((TAKING A ONE MONTH BREAK)) FROM MY 10 PART SERIES & AN "INFO DUMP" FOR THIS POST...

Yeah, school and other things in my life are taking up too much of my focus to properly do justice to my 10 part series...

..So, I'll be finishing up, soon, the last part of my below post #5, THEN taking a one month break, picking up again around the 20th-23rd of March..

IN THE MEANTIME, this will be an occasional "info dump" for some of my thoughts that have and are percolating in my head. :)
______________________________________________________________________

 "Returning to one's religious roots and or engaging in a deeply meaningful lifestyle is more powerful of a need, has a stronger draw, and is more fulfilling than the NEED, the DRAW, and the FULFILLMENT of acquiring a new worldview.

Returning to an original us and or a deeper us is more fundamentally our desire than anything else.

The person who just tries to ONLY have a new worldview and move away from their religious upbringing and or who does not try to engage in a deeply fulfilling lifestyle and or return to their religious roots will be living a limited life..

Approaching religion & spirituality with only just some of your mind (the analytical areas), and just studying them, is approaching these things in a conditional and limited away and you will not come away from these things will a full experience of them.... And so you will not be able to say you truly grasped them!  Yes, Christians can and will do this very thing in their "learning" of Science, but there are non-believers who will also do this in their "learning" of Religion.  We must hold ourselves accountable or at least understand why we do this and understand that in an uncritical fashion..." -February 28th, 2013

--"I need to remember to write about WHAT the most fundamental things were for me & WHY in going back to Christianity, before I complicate the reasons I am back into Christianity...  Those fundamental ideas have not come from arguments for the existence of God, the Resurrection, etc..  If there is one thing right now as I think about it that I would name as a critical reason I have gone as far back into Christianity as I have, it would be really taking seriously my communication with God and devotionals in the Bible.  A factor in addition to that would be my personal relationship with my wonderful, Christian, girlfriend Ivonne..  I'll share more of this as time goes on..."

--"People sometimes analyze a certain subject too much and in the process miss the big picture and major points..  And we do this with Christianity and therefore miss the most important points in Christianity, because we are consumed with analyzing something way over in areas that aren't the most important truths of the faith.."

--…"If only understanding Christianity were that simple and only required the use of your left-brain… well, it's not that simple and requires all of your mind…" 12/8/12

--"It seems that the only way someone who is a (serious) non-believer can move into a religious worldview framework is to be immersed into it, no half-measures! Because you can't truly sample it from your intellectual armchair.. otherwise, you'll only be understanding that particular religion "intellectually".. That is just the icing on the cake and not the real substance of why that Christianity is so meaningful and crucial to these believers.."

--"Both believer & unbeliever align themselves with someone who thinks the same way they do on certain topics, who therefore they can tell they resonate with conversation. So it's not only believers who do this.. Unbelievers are just as "dogmatic" or should we call it "human" in this matter…"

--"Unrestricted behavior is not the same as freedom, because unrestricted behavior has consequences. Unrestricted behavior is chaos."

--"It is interesting that one of the most resilient living organisms on the planet, most capable of living for a very long time, even while dormant, is a virus…"

--"Learning reality through science should NOT necessarily lead to non-belief, because science doesn't help us with how to meaningfully inwardly & fulfillingly live out the rest of our lives.  Science allows us to analyze what is in front of us, but it doesn't allow us to seriously reflect on what is in our heart, our spiritual condition, and how to deal with life when all hope is lost, when we might not survive a situation and when control is taken away from us..

This argues there are no Atheists in foxholes. But if a person doesn't turn to belief and to what matters most in these situations, what kind of person will they turn into when darkness falls upon them..?  Living merely by rational rules is not sufficient to deal with these situations…  One needs something more intrinsic, intuitive, that truly addresses that side of us, which science does not affect.."

--"The point of acknowledging our limitations is not so that we discontinue our advancement of technology and stop pushing into the stars, the point of acknowledging our limitations is so what we can focus on more areas that just our intellect.."

