Christmas 2008

I'm not a Christian, so the whole Christmas season and especially the day has different connotations and values for me. It's not that I don't believe in God, or some higher universal power, all religions and faiths and even agnostics believe in God. It's the religion and all its tenets, arbitrary values and innane practices that bothers me about all Christian religions.

And no religion is immune from the criticisms I level at Christian ones and Christianity. Being a Taoist I understand it's simply human nature and the social contract people create and make with each other. It's the simple reality and simply just is. There is no value judgement of good or bad, right or wrong, us or them, and so on with all the issues that Taoists believe, but the simple reality of humanity.

This doesn't mean we accept everything that happens. No one can argue that people do bad things, whether it's a common crime that occurs everyday in this country or you swindle people of $50 Billion. No one can argue that discrimination happens every day by ordinary people, many believing their faith assures or affirms it's right and just. It's not, but that fact doesn't stop them. And no one can argue that we're all self-centered and self-serving for most, all to some, things in our life.

Knowing it happens doesn't alter the truth and reality of it, only keeps in present in our consciousness that it's ever present. And we're just one of 6-plus billion people on this planet. Nothing more, nothing less, just one of the many. The difference is the qualitative judgement we make about it. And that always leads to the saying, "Everything is relative."

So, it's always our relative. Just don't make it universal to others. Be understanding and forgiving. After all, they're doing the same to you.