I'm Brian Fitzpatrick, a rather nondescript anglo-irish kid from a medium sized town in eastern Massachusetts called Tewksbury. One of my earliest experiences regarding religion was in school, there had been a snow storm going all day and right before we were about to leave for home the principle announced over the intercom "Due to weather conditions CCD has been canceled for today." Every student in my line of sight cheered. Now I wasn't a Catholic (which I found out that day put me in the minority in Tewksbury) but I knew that CCD was as boring as Sunday school, just like everything else to do with church.
After that when I became a teenager I developed a healthy fear of death, and like many teenagers, went window shopping for a spiritual palliative for my troubles. The thing was no matter how much I wanted to surrender to certain interesting and exotic beliefs I was also a natural skeptic who couldn't quite believe in things I hadn't seen or couldn't be proved.
At this time I have found two doctrines that I do have deep faith in that are not necessarily mutually compatible. Maybe primarily I am a Buddhist, I started with the doctrines I could take up as obviously true and I trust in the ones that I can't yet verify myself. In Buddhism all metaphysical doctrine are secondary to practice, and through practice you supposedly will find the truth of the metaphysical doctrine.
My second faith wouldn't be conventionally called a faith, but if you (like me) define religion as an ideology where you find comfort it counts. I am a marxist/communist/anarchist/leftist believer. Now that's sort of an ambiguous title, but fundamentally it means I believe in the rational progression of history, and that at the heart of that progression is Great Crime committed by the ruling classes against the rest of us.
So that should be the last of my self-centered ramblings for the course, I felt it best to get that bit out of the way before I assumed some level of neutrality for the rest of my posts. I really enjoy exploring this topic in my own time and I can't wait to have some interesting discussions with y'all.
After that when I became a teenager I developed a healthy fear of death, and like many teenagers, went window shopping for a spiritual palliative for my troubles. The thing was no matter how much I wanted to surrender to certain interesting and exotic beliefs I was also a natural skeptic who couldn't quite believe in things I hadn't seen or couldn't be proved.
At this time I have found two doctrines that I do have deep faith in that are not necessarily mutually compatible. Maybe primarily I am a Buddhist, I started with the doctrines I could take up as obviously true and I trust in the ones that I can't yet verify myself. In Buddhism all metaphysical doctrine are secondary to practice, and through practice you supposedly will find the truth of the metaphysical doctrine.
My second faith wouldn't be conventionally called a faith, but if you (like me) define religion as an ideology where you find comfort it counts. I am a marxist/communist/anarchist/leftist believer. Now that's sort of an ambiguous title, but fundamentally it means I believe in the rational progression of history, and that at the heart of that progression is Great Crime committed by the ruling classes against the rest of us.
So that should be the last of my self-centered ramblings for the course, I felt it best to get that bit out of the way before I assumed some level of neutrality for the rest of my posts. I really enjoy exploring this topic in my own time and I can't wait to have some interesting discussions with y'all.
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