--……Plan to DO A POST on how my morality has changed since coming into Ivonne's life AND how it is that I'm focused on this in that I am planning on becoming a Psychologist in the future…...

--"There are Christian presumptionalists and Christian evidentialist apologists..."

--"There are nonbelievers who don't think Christians are giving enough time & attention to the evidence against the existence of God, the resurrection, a divine sorce to morality, the truth of the Bible, etc… Well, many Christians are maintaining the emotional & experiencial part of their Christianity AND when they have the emotional & mental energy THEN they look at the what the Intellectuals focus on.. yes, the intellectual side who, for the most part, ONLY uses their left analytical brain and hardly ever their right creative, emotional, experiencial brain to pursue truth…

So… what I wrote above does bring me back to:  IF secular intellectuals are really not significantly less dogmatic than believers (yes, secularists are just dogmatic, just in different areas and ways), THEN is it really such a negative to truly prepare yourself to live out the rest of your life within a framework of belief, not the extreme kind.., but the kind from what I have experienced anew, which significantly more healthy of a framework the, say, Secular Humanism?"

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE ROAD AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WHAT I AM LEARNING ON THIS ROAD BACK: part 5 of 10..

This post is on POINTS 1-3 of the 10 points below:

Is belief and "going beyond scientific evidence" really that much of a negative if:

1- If you're not hindering or harming yourself and or those around you.
2- If science can never know anything with absolute certainty and theories are always contingent.

3- If most people are not true experts on anything, even though we idealistically admire the concept of the scientific process..

4- If most people have no real desire to be a true expert on anything, even though we idealistically admire the concept of the scientific process..

5- If apart of our mind is devoted to and predisposed to belief in addition to a part of our mind being devoted to and having a predisposition to rational and analytical thinking.

6- If having a thorough, scientific knowledge of reality does not help you deal with life any better, in fact it may help you deal with it worse, because it complicates reality for your mind, which merely wants a conclusion more than the complicated truth.

7- If the concept of "intellectual integrity" and only having knowledge that is scientifically proven is overrated and not really the value that we should have the most focus on.

8- If, according to Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain, we believe things before we rationally understand them to be true or not, because this is a natural state of the mind.

9- If the claim, "There are no Atheists in foxholes” is true.
and..
10- If religion plays a major role in health and longevity.. 

First things first, I am phrasing the question Is belief and "going beyond scientific evidence" really that much of a negative? this way, because that is how my friend phrase it, that to him, if you entertain belief, you are "going beyond scientific evidence".  So, I, instead of proving or disproving how true or false this is, just assumed that he is correct about this and for me the question is: Is this really that much of a negative IF?

#1- If you're not hindering or harming yourself and or those around you.

I think this is a major contention for the majority, if not most, of Atheists and Agnostics about this kind of belief, because they do feel it hinders and harms the individual and those around that person.  If fact, this Christian friend of mine, whom it's my current opinion that her beliefs do not hinder or harm herself and those around her.. But an old secular friend of mine, who has also known her, begs to differ.  The following is his scrutiny of her and there is no need to comprehend everything he is writing, but the gist of what he's writing, and I've omitted names from this email response to protect these individuals privacy:

"But of course, that's not what your email was really about. You want to know how personally for _____ her faith could be dangerous. Of course, I think it's presumptuous for me to speak for her, but we both know her stands on various issues. I think her stand on homosexuality is wrong and can hurt those she is counseling or asking for advice. Her belief - based mostly on scripture - that evolution is not true (she is currently looking at the Progressive Creationism of RTB and the theistic evolution of Biologos) will keep her from growing in a true understanding of the world and reality, instead substituting an origin narrative that is false. This will affect everything she thinks and how she interacts with those around her since how we got here and why, affects everything in one's life. This is dangerous territory, basing your life on a delusion and affecting those around her. My eldest daughter idolizes some of her life. Her Christian belief system has her committed to celibacy until marriage; she is missing out on some of the most important aspects of what it means to be human, a loving female. And she counsels young women with that aspect of her life missing (or so she and _____ have told me). Many studies have shown that a healthy sexual relationship is very important to our well being. Of course, she could counter that her state is blissful; perhaps it is. Really, who am I to define her life?  Another aspect is all the money she gives to her church, etc. Some of those funds are used to promote a way of thinking, of interpreting history, of turning to prayer for answers that in the end don't lead to real solutions. Basing you life on a delusion, and promoting a cultural move towards this thinking in personal lives and government rule is not helpful.  I have traded many emails between _____ and _____ about whether America is a Christian Nation or at least founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles and morals. Her false belief system affects which party she supports and how she votes. Who gains the presidency will come with downstream judge appointments, policy rules (abstinent only programs lead to many teen pregnancies and wrecked lives). 

