly believe that if there is a heaven there is more than one path to get there. No one religion can be completely true while all the others are completely false. I can't imagine that if Jesus was truly God and was waiting at the gates of heaven that he would turn away a non-Christian person who lived a genuinely good and selfless life of loving their neighbor and helping others while letting in others who were lucky enough to be raised Christian who didn't do nearly as many good works and who didn't love their non-Christian neighbors. That view of Jesus and heaven doesn't make sense to me. I know that according to the Bible, Jesus said the only way to the Father was through him, but I think that can apply to anyone who lives as a good person the way Jesus advised, even if they didn't believe Jesus was the son of God. What of the people who never heard of Jesus or who were raised to believe their family's religion was the right one?

This is the type of question that led me to believe in religious pluralism. I can't believe that an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good deity exists that would allow some people to be born and raised into a different religion than the one who worships them in a society that preaches that religion is the only true one or that would allow people to be born who never heard of Jesus, and with that knowledge of that person's upbringing would use their power to then damn that person to an eternity of hell anyway for not accepting Christ as their savior, and still somehow be considered a "good" deity. Of course, those issues are also brought up often in theology, philosophy, and religious ethics with "the problem of evil." The idea that many of the things that go on in this world happen while a deity who is supposedly all powerful, all knowing, and entirely good exists is something that many people can't understand. It's what leads many to atheism or agnosticism. It's what drives the conversation around the concept of "free will" and how that plays into the "problem of evil." That topic could be a post entirely on its own, so I will try not to get off topic here. However, my view on those questions does lead me to believe that faith in Christ alone and therefore Christ's gift of grace to his followers alone cannot be the only way to salvation.

Which leads me to the next topic of discussion: predestination. You can probably already guess that I don't agree with it. I've heard contradicting things actually, that some Protestants still believe in it but most don't anymore, but I don't know how true that is. The idea behind the Protestant belief of predestination is that God has already determined which souls are destined to be saved and which are destined to eternal damnation, before the person is even born. God makes the decision based on who will likely respond well to God's teachings and therefore follow God and accept his grace and salvation, where everyone else is destined to be damned before taking their first breath. It's honestly the most horrible thing I've ever heard. I thought God was supposed to be loving? Isn't God supposed to give us a chance?

At the end of the day, I believe that if there is a God and if there is a heaven, it would be open to everyone, as long as they're a good person. Being a good person means a result of our own choices, not something that was determined before we were born or based on what society and place we were born into and therefore which religion we were raised with. Therefore, I honestly can't say I agree with the ideas behind the concepts of "saved by grace" or predestination. Nothing against Protestants, and I realize that not all Protestants still fully believe in all of this, but other than indulgences which are now a thing of the past, I side more with the Catholic Church on these issues. Although ultimately, my views don't align completely with the Catholic Church either, they certainly align more with Catholicism than Protestantism.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

This is a Christian prayer but it's not one of the ones I grew up with. In fact, I was an adult before I heard it, but I think it's beautiful. One of the great things about it is that it's so universal. It's mainly about what we should all strive for if we want to live spiritual lives. If you practice a different religion, have different beliefs, or even if you don't believe in any sort of higher power, I think it can just be slightly tweaked (perhaps just change out a few words) for you to use it too. You could view it as a prayer, a spell, a poem, or even a mantra for meditation and self-inspiration. It focuses more on being a good person with inner peace than anything else. In my mind, that's what our spirituality should focus on, rather than which deity or method of worship is the "right" one. All spiritual paths have more in common with each other than people believe. I'm going to try to live by these words as best I can.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace!

That where there is hatred, I may bring love.

That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness.

That where there is discord, I may bring harmony.

That where there is error, I may bring truth.

That where there is doubt, I may bring faith.

That where there is despair, I may bring hope.

That where there are shadows, I may bring light.

That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted.

To understand, than to be understood.

To love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

Happy Hauntings!

As promised in a previous post, I'd like to discuss beliefs on ghosts and the afterlife. I figured since we're in the Halloween season now it would be the perfect time to bring it up!

