Religion

I am a member of the Salvation Army.  Well, not a particularly active or necessarily motivated member but I share a great number of its beliefs.  I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins, that you should not waste the life given to you and that faith without action is worthless.  I disagree with a number of its beliefs too.  While my thoughts on creationism as a whole are undecided, I do think the dates are impossible.  I believe that gay and lesbian couples should have the ability to marry each other outside of our church.  I haven't the slightest inclination to go around converting others.

Religion was on my mind today anyway as today is the start of Advent and I happened to not be working (or being otherwise occupied) Sunday morning for the first time in a few months.  I was thinking about how working has really changed my priorities, how I was so worried about my materialistic goals lately and how without the SA's brass band I haven't really been motivated to play my cornet at all.  I was probably not even going to make this blog post about my thoughts on my religious beliefs because I generally don't go around trumpeting them.

Then, well this happened in the forums.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.327281-LGBT-Community-calls-the-Salvation-Army-Bigots?page=1

So, the site finally provoked a series of emotional posts from me.  Far more emotional than I generally get on the internet.  In fact, I think this is the most I've ever put out about my religious affiliations ever.  The fact of the matter is that while I can fall back on what I was raised to believe easily, I just don't have that dedication to the whole thing that others in my congregation do.  Still, I believe in the missions of the Salvation Army.  So when I see the Salvation Army being described as a bunch of bigots, idiots and right wing oppressors it genuinely gets me upset.  The people I've grown up around in the temple are among the kindest I've ever known and they put out so much to help the community.

I've decided not to post in that thread again.  I'm too emotionally tied to the discussion and I've already said the bulk of what I feel I need to say.  I dunno, I kind of don't like the idea of being lumped in with the Fundamentalist movements in the South like WBC just because of the position on the homosexual front.  I couldn't care less if two people of the same sex decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together.

I dunno, I'm just to tired to talk more about it now.  I hope my thoughts came across in this post.