That's the thing about religions and faith thinking. As one author has written, it's like costume jewelry. At first it looks pretty and fanciful but on closer exception it's not really something you'd want to own."

--So, that was my old secular friend's point of view of this Christian that I know.  It's not the intention of this post to analyze the merit of his specific points.  It's my intention to point out 3 things: 
1- That none of my Christians friend's actions or words, that I have ever seen or heard, are, in and of themselves, harmful.. 

2- All human beings are very good at taking what are nevertheless good ideas and misunderstanding them, turning them into misinformation, and therefore into harmful ideas.

and 

3- Very rarely do we really get to know people in general, sufficiently in all their context, outside of a personal best friend.

This is why it has been so vital in my wading back out into Christianity, to get to know the Christian life of Ivonne, and experience her for who she is in all of her context... I am very pleased, to say the least, with everything that I have learned so far about her.  This is one person I will not be unfairly judging..  And I think this should be its own revelation to all us who interact with someone over very serious issues.  

That we be careful how we associate the ideas with the person!!  

I don't think my secular friend is associating my Christian friend's beliefs properly with how she actually lives in real life.  As a result of only analytically approaching her and only getting to "see" her on an intellectual level he is not seeing enough of her in a clear light.  "To see the forest for the trees."  This becomes very difficult for many of us to do when dealing with someone of opposing viewpoints.  It's easy to not see them, question their integrity instead of their ideas, and then stop getting to know them because we feel we've got them sized up..  Something we all should be aware of.. 

#2- If science can never know anything with absolute certainty and theories are always contingent. 

This is one of those things that advocates of science like to promote as signs of it's ethical, unpretentious superiority..  That there is a humility about the scientific method that doesn't tout knowing anything with absolute certainty and acknowledges that it's theories are always contingent; always open to revision..  Yes, that also communicates that science is limited and only explains so much and many are trying to lift it up in a way that replaces religion, and for the purposes of this blog, Christianity..  

In fact, a major claim about what science can and can not be was put forward famously, many years ago by Stephen Jay Gould.  He called this, Non-Overlapping Magisteria.  To quote the wikipedia article:
"That science and religion each have 'a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority,' and these two domains do not overlap."  There are many who are of the persuasion that science can offer and take the place of religion, that science, for example, can speak on issues of morality and ethics. The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, makes these claims.  I still have the book and plan on reviewing what I highlighted in the book, about 2-3 years ago.

Yes, I idealized and romanticized science more than I should of for many years..  This, in my opinion, has been the MINDSET that drives many people to idealize science to the degree that they do:  "The reality of the world is what is truth and there is no other truth.  Pseudoscience and religion are the same in that they approach truth in half-measure and I don't want truth in half-measure."  But just assuming this thought is a coherent one, it is also the secular individual who idealizes science who is also approaching truth in half-measure...   
The secular individuals that I have met over the years, semi-consciously draw this circle around topics that they approve of, and it is that process of evaluating what is "worthy" of inquiry that interests me..

For example, I have met secular individuals who never inquire into and sometimes even dismiss, the fields of Psychology and Sociology, because these are in the category of "Soft Science", which involves more abstract or not as concrete and mathematically precise topics as are found in the "Hard Sciences" of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Neurology, Paleontology, etc..

