Liberal = Catholic?

No seriously, that's what it says in the thesaurus.

After reading Introspectre's post, and a good number of blogs by some liberal Mormon bloggers, my brain has been in overload trying to piece my thoughts together and figure out where I fit in all this. Naturally, I've decided that I need to blog about this.

3 years ago, I had a boyfriend who was a Catholic. He was a political analyst and was very organized in his thought, and had everything put into logic. He was 6 years older than me.

Religion always came up in our discussions. It was a huge thing we could never agree on. Being really young and far more sheltered at the time, every time he challenged my beliefs, I would clam up and use the "But religion is all about faith" line. I took things very personally and everytime he critisized Mormonism, I felt like he was critisizing me for believing it.

Religion is about faith. I think that faith is an essential part of understanding things outside this physical realm... the things we don't know enough about to explain. I have never felt that any of the teachings of the Church have been in contrary to logic, but Matt accused me and everyone who could believe in Mormonism of blindly following. To him, we really were a cult.

It was a hard thing for me to swallow then. I didn't have the ability to defend myself with logic and though I had a strong testimony of the gospel - he never shook that up - I wasn't sure, and still can't say that I am now, what my stance was on "blind faith".

Is that a good thing or not?

We often read in the scriptures of how Christ wants us to become like a little child. He doesn't want us to blindly follow, but where do we draw the line between having faith and being a sign-seeker?

Matt and I broke up eventually and stopped talking for a long time. It's been over a year now since I've had much contact with him at all. I think I've only spoken to him once this whole year.

While I was home in Malaysia, homosexual marriage was a big issue. I wasn't here in Mormonville college then, so I kept myself occupied with blogging and blog reading. I hopped on to a Live Journal community of some friends who were students at Indiana University. These bloggers were as far from religios as you could get, and it was an eye-opener to me of what college life was like in what we would call "the world".

Well, as you can guess, they were very much FOR homosexual marriage. They had many discussions on their LJs about the subject and I got involved with a few of them. I wanted to have an opinion of my own, without simply concluding that because my religion teaches us that homosexuality is not right that the law should make it illegal.

At that point, I had a brief conversation with Matt about it because I wanted to know what he thought and what his side of the argument was. He was against it (dd I mention how very Republican he is?) and I was unsure, but was (and still kind of am) leaning towards it being approved.

We had an interesting discussion; me still very much open to his point of view because I was still trying to decide. When it was over, he told me that he was impressed that I wasn't afraid to challenge what I was taught and form an opinion of my own. I don't know what happened between then and the time we were dating, but I had matured a little somehow.

(Wow, I must really be into this blog: Scott called and asked, told, then begged me to go to dinner but I told him later because I'm blogging. I am a nerd.)

Where was I? Oh.

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I am afraid to form an opinion of my own in alot of things. Probably a good thing at this point because I don't have enough knowledge to back up my stance with logic and careful thought. It's not that I don't have any opinions of my own. I do! I feel very strongly about many things, but only because I understand the issue completely.

There are so many things that I don't understand therefore I am not ready to take sides on those issues.

Take this past election, for example. I don't know very much about politics. Everything I know about Bush and Kerry I hear from my friends. Living in Mormonville, the majority of people here favor Bush. I have to be very cautious because I tend to want to like what my friends like. Especially if I respect them alot. It is natural for me to want to conform. Those who know me will agree that I am very good at that. I don't speak with my Malaysian accent anymore, I eat rice with a fork now (I grew up eating it with a spoon, held very differently with a fork in my left hand) and a whole bunch of little things like that.

In this past election, Bush won. Although I wouldn't have been upset if Kerry won, I think I was kind of glad. Why? Not because I think Bush is better than Kerry, but because everyone I knew thought so. You can imagine I was kind of put off by the anger some people I know demonstrated because they were unhappy with the results. I apologize for not knowing how to react.

I really don't want to be ignorant. I don't want to be one in the many masses of people who vote without thinking. But I can't NOT vote because I don't have an opinon. It's my responsibility to find out as much as I can about something so I can have a stance.

Thank goodness I am not an American anyway so I don't have to bother too much and will have a year till I can vote in Malaysia (with 3 more years till the next general election there).

Still, this is alot for my brain to handle. Maybe my brain hasn't developed to a point where I can properly process all of this, just like a two year old can't do algebra. (I'm a psychology major - we spent a whole lot of time learning about brain development and behavior)

This is a big deal to me. My motto has always been "Ignorance is bliss: what you don't know can't hurt you". I need to change it. I don't want to be in support of bigotry. There is a reason why we call Utahns Utards.

I read all these LDS blogs today about some their opinions on bigger issues and I feel so inadequete. These people have already put so much thought into these issues that they can write about them in such an organized manner. I can't seem to do that!

I can blog for hours and hours about relationships. That's my area of expertise, for now. I put alot of thought into them. It seems so shallow though in comparison to what they were writing about.

For my biospychology class, I addessed the controversial homosexuality topic. I have always been fond of controversy and homosexuality has always been something I wanted to understand better. Coming to school here has given me just a little more exposure to homosexuality. Just enough for me to find out more about it and understand their point of view so I can form my own opinion.

I have to say though, that I am glad I am not gay because even simply having a couple of gay friends raises too many moral questions for me to handle. I don't want to be a homophobe, but once again, I feel under such great pressure to form an opinion when I am unprepared to.

I got an A in my oral report and I felt so sorry for the girl in my group who had gotten a C in hers because she had basically given a sermon during her presentation. They had decided, without me, that they would bring in the gospel into the oral report. Oh boy.

Being in a church college, I have mixed feelings about the gospel being brought into the classrooom. I like being educated in both aspects at the same time, but college is all about learning to challenge ideas and forming your own opinion. I have to say that religion doesn't always go hand in hand with that.

It boils down to whether religion is truth or opinion.

Oh golly. Another big issue to think about. These things give me such bad headaches. I am tempted to just go into lala-land and slip into apathy mode. At the same time, I can't ignore truth by putting my hands over my ears and screaming "I can't hear you! LALALALALALALALALALA" until it goes away.

I want to be liberal, darn it! At the same time, I want to do it within the framework of my religion because I think religion is truth. How do you find the balance between thinking for yourself, having opinions of your own and still being obedient at the same time I admire those who have found a way to do it.

How does it work? Does your logic and reasoning support your religion, or does your religion support your logic and reasoning? Is your logic and reasoning based off your religious beliefs or is your religion based off your logic and reasoning? Perhaps, to some, they are completely unrelated. How do logic and faith correspond? What happens when they come in conflict with one another? How do you find out which is right?

I want to hear what everyone thinks. About being liberal, about homosexuality, about religion in the classroom... whatever pushed a button within you. It will help me narrow things down so I can figure out if I agree with you or not.

The great thing about me is, like I have said over and over again, that I don't have very many strong opinions yet (unless it's about dressing modestly or NCMOs and one night stands) so I am very open and won't spend my time trying to argue my point of view but will listen intently instead.

I wish everything was a dichotomy. Life would be so much easier to deal with.

Well, thank goodness for the simpler things in life. Food for thought is still not food. I need to eat now before the cafeteria closes. A good excuse to put my poor mind to rest. I've spent 2 hours on this and still haven't come up with any conclusions yet, just more questions.

Phew. How much work does it take to be mature anyway?