The Truth Is Out There

February 11, 1998

Evening...

Needless to say, the events of the past several days have forced me to do some thinking... It's time for me to re-evaluate my beliefs, and to figure out what they really are.

One of the things Jevim asked me when we were having our disagreement was "How many times have you sinned because of me?" and my response was something along the lines of "I think some of that sin crap is just that". Is that what I really believe? I don't know. Maybe in part...

I believe that there is a divine being who watches over us, who created us, and who is the embodiment and the essence of love. I believe he wants us to love one another (and ourselves), and treat each other (and ourselves) as we would treat Him.

I think that many of the laws given to us in the Bible were to direct us in the way of love (those such as honoring thy father and thy mother) and to keep us from harming ourselves (as in abstaining from unclean meat) in ways that we are only now in the age of science beginning to understand.

I was poking around in the new suburb of Wellesley today, Garden (yay, we have our first 'burb!) and came across Gladness's Home Page where I read a little. At the bottom, she has some links, including one entitled, "About My Religion, something that makes me very happy!". I followed the link, and found it took me to the Watchtower home page.

I stopped. I thought. I had been taught that Jehovah's Witnesses believed 'other things' that were false, and that their bible was missing passages that are found in ours.

I stayed on their page for a bit, thinking, and came to the conclusion that if Jevim had come to the conclusion that Christianity is a cult, was it not possible that I had been led to the same conclusion about Jehovah's Witnesses?

Having heard stories about them withholding medical treatment from their children, without being told the reason why, I investigated the portion of their site relating to blood and transfusions and the like. They quoted scripture, and I went and got my bible. Guess what? It's the same in my bible as it is in theirs, but it's stuff that we were never taught in Sunday School or Bible classes when I was back in school. Hmmm, I wonder why?

Anyway, I read further, and it seems that their restriction against receiving blood makes just as much sense as the restrictions against eating unclean meat and the likes. There are sound medical reasons, and medical statistics that say that maybe this rule they follow is a good idea after all. You can't get AIDS, hepatitis, or any other blood-carried disease from a blood transfusion if you do not accept blood. I'm a little puzzled about the restriction on not preserving your own blood for later use, but I suppose there are possibly reasons for this, as well. *shrug*

Admittedly, there are a few things that they believe that I don't... they are just as against homosexuality as the Southern Baptists are, and that is something that I, personally, do not have a problem with. Some of my good friends are homosexual, and I have experienced attraction to members of the same sex, myself. I have a partner who happens not to be the same sex as I, but who's to say if he had not come along and a woman who I could have loved had, that I might not have found myself in a homosexual relationship. Would it have been easy? No... Would I have hidden it away from my parents? Most likely... I did tell my brother, and he has no problem with that. He told me he was glad that I trusted him enough to tell him and think that he would not think badly of me for it. But I don't think I could have denied the love.

Sex before marriage is another thorny problem. Yes, I understand why this can be a bad thing... but Jevim and I are committed to one another. We practice safe sex, and there are no other partners, and never have been. I see sex as a way for two people who love each other to share their love and bond to each other. Could I live without sex? Sure, I managed for 25 years before Jevim came along, but why deny that to each other?

Maybe we're sinning... but who is to say that there will be a tomorrow. What if one of us doesn't make it to Jevim's graduation, and we never have the chance to share that part of ourselves with each other? Okay, maybe I'm rationalizing. But ... who is this hurting? My mother knows I'm sexually active with Jevim, she is the one who made the appointments and all for me to go in and go on birth control. Admittedly, that screwed my body up and it's just now getting sorted out, several months later, but it's good to know that I have my mom's blessing in this. She wants me to "have the chance to live a normal life" and as much as I dislike the patronizing viewpoint, it's good to know that she is not upset at me for doing this.

This is where I will end this entry, but that does not mean that my search for the truth, both inside me, and in the world around me, has come to an end. It's just beginning. As they say in the X Files "The Truth is Out There." And maybe it's in me, too. The only way to find it is to never stop looking.

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