But I'm bringing all this back to the original #2 point here that despite where you land in intellectually entertaining the Hard Sciences and Soft Sciences, the fact with both of them is that neither will arrive at any conclusion with absolute certainty and both will only have theories that are tentative: open to revision.  It is to side on error to consider science to be the have all be all of "reality".  It is not the height of intellectual integrity to only consider what science says and on top of that to only intellectualy approach truth in a limited way.  No, it is actually a form of dogmatic thinking on the level of:  This is what I think, and if you don't agree with what I think, then I reject you..  Where is the free inquiry, where is the following the evidence WHEREVER it leads, even if it challenges one's cherished beliefs and assumptions..?  The truth is, no intellectual I have known lives up to this standard, not even I did.. And that is a wise point all of us can learn from.

#3- If most people are not true experts on anything, even though we idealistically admire the concept of the scientific process..

This points basically feeds into point #2.  You can put confidence in science, but science will never absolutely know something and you will never be a complete expert, which doesn't exist.  It would mean knowing everything about your subject, which there always might be something you don't know..  Science can be confident enough about objective object to claim it is a fact.  But in the subjective world, that is not the domain of science to be an expert in....

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE ROAD AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WHAT I AM LEARNING ON THIS ROAD BACK: part 4 of 10..

...I feel that I'm stuck, to a degree, between 2 worlds:
One is the secular, intellectual, scientific/philosophical world that I am, sort of coming out of that I interacted with for many years
&
The other is the religious, Christian, church world that I'm wading back out into..
So it's an interesting place to be and provides me with an valuable vantage point that may not be that common..

Some important aspects to this Christian world that I'm moving back towards, are that I feel that there is this real anchor for me in attending church and praying to God..  My turning back to these things is giving me a focus and a peace that I have not had for a long time amidst this stormy world..

And I'm feeling that I'm finally starting to immerse myself in a community, in attending church, that I have been looking for but had no luck finding for exactly 5 and a half years now, when I attended my first Atheist & Agnostic meeting June 27th, 2007.  So this wholehearted venture has been a fulfilling experience for me so far.

--An overarching focus that has helped me to keep moving in a certain direction has been the saying:
Do you want to be right OR do you want to be happy?...............
But this is more of something that I have reflected on and found important to my inquiries than this being an overarching attitude or an ultimatum..

The above question in bold is a very important echo from my December 6th post where I said..

"I now consider this to be the highest ideal in my life:

To understand happiness and fulfillment and to bring emotion and experience along for the ride and not strictly exclude them.. (like I did when I was only a secular intellectual)

To ask myself:  Do I want to be right OR do I want to be happy.  Figuring out how things work and analyzing everything has not lead me to more happiness, especially back when I considered that the only way to approach understanding reality.  If anything it has made finding happiness a more complicated matter." 

 --Journal entree: January 3rd, 2013..

Lately, I’ve felt like my mind has been this highway of thoughts.  And I don’t feel there’s been much time to reflect on each individual thought that’s come whizzing through..  Ever since I met Ivonne it’s like my life has sped up and this has kept me preoccupied and has increased the quality of my life, praise God.  And there are some very big choices that lay ahead of me in 2013.  This year may very well determine the rest of my life more than any year before has.  That’s my conclusion at least.  So hopefully I can properly digest many of these insights before things get busier with school starting on the 8th..

--I’ve been in a discussion lately with a friend of mine about belief and I phrased my position in the form of a question with 10 points to it:

Is belief and "going beyond scientific evidence" really that much of a negative if:

1- If you're not hurting yourself and or those around you.
2- If science can never know anything with absolute certainty and theories are always contingent.

3- If most people are not true experts on anything, even though we idealistically admire the concept of the scientific process..

4- If most people have no real desire to be a true expert on anything, even though we idealistically admire the concept of the scientific process..

5- If apart of our mind is devoted to and predisposed to belief in addition to a part of our mind being devoted to and having a predisposition to rational and analytical thinking.

6- If having a thorough, scientific knowledge of reality does not help you deal with life any better, in fact it may help you deal with it worse, because it complicates reality for your mind, which merely wants a conclusion more than the complicated truth.

7- If the concept of "intellectual integrity" and only having knowledge that is scientifically proven is overrated and not really the value that we should have the most focus on.