Everyone has different ideas about what they believe happens after you die and I've realized that individual people's beliefs don't always match up to their religion or lack thereof. For example, I know atheists who believe in ghosts or believe that if they talk to their loved ones they can still hear them, but they don't believe in god or any kind of divine entity or creator. I know Christians who believe in reincarnation or who doubt the possibility of an afterlife at all. It's very interesting to me that when it comes to ideas about ghosts and the afterlife, even people who normally subscribe to one particular religion tend to hold different beliefs than what their religion tells them is "right".

I've always sort of believed in ghosts, probably because my mother also believed in ghosts and raised me to believe in them as well. In fact, for awhile I was convinced that the house I grew up in might have been haunted due to some weird experiences I've had there. I've also known quite a few people who have been absolutely convinced that they have seen, talked to, felt, or otherwise came in contact with a ghost. One incident that always stuck out to me was when my aunt claimed she saw my grandmother's ghost talk to her while she was in the hospital. My aunt had just been in a horrific car accident and she said that she saw my grandmother (her mother) and that my grandmother told her "not yet". She said once she heard her say that she knew that she was going to survive and she did, but the word "yet" seemed ominous both to her and to the rest of us. A month later after surviving the initial crash my aunt died from a blood clot caused by one of the surgeries she had to have following the car accident. My whole family became convinced that perhaps somehow my grandmother was able to buy her some extra time or knew that she had a limited amount of time left but wouldn't die right away. This wasn't the only incident like this that I've heard of, in fact, I know many people who have similar stories. All of this served to back up my beliefs in ghosts, but for awhile I went through a period of being a skeptic and I suppose I still sort of place myself in that category. It's hard to believe in something when you haven't seen it with your own two eyes.

This desire to "see it to believe it" led me to decide to go ghost hunting with a few friends of mine. We went to a place that once served as a home for the elderly, the mentally ill, and the poor, but has since closed down. Many people claim it's haunted and my friends have gone there multiple times with equipment like video cameras, k2 meter, laser grid, radio scanner/spirit box, etc. and have said they saw ghosts and talked to them. So this past spring I decided to go with them. It was an absolutely amazing experience. Two of my friends saw the arm of a ghost that looked like a shadow reach out into a hallway, two felt a presence behind them and the spot where it was got significantly colder, and we seemed to be communicating with a few of them using the spirit box. There was one hallway where reportedly both a rape and a suicide happened and when we were sitting in that hallway everyone in our group said they could feel a horrible presence, myself included. I can't even begin to describe it. It was hard to breathe, I felt nervous, scared, anxious, a weight on my chest, the feeling that we weren't alone, and a feeling of absolute dread. I started to feel nauseated even. It was one of the worst feelings ever and it was the only place I'd ever felt like that. I kept hearing noises that could potentially be explained, but just didn't seem normal to me. The rest of the place didn't feel like that at all, it felt fine, like as though if it were haunted, they were "friendly ghosts" but that hallway was pure dread, negativity, and fear. I still somewhat consider myself to be a skeptic, but that hallway alone sort of makes me classify myself as a believer, because something was absolutely not right.

The only time I ever felt anything even slightly like that hallway was when I visited my grandparents' house after they had moved out. We rented out their house after they moved in with my uncle and one of the tenants had a friend who worked in construction whom my dad hired to help remodel the house. After a bad breakup and a period of depression, he hung himself while working on my grandparents' house. After that, the whole house seemed to have a bad vibe to it. I can't explain it, but it didn't feel like home the way it did before. The room he killed himself in especially felt cold and "off". However, even that was no where near as bad as that hallway. Nothing I've ever experienced in my entire life ever felt like that hallway. It was terrifying.

My mom actually has a few experiences with ghosts and even demons, so she claims, but I'd like to make a separate post on that dedicated specifically to myths and beliefs about demons. For now I'd like to pose the question to all of you: Do you believe in ghosts? If so, have you ever had any experiences with ghosts? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. I hope everyone is having a great Halloween season! I'm going to an amusement park with my best friend tonight for their Halloween "fright nights" which means roller coasters and haunted houses all night long! I'm so excited! Oh, and happy Friday the 13th too!