We all grow and adapt throughout our lives. We start off believing in some things, and later on sometimes we change.
Change is never easy and sometimes it can be agonizing. We feel like we're betraying family or friends and the inner conflict we feel can be very hard to overcome.
While my belief in God and Christ are still large parts of my life, my political views have changed drastically in some regards.
I need to start off by saying that I'm pro-life. I have been since I was old enough to understand the issue. That being said I don't like the way that the pro-life community has approached the issue. I don't like that there are groups that bomb clinics. I don't like there are people that post the names and addresses of doctors in the hopes that they get killed by some nut.
I think that if the pro-life community had started opening clinics of their own, offering all services except for abortions, that there might have been fewer abortions over the years.
The other problem, as I see it, is that a large number of self professed pro-lifers only care that a baby is born. Many of them oppose any program to give prenatal care to the mothers and any program to give financial assistance to the poor families that need the help.
When I was younger I was a lot more stringent about the issue than I am now. I still think that abortion is wrong, though I totally understand getting one in the cases of rape or incest, but I just don't think that the fight can be won in the courts or in the legislature. The law is the law and I really don't think that its going to change anytime soon. I think that all the money fighting it in those arenas could be better spent opening free prenatal clinics or starting up charities to help poor families.
I didn't use to think that single payer was the way to go in the health care debate. (This is something I went more in-depth in another entry). Right now I'm on Medicaid and taking oncology medicine for a gastro-intestinal stromal tumor. I've seen what people have to go through when trying to get Medicaid and my stance changed from being against it to being for it. There's just too many people who need help to rely totally on charity. If every church in the country pooled their money, after taking out their operating costs, there still wouldn't be enough money to help all the people that need health care.
On marriage I've gone from thinking that gay marriage was wrong to believing that government should just get out of the business of recognizing marriages. If marriage is a religious institution then it should be kept that way and the government should only recognize civil unions.
Most of what I think now has changed significantly from when I was younger. The core of my beliefs, namely belief in God and Jesus Christ, hasn't changed, but sometimes I feel like I'm betraying my family for thinking the way that I do. I've talked about it with my family and they don't see the changes in my beliefs as a betrayal. In fact they understand why I think the way I do now.
Sometimes though I get depressed and feel bad about it though. I guess that's why I write about things like this. Just trying to work things out in my head.
That's all for now
May God bless you and may God be merciful unto you all the days of your life.
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