8- If, according to Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain, we believe things before we rationally understand them to be true or not, because this is a natural state of the mind.

9- If the claim, "There are no Atheists in foxholes” is true.
and..
10- If religion plays a major role in health and longevity..

--My friend replied back to me (Though only replying only to the question and not also the 10 points. Interestingly, they were originally 8 points when we exchanged emails, lol!!)

“Is belief and ‘going beyond scientific evidence’ really that much of a negative if"

I don't think belief, in general, is negative.  I think we all have beliefs.  The worst thing ever, is having a belief that runs contrary to evidence; such as believing that God made humans through a miracle of special creation, rather than humans evolving from other animals. 

Science has finished that question, and to have a contrary belief is to believe in error.  It is like believing that the whole universe resolves around the Earth, like the Bible writers thought.

So belief is not negative or positive in itself.  It is negative when it contradicts the known facts of the world.

--So I replied:

I do hope you got something from the 10 points I brought up, because they are relevant. 

In any case, this point of yours is on my mind:

“I don't think belief, in general, is negative.  I think we all have beliefs.”

It concerns me that even though, as you said, belief in general is not negative and we all have beliefs, it's my strong opinion that most secular intellectuals put a negative stigma on belief by mixing it with, confusing it with, or grouping it with the bad type of belief your talking about that contradicts the known facts of the world.. 
...And that was the end of our email exchange, for now.

So..... I think that I will go expound on those 10 points about the relevancy of belief in my up and coming part 5 of 10 and part 6 of 10 posts...

...LET 2013 BEGIN...

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE ROAD AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WHAT I AM LEARNING ON THIS ROAD BACK: part 3 of 10..

A thought that I will start out with is that my decision so many years ago of Atheism was a decision that proved costly to my human nature...

--> I was well known in CFI Portland for being an intellectual and an Atheist.  Now I look back on this and wonder how much substance there was in my thinking that I was an Atheist..  And how much substance is there found in one's worldview of Secular Humanism?  

Because, back then, I made the decision to be an Atheist and later on also a Secular Humanist, that being my ethical worldview...

It is interesting that I first made the choice to be identified as an Atheist and then about 2 years later, through a series of situations, it made sense to identify myself as a Secular Humanist..  Why not both at the same time?....
I guess a decision of non-belief was more important than a decision of what are my ethical beliefs... or at least it came first and was talked about far more often..

By far the most popular talk in the secular community was: 
"I'm an Atheist, I don't believe in the existence of God, there are no good arguments for the existence of God, there is only evidence of a natural world, etc."  

But very seldom was this the talk of the town: 
"I'm a Secular Humanist, Secular Humanism is a superior ethical worldview to Christianity, it embraces the reality of human nature more thoroughly than the Christian view of people, it focuses on science and philosophy on a level not touched by religion, and it provides a proper framework for not just what is the best way to live life but how ought we to live our lives; the moral, ethical reasons for living a compassionate, meaningful life.."

But concerning what I underlined here, there are secularists who are wary of this type of thinking because it isn't coherent on the same level that mathematics is or empirical evidence.  Philosopher's refer to this as the Is-ought problem..  

And spending 10 minutes on the wiki link that I've provided here will show the average person how you can complicate things..  And I emphasize wiki because as you read there are words that are also links into a more fuller understand of the original article you are reading.  
But it's easy to get lost in doing this as anyone who has explored a Wikipedia article understands.  It's easy to get lost in analyzing something and fathoming the complexity of something and to have never involved your heart and emotions in the process and this is what I'm concerned about about secular intellectuals and their approach to emotions, relationships, spirituality, faith, God, and basically anything that is more abstract and not mathematically and or empirically precise, but just as valid of realities to a human being nonetheless!!  
When I was active in CFI Portland (my secular community) a classic example of this was that people there would MAINLY AND ONLY discuss the hypocrisy of religion, the negative history of religion, arguments that would devalue the need for Christianity, the neuroscience that shows spirituality is merely a construct of the brain, and that evolution shows how belief in humans evolved..
But I would very rarely hear people, outside of myself, discuss with others the Psychology of religion, the Sociology of religion, why the church, for very significant reasons, is still to social backbone of society, why there are no secular alternatives to church that come even close to replacing it, the ways that prayer is important to a persons emotional and psychological health, why people need stories, narrative, symbolism, one's emotional, right-brain intelligence vs. their left-brain intelligence, and why it is a necessary part of human of nature to put meaningfulness into the hard and bleak realities of the world, etc.  

