I am glad to see life finds you alive and well.

Sam Harris, author of End of Faith, wrote, ‘the past is memory, future is expection. Each arise in consciousness, as a thought, in the present moment.’

Plan for future happiness, by all means, but know that the future never exits, nor the past. Only ever the present moment.

god

In your first paragraphs, you are self-effacing with regards to the value of your subject content. Don’t be. Nothing is not worthy of expression. And thank you for a very personal recount of intimacy.

You must do what you do as you are best equiped to make such decisions. However, I maintain that reflection on the wider world, and travelling to other parts, might well suit you. You are educated, sensative and intelligent. Consider Gay Pride in San Francisco this June. Entertain the notion of Paris in the summer – it’s colourful and exotic people, something out of Graham Green’s, The Third Man. Or London, with Picadilly Circus hustle buslte theatre goers pouring into the night.

What is in Oklahoma?

god

I’m glad you concluded that virtue is a subjective matter. Too often are questions of virtue anxiously answered with rigid ideology. Your answer seems wholy satisfying and, I’m guessing, empirical ( even if that empiricism is intuitive – which I suspect it is).

A french minor?….Go to Paris. Summer is approaching and Paris empties out as it’s indigents head for the countryside.

god

I’m sorry that you, me or anyone has to endure Kern’s remarks. They are morally repugnant and are a blight on secularsim. It is her kind of extremist comment that calls into question not only easy-to-disagree-with fundamentalism but religious moderists that tolerate and give cover to Kerns sentiment. In other words, where is her or anyone’s evidence to support her comments?

This is the doctrine of Islam;

‘Let those who would exchange the life of this world for the hereafter, fight for the cause of God: whoever fights for the cause of God, whether he triumphs, We shall richly reward him…The true believers fight for the cause of God, the infidels fight for the devils.’
( Koran 9:73 )

‘Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you.’
(Koran 9:123)

Old Testament books, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, fair no better. It is the book of Kern. The Koran, Tora and the Christian Bible are cut from the same cloth of iron-age, middle-eastern desert- tribe folklore. It takes so little effort to know this. Kern will not know this. Now you do.

We live in an age where it is no longer tenable to unquestioningly ‘respect’ and remain silent on religious views that are unsupported by evidence. Why should gays go to hell? Should children be told they, and any they love, will go to hell and there burn forever, if they don’t believe? Is that not the very thing that a healthy society despises, child abuse?

Kern and the rest of fundamentalist America, along with the Muslim world need to go through a period of Enlightenment. In the meantime, I continue to suggest a sojourn to a more cultured place. Conneticut is nice. Boston is also nice. I used to know a very good diner on South Street – the Blue Diner. I wonder if it is still there?

god

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/request-to-terminate-sally-kerns-position-house-of-representatives

god

To contemplate the nature of yourself requires an observer…you. This is metacognition. It is the mind’s ear that listens to the voices within. An ear does not judge, cannot judge but only listens.

‘Can the reality I want be that which is hidden inside of me?’

Mind is an extension of matter, a map of paths of neurological plasticity. Some over grown, some well worn, others unformed. Self awareness, metacognition and mindfulness – the mediums of self observation – can effect the way in which the self values and deals with normal cognition ( the thoughts, beliefs and feelings of mind ) and the problems that are stored there.

In other words, I have no advise for you on how to solve your problems. Although, I urge you to simply notice their affects and ask yourself, are they controlling me ? Ever so simple but ever so difficult.

To change tac to normal day to day thinking. You seem a thoughtful, intelligent, self aware young gay man in mid western America ( Oklahoma? ). There is only one incongruous term in the last sentence, ‘mid western america’. My advice to you is to leave home and venture to the east or west coast. Go to New York or Boston, or San Francisco. You are young. See the world. Why put up with bible belt homophobia, the church bill boards, the over heard remarks in the street?

Take Care

god

Stacey Derbinshire