Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Today (09/02/2009)

Yesterday, I got into a conversation regarding religion with my niece. She is a 16 year old girl, who is incredibly smart, and has a great head on her shoulders. She has grown up going to church, so as you can imagine she knows a lot about it. This blog was really motivated by her and I's conversation yesterday. ***Please note that for this conversation the word "God" will always be in quotation marks as not to offend anyone and their religious points of view.

Thinking back to the days at vacation bible school (yeah right, like I can remember those), when you go to the Christian church you learn that "God" loves everyone no matter what. That is a great thought, and in the years that I have spent growing up and forming my own opinions, I am not sure how much truth is in that.

Case in point, I have lived in San Diego for over a year now, and I was here for the controversial Prop 8 vote. While my views (which come from someone not involved with any religion), were to let people get married regardless of gender were not shared by 52% (not positive on actual percentage, but it was somewhere around there) of California, I think that this taught us something very different about people in general and Christians.

I can clearly remember driving around for work and seeing people on the corners saying "God Hates Gays", mind you this was in a very lavish part of town. Not only were these people out there with their signs, the had their kids out there holding the same signs. Like I mentioned before, I am not a religious person, and I do not claim to know everything. One thing I do know, is that the Christian Bible does not teach people to hate, this is evident in my niece who is a young Christian woman.

My travels around town take me to various places, one of them being a church, where Christianity lives and is absorbed. I was taken back when I saw all of the hatred here. People again standing out with kids holding signs saying "God Hates Gays". I know in the Christian Bible it is believed to be written with a phrase "Homosexual acts are an abomination to God" (with the definition of abomination being: a person who is loathsome or disgusting). This phrase right here makes me believe that the bible was not written by "God" or Jesus, but maybe someone who wants to mold minds (again, just my opinion). For as long as I can remember people have been saying that "God" loves everyone, and forgives us of our sins. Well, with that, don't you think that the people on the corner should be teaching their children to "forgive" rather than to hate? I think that the Christian religion has skewed into what people want to believe, rather than what "God" says. I find it highly suspect that "God" being the guy that forgives everyone, would say, "hey I hate that guy because he is gay." I may be wrong but who knows?

Well I think that I am going to leave the religion alone for right now. This will for sure be a topic that is visited at a later date.

Intro

I guess first I ought to tell you who I am. My name is Robert McWhorter, and I am a married father of 2 living in San Diego, CA. This blog has been a long time thought, and is now a first time blog. I have plenty of things that I would like to say, question, and learn about. I intend to do all of that in this blog. First let me say that I, in no way want to offend anyone by my opinions, so if you think that it is going to offend you, don't read it. I am willing to welcome all feedback and comments to what I have to say.

I would like to start with a little history. I am not going to rant in this blog because I feel that I was some under privileged child, nor was I a child that was born with the proverbial "silver spoon". My home life was that of every typical family, we had 2 cars, a nice sized house, and all of the extracurricular activities going on. My Father worked hard, and my mother supported him. She even had a small job doing what she loved to do; help people. I have 2 older sisters that I looked up to all of my life, and I still do to this day. I am sure that our point of views are very much different, but we are family none the less, and I will always look up to them. Our family moved some. We started, better yet "I"started in the Northwest on March 20, 1981 in Redmond, WA. My father is a pilot so we went where he had to go. The stay in Redmond was short lived, but we did not go far. Hillsboro, OR was the next stop. From there we migrated to Amarillo, TX, and ended in Dallas, TX. This is where most of my growing was done. This is also where all of our lives changed forever. In 1997, August 25th to be exact, my mother lost her battle to cancer. This really took a toll on all of us, I don't want to say me the most, but I felt like it did. Looking back now, I think that it was that way due to my inability to cope with what just actually happened. I was lucky to have a strong and loving family that supported me, even in the roughest of times. Those times are part of the past now, I would give anything to have my mother here today, but I would not change anything that I learned through her death.

So as you can see by the brief family history I am no different than any other person. Since getting back on my feet and living an independent life, and now the married life, I have had so many people share their insight with me. Some I took and investigated, learned, and absorb, but some was just kicked to the side because I was not interested. Well now being the married father that I am, I tend to pay more attention to what is going on around me, and educate myself on my own thoughts and beliefs. I want my kids to be as open as I am now, I want them to see the danger in the choices that I made. I want them to be able to grow up as well rounded individuals, which I think that this country is starting to lack in (only my opinion).

In this blog, I am going to touch on numerous things. Things such as, gay marriage, religion, jobs/school, family, interracial couples, etc. These are things that I think people tend to shy away from and avoid talking about. I think that needs to end. This is our society, and we need to embrace it. Since I do photography as well, I will be doing my best to add photos to this blog, along with interviews that I will be conducting. I hope that you all enjoy what I have to say, you do not have to agree with me, just know that I respect your beliefs, so please respect mine.