I rarely heard these issues in the circle of topics that were discussed in CFI Portland in the 3-4 years that I actively participated in it's many meetups, events, and discussions.. 
But I discussed and progressively thought these things.  And I think this is a huge reason why I continued beyond this circle of topics and into the more abstract topics which turn out to be the most important topics to most humans on this earth, more important than what we think we know intellectually!!  And being open to these issues prepared me for being open to all that I have experienced this year..

But I get it... 
We can only inquire thoroughly into so many topics..
In fact, it's not considered wise to know a little of a lot, but a lot of a little..
Because of this dilemma of our minds to be able to retain only so much information, we are forced to know only a handful of certain things really well and this can cause people to know a whole bunch about specific things but not sufficiently the context surrounding those things, therefore making their understanding of something far from complete.. 
But our mind is happiest when it knows something well enough and this certainty about something is more pleasant for our minds than being in uncertainty about things because you acknowledge that you don't know enough something..  It's our minds nature to not care about this intellectual integrity that acknowledges the complexity of things, that acknowledges the reality that we don't know as much as we want to think we know...  
So these are some of the challenges that we are up against as fallible human beings..........

But if one wants to do religion justice and specifically, for the sake of this blog, Christianity justice, then you have to ALSO inquire into the more abstract, but just as important of realities that are in Christianity like the church experiences, prayer, faith, spirituality, etc.
And no, the response that you have been there and done Christianity and don't need to inquire into it again, will not fly!  Because you are in danger of being biased and close-minded in your knowledge of these things, because many of you have been for a while now an intellectual reflecting on religion from your armchair and not getting off your bum and being the free inquiring Anthropologist that you know you should be, who steps into the environments where Christians practice their faith and taking in a fresh, AND MORE UNBIASED look at how other Christians meaningfully feel about their Christianity and why it is vital to them...

And in my next post I will discuss how this process in which I stepped away from my intellectual armchair was crucial in where I am today...    

ALSO -->

I think I should reflect on and chronicle as a part of my December 27th post how and in what ways I changed in my analyzing and reflecting on religion & Christianity, especially starting as early as 2004, focusing on the years of 2006 when I first recognized a certain amount of unbelief in God to the years of 2008-2010, which were the height of my being immersed in CFI Portland and only surrounded by Atheists and Agnostics, to 2011, which was the twilight of my involvement with CFI, to 2012, which was when I started going back to church, and finally mid-2012 and later in my personally knowing Qivonne who greatly helped me get back into Christianity…  It is important that I chronicle how I have changed in my approach in understanding Christianity and to honestly ask myself how unbiased I have grown over the years, or if that even matters..  ((Also I need to email Bernie, and ask him to person chronicle how he has changed in his approach of Christianity since his starting the Westside religion and science discussion group))  This is important because there are VERY significant differences between how I, Bernie, and (an old friend of mine)Sylvia approach our understanding Christianity and religion in general…

On of the things that has deeply disappointed where I thought I was going with my secularism in the name of intellectual integrity, was how few people wanted to communicate with me on these topics; how little most secular individuals showed a genuine enthusiasm to learn about the narrative, symbolism, ritual, personal meaningfulness of, spirituality, and faith of Christianity and why this is still immensely significant to people..

--I am stressing these points here, because I can think of few things more important than the topics I have communicated in the posts of this blog so far….

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE ROAD AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WHAT I AM LEARNING ON THIS ROAD BACK: part 2 of 10..

Before I begin this post, I acknowledge that I will be making generalizations that, in the eyes of many, are unfair generalizations.  But I need to begin somewhere in my journey.  I should not start journaling when I am finally clear on everything and no longer have to sort out my biases and misinformation.. No! this is exactly the time that I need to be writing. This is what it means to be transparent!  So I begin..

