Christian Morals (Part I?)

I was talking to some of my friends this past weekend about my faith and realized that it can be hard to explain. Thus, I decided to put it into words, so that both my friends and I may understand my beliefs a bit better. Plus, it's about time that I made a new post anyway, so here we go.

The simplest way of explaining my faith is it's Christianity but without the dogma. I was raised in a fairly liberal Methodist church, where the sermons dealt mostly with how to apply Christianity to everyday life. In that way, I learned about the pragmatic use of religion to live a moral life which followed the lessons of Jesus. For me, that's the most important aspect of any religion: how it teaches its followers to live their lives. In recent years, thanks to a vocal minority, our church and its services have become more conservative. For example, the divinity of Jesus, the concept of the Trinity, and other uniquely Christian beliefs are emphasized more heavily than in the past, which (in my opinion) are unnecessary and distracting fixations on dogma and one of my major problems with organized religion. If religions focused more on the common threads between the major religions, such as the morals, then maybe there wouldn't be the conflict and tension between religions that we see in the world today. The primary belief that creates this tension is that of the existence of one "true" religion. Without that belief, there wouldn't be the evangelical drives and the lack of acceptance of different faiths that stem from a belief that others' souls are in danger unless they convert to the "true" faith. As the grandson of Gandhi said in a lecture he gave at Salisbury University (in quoting his grandfather, if I remember correctly), the major religions in the world are really just different paths up the same mountain to salvation. For that reason, these religions should all be respected equally.

So, what beliefs do I hold? Well, they mostly deal with ethics. First, I believe in a consistent ethic of life. In other words, an abortion is equal to a murder which is equal to a death resulting from self-defense when it comes to morality; they're all immoral. However, they differ in their justifiability. Under some circumstances, an abortion may have reasonable justification to be socially acceptance, given a certain set of circumstances. But, a couple (or a woman) that has an abortion performed should recognize that an abortion is immoral and therefore should only be an option of last resort. Nonetheless, since an abortion can be justifiable, I am in favor of a right to choice, since the fetus may not speak for itself, and the mother must try and act in its best interest for it. As a society, we should working to reduce the number of abortions because of their inherent immorality, but we should still respect the choices of mothers to have them in dire situations (i.e. life of mother, rape, etc.).

Now, out of this first belief naturally follows my belief that war is immoral and should therefore be treated like an abortion: an option of last resort. So, I was strongly against the Iraqi war because it was, by all measures, unnecessary. Thus, it was not only immoral but also wasteful, exhibiting a lack of respect for human life. In the current rebuilding phase of the war, the US's objectives should be to repair the damage we have caused upon the Iraqi people and to try and restore the nation to a state where it has a chance of becoming a stable country, as it was before the war (albeit run by a corrupt leader with a penchant for brutalization from time to time), and a productive member of the international community of nations. So, I'm not of the opinion that we should be trying to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible, because that would be a neglect of our responsibilities as the aggressor country that created the current situation.

Out of room. Drat. Got too caught up in abortion and war. :-P Maybe more later?