Statement 2: Belief Is Not Bad...

I've gotten stuck in my ways in many areas. One of which is the belief that belief in god makes one an idiot. This is an over generalization of my actual feeling, but my mind works with it in an over-generalized way, so, it's even. The main focus of this belief is Christians, but it also gets applied to Muslims and Jews, and, honestly, people who believe in traditional gods. This belief comes mainly from two influences, Satanism and Transmetropolitan, and partially from a third, religious people I've met.
Satanism espouses, at least in the main book, a view point of "there's no divine force except us, so stop going on about god, so man up and be your own." Of course most satanists actually do nominally believe in an entity which answers to Satan as a positive and worship-able force. So, yeah. (This is one of the reasons I don't use the label anymore, there are others, but they're neither here nor there.)
In Transmetropolitan, the main character, Spider Jerusalem, is vociferously against religion. He sees it as nothing but trouble and human excuse. ...I suppose I may never quite shake this opinion of religion, though religion and believing in a higher power are not exactly the same thing. Then there are also religions that haven't been giant clusterfucks of atrocities and hypocrisy.

The thing is... all to often, I level this view point at all religious people, regardless of what they actually believe. I feel like I shouldn't use yet another thing from Transmet when I have so much to shake from it, but it does kind of obliquely make a point that believing in something is better than believing in nothing. While Christianity or Islam may be the Bob Heller of religion, Satanism, honestly, is the Smiler of religions. Which means that while it's caused many fewer deaths, it is actually worse.

See, here's the thing about Christianity, it believes "the righteous are rewarded, the wicked are punished, and if more people are fed than go hungry, we could be in a much worse situation, so, yeah." while Satanism believes in nothing save that it is supreme and should be supreme, purely by virtue of it being Satanism. I'm finessing focus a bit to help the analogy, but it does hold true.

So while there are some completely abhorrent things associated with the Abrahamic faiths, at least there are positive things too, where as Satanism has...no actual positive things associated with it. It has very few negative things, but... hm, it's like a reversal of the old joke about "you can thatch a thousand roofs, and you might get a kind of good reputation, but you fuck one goat, and you're Jimmy Goatfucker."

So, there's one thing I need to keep in mind right there. The religions I hate may have associations to some abhorrent and despicable things, but the actual people I meet day to day are likely good, if possibly somewhat misguided, people, more likely to wish someone good, or pray for in an emergency, than curse you for happening to like people with the same answer for the "tab/slot" questionnaire. And so, really, why hate? Most of them are good people. I may not always agree with them (in fact seldom if ever, I'm sure), at least on religious and "moral" matters, but, well, they're helpful. Their god may come off as an asshole to me, but they themselves actually want to help people. I may not see anything of worth or value or anything to appreciate or admire in their god, but the people... whether I see it or not, they do have, at least, favourable qualities.

And this isn't just Christians. It holds true for the rest of the Abrahamics, it holds true for pagans. Hell, it holds true... well fuck, the same thing that makes me give Christians the benefit of the doubt means I actually should extend even Satanists the same courtesy. Regardless of evidence to the contrary. The first Satanist was an undeniable asshole. There are people in Sweden whom burn down churches and shite in the name of Satan, and there are christian assholes, and Christians whom murder abortion-performing doctors in the name of God. So... who's perfect? Hell, who's the least tarnished? Even that's a difficult question to answer...

Anyway, belief is inherently good. It gives you something for which to strive. It gives you a framework from which to work. But belief can be harmful, much as my own was.

Statement 1: These Did Not Make Me...

This is a picture of place of pride on my bookshelves. It is the space in which I have placed the books which I feel shaped who I am today. From The Devil's Notebook, one of the more bearable writtings of Anton LaVey, to Lucifer Rising, a book which chronicled Satanism and gave me a somewhat deeper understanding of what was going on with it, to Transmetropolitan, the main character of which I have conciously made efforts to pattern myself off of, and from whom I took certain quotes and viewpoints, to Machiavelli's The Prince, which really demonstrates one of the biggest lies of this section of book shelf. I haven't read The Prince. I started reading it, but I didn't finish, yet (I plan to, in a vague "I'll get to it eventually" sort of way), and thus it cannot truly have shaped me.

I feel like they didn't so much shape me as display what was already there, which is how The Prince is there.

But honestly... it's a lie. These books did not shape me, they crafted a cheap impostor whom wears my skin and pretends to be a unique person.

In a moment, I will take these down, and put them in the proper places on my shelves, the sections they belong in according to subject. I will admit, I feel a deep desire to put something in their place, but it would be just as false as the current books. Anything currently put in that space would not truly be something which shaped me, but rather something I'm trying to be. At best I could put in this space books about early interests of mine, books about dinosaurs, and alien life, and ancient religion, but I'd be hard pressed to actually find such books in my room at the moment, and even then, it wouldn't be things that shaped or informed me, merely things I like. At least it's a bit more honest, but if that's the criteria, then eleven of the current books can stay.

I've a long way to go, and it starts with minuscule actions and efforts, and friends willing to help. If you visit my room after tonight, and see that these books have not moved, please smack me upside the head, I obviously need it.