---This used to be one of the highest ideals in my life: 

To understand the realities in the world and of people.  That I wouldn’t be able to honestly respect myself and to look back on life without regrets and to die in peace if I had not actively looked the realities of life in the face and acknowledged them for what they were..  Even if those realities challenged my cherish beliefs and assumptions..  That the highest ideal was to follow the evidence wherever it lead, but make sure not to bring emotions and experience along for the ride….  

There are secular intellectuals who claim that they “follow the evidence wherever it leads”, but this is simply not a true representation of them.  No, all of them that I have known have fallen short of having THAT type of intellectual courage!!

In my strong opinion, the truth for most of us is, we will follow the evidence "wherever" it leads, when it is in our best interests..  Rarely does one not consider their best interests in their decision to follow the evidence wherever it leads.  Rarely does one follow the evidence into the night not knowing how it will change them, but I was one of those people and I willingly considered it my cross to bear.  But among the many disillusioning moments I had along the way was that most of my secular intellectual friends did not go wherever there was knowledge to be found.  No, they remained within this circle of topics, but rarely did they venture out beyond that circle of topics, little alone discuss those things with other secular intellectuals..

Christians that I have known are no better.  Rarely will they venture beyond the circle of topics found within their Bible and devotionals and when they do there is very little encouragement to discuss these things with other Christians.  There is more emphasis on faith than knowledge and when knowledge is discussed it is that the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's eyes.  Yet, even these Christians are still better off than the secular intellectuals who more rigorously explore the realities of the world, because they are focused on: how happy and fulfilled am I in this life?

I am currently grappling with this point:  I'm not really dealing with the rest of my life IF I am not dealing with why or why not I am happy and fulfilled in this life...  There is no greater question that one should ask..

Let's be honest, most of us don't want to understand the how's of life, most of us want to understand the why's of life and the why's that have an emotional and hope filled resonance to them...... 

---I now consider this to be the highest ideal in my life:

To understand happiness and fulfillment and to bring emotion and experience along for the ride and not strictly exclude them.. 

To ask myself:  Do I want to be right OR do I want to be happy.  Figuring out how things work and analyzing everything has not lead me to more happiness, especially back when I considered that the only way to approach understanding reality.  If anything it has made finding happiness a more complicated matter. 

Yes, suspending one’s judgment on things and keeping one’s convictions/emotions at bay and to consider them not that very important in your “quest for truth” has the appearance of intellectual integrity and the look of a great ethical ideal, but the hard reality is that you never arrive at “truth”.  Science is always tentative, it rarely if ever fully knows reality and does not support knowing things in an absolute sense..  But that is ONE of the fundamental needs in our brain, to have certainty, to have hope!  And you’re not just being a “true scientist” when you deny the needs of your brain for certainty and hope and therefore only settle for what can be proven and turned into data to be analyzed.  You're not just being a so called “true scientist” when you do that, you’re being unhealthy and not partaking in all that you are.  You're not being a complete person.

-One side of our brain has a predisposition to analyze things and understand things, and to approach them with our logic and reason.

-The other side of our brain wants to feel and experience things and to embrace the abstract.  It’s also the side of our brain with a predisposition for spirituality and faith.  It’s the side of our brain that is okay with things staying mysterious and beautiful…

So, here are some questions that the serious seeker of truth should ask themselves: 

-Am I approaching the truth with all of my mind and self? 

-Or am too inhibited in stepping outside of my element and experiencing who someone is or an aspect of life? 

-For example, People are eager and willing to learn about sports or anything else that is important to them, but are reactive to and hesitant to step inside the doors of the church to really learn what a particular church’s Christianity is all about..  Instead, this supposed free thinker discusses these things safely from a distance where it's all that much more easy to succumb to a biased understanding of things?
This is not the type of Enlightenment thinking tradition that I went in search of to represent, but it is the dominate majority of free thinkers that I have met... How sad.

It's easy to point out someone's flaws and to use those flaws to define and dismiss that particular worldