I believe in acceptance of what is and of living in the moment. I try to forgive myself and others, by which I mean giving up all hope for a better past. What's done is done and believing it other or wishing it so will not alter it at all. It will just hurt me when inevitably reality is as it is rather than as I think it to be.

I accept my limitations to perceive what is based on the past exposure I've had to experiences and to methods of understanding those experiences. Reality is not as I believe it to be and inevitably there will be conflicts between my expectations and what in actuality is. An acceptance of this limitation makes violations of my expectations less painful when they occur. I try to learn from others who have had different experiences and have looked at those in different ways than I. While they are also subject to similar limitations the differences between can help show the blind spots that I have just as my experiences might help correct those they have.

I attempt to be good, to the degree that I can know what good is. I care deeply about that and continue to strive to improve my understanding of it while accepting again my limitations to do so. Just as with my understanding of what is, I believe it important to use other people's understanding of the good to refine mine just as mine might refine theirs.

I think that were there to be a religious authority it would be impossible to tell them apart from those who claim to be. This is worse yet of their devotees who may misinterpret that authority. The differences between denominations are a demonstration of just that. I also think that faith alone is not a valid justification for religion. While I believe there are those who abuse religion for their own ends and others who merely pay it lip service, too I think there are those who genuinely believe they feel their religion to be true. As mutually exclusive denominations have those who truly believe, a personal feeling of one's religious beliefs as true is not justification on its own. I believe that is has been us all along making our religious beliefs; though we may use texts or teachers it is we who decide which parts feel right and which do not. Just as this has caused splits between denominations so too it affects differing churches within one and even differences in interpretation between members of the same congregation.

As negative as this sounds on religion, I feel it applies more to dogma than to the core observations which they might have. Many of the original people within various religions really do try to struggle with what the good is and how to achieve it. Just as some were an improvement on that which came before so too I believe that their observations can be improved upon. I feel that calcification on some set of observations, that deference to dogma, stops the potential improvement in understanding what is good and how to act morally. There are often important lessons to be learned by studying various religions which are pointed to as proof of the truth of that religion by its followers while they ignore the shortcomings that come from various dogmatic assertions. I also think that complete dismissal of religion because of dogma, unquestioning belief of some followers, and abuse of it by others for personal gain misses the good that might be gained by inspecting various systems of belief.

In short, I accept that I'm wrong. I do not mean this to condone that error or to stop action to correct it, rather as a demand that I work to remedy errors in thinking that I am unaware of but others may not be. While we are each wrong alone, together we can better ourselves. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.