My Voice

Today is an exceptionally sad day for the citizens of the United States - especially for the citizens of Boston, MA.
Today, two explosions were set off at the finish line of a Boston marathon, murdering 3 and injuring more than 140 innocent people.

CNN News Story:
www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57579671/deadly-bombs-rock-boston-marathon/

In response, the Westboro Baptist Church announced their plans to picket the funerals of those innocent people who lost their lives, proclaiming the following...


Let me say this loud and clear:
No God - who created our universe and all of us so lovingly and delicately and perfectly - would ever destroy so many lives because they obtained the freedom to love and marry equally. Marriage is a creation of man - not of God. God does not care what licensing you have with a government - all God cares about is LOVE. God IS love. If you believe, for even a second, that a God who takes care of everything in existence would destroy a single life of its own creation for such shallow reason, you are no better than the individuals who set those bombs. I pray the Light finds a way to your heart and Enlightens your mind, for you are so lost and blind that you mistake the darkness surrounding you for light and the lies in your mind for truth.

Emotions are crazy things. They are both a blessing and a challenge to us all. We all may handle them in different ways but it is a battle nonetheless. Sometimes we love our emotions and sometimes we wish we didn't have any at all. Sometimes we embrace our emotions, other times we don't even understand how or why they came to be. Some people hide them, some fight them, and some let them take over completely. They are a core part of our being. Without them, could we even be human? It is our emotions that create our greatest accomplishments as well as our greatest tragedies. Our existence consists of countless paradoxes and one of the greatest of them are emotions. I feel we too often forget this. We take our emotions for granted, never look deep within ourselves to understand them - we toss them back in our minds like unwanted junk mail or hoard them inside our hearts like maniacs. Perhaps it is time to stop simply accepting the existence of emotions and instead begin trying to truly understand them - begin trying to truly understand ourselves.

An Islam hate page was recently brought to my attention by a share on my homepage. Though I am not Islamic, I have several friends who are and, though I disagree with many of the beliefs, I respect everyone's right to their own beliefs. My first thought was to send the page owner a nasty message but I quickly admitted to myself that that would do no good. If anything, it would only fuel the flame to their hatred. So, instead, I sent them the following message. I hope that my response will inspire all of you to take a similar path when you come across a page or individual spreading information you strongly disagree with. Violence and negativity will always get you nowhere but, sometimes, a little maturity and respect will get you a long way. This is the message I sent them...
"This page is horribly offensive to millions of people. Everyone has a right to their own beliefs. On top of your offensive page, you clearly do not even understand Islam. You seem to believe the extremists represent the religion as a whole and you could not be more wrong. I, myself, am not Islam but I have many friends who are. I have learned a great deal about the religion through my friends and from taking classes about it in college. Your page is terrible misrepresentation of Islam and religion in general. There are many things in many religions that I disagree with but creating pages that offend millions of people is NOT the way to solve the problem; all that does is create more hatred and tension. I am not a religious person - I am a spiritualist. I do not follow Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or any religion. However, I respect everyone's right to their own beliefs - whether I agree with them or not. If you believe someone believes wrongly then post about your own beliefs and perhaps you will find that you share more beliefs in common than you would have originally thought. Finding common ground is the best way to spread peace - not creating more ground in-between the sides by spreading hatred.
I highly doubt you'll listen but I ask that you please remove this page.
I thank you for reading my message - whether you've been cursing me out this whole time or not.
I am sorry that events in your life have caused you to have such a great distaste for Islam and religion in general; Unfortunately, your page is doing the same thing to religious people. They see your page and grow a hatred for atheists.
If you want people to listen - find common ground and work from there. Otherwise, your page will only attract like-minded people and chase away religious folk, therefore gaining you no ground at all.
To top it all off, the title of your page is also horribly offensive to those who suffer from actual mental diseases. They see images of these terrible people and "mental disease" used in such a hateful way that it offends them as well.
I would hope that this just didn't occur to you when you created your page. I hope that you find better ways to share your beliefs. Spread your ideals of a better world - not your hate of a specific group of people. Show the wrongs of specific beliefs and better alternatives to those beliefs instead of just the religion in general. Then not only will like-minded atheists listen to you but members of the religion you have grown to despise so much will listen, too. They will no-longer feel offended by having their religion slammed against them but may see the wrongs in those certain beliefs you disagree with or at least agree with you on the better alternatives.
I'm not sure if you've read this whole message but if you have then I thank you and I hope you take at least some of my advice to heart.
Namaste"