My Faith:
A large part of what makes up my personality and beliefs is my faith. Officially, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or I am a "Mormon"), but that only makes up part of what I believe for myself. As is true with most people, I am not a cloned religious person who just follows the flow of others at my church, I have very strong personal beliefs which are very individual. To learn more about my organized religion, click here.
Basically, I would consider myself a Christian, but only in the sense that I believe in Jesus Christ--that He was the Son of God, that He died for us, and that He is our Savior. Whether or not I'm more Christian than that is beside the point and I don't think it really matters.
What is important to me is respect of all God's creations. What I mean is love and kindness for others around us, respect for animals, and protecting the environment. This doesn't mean I'm a vegetarian or that I think stepping on bugs is a bad thing. On the contrary, I like meat and think there are way too many cockroaches in existence. Mostly I am concerned about using what God has given us wisely. Killing of animals for no reason and clear cutting trees makes me really sad. Kindness is very important to me, I think you can go a long way by doing a simple kind act everyday and think of others first before yourself.
In addition to respecting God's creations, I think having an attitude of non-judgement is very important. I think that is something the irritates me the most about people these days, they want to judge everyone, many times without knowing the situation or because they think they know best. In reality, what other people think is of little consequence, it's what God thinks that matters most. However, some people do the most horrible things in God's name, claiming they know what He thinks or what his judgements would be. That's just sad and plain wrong. It's not our place to judge others (unless we're in court) or to guess what God thinks. We need to do what's best for ourselves personally and give others the luxury of also making their own decisions for themselves. That's not to say I think we should keep our opinions to ourselves, but I think it's better done without a judgemental attitude and with the idea that even if we don't agree with someone we can respect what they think.
Lastly, I think family is the most important thing in the world. I can't think of anything more important than the upbringing of children and this is done best in a loving and caring family. Plus, I think everyone deserves a home where they feel safe, where they are well taken care of, where there is love, and where they can go if they have problems they can't solve by themselves. If everyone had a family like that I think there would be fewer problems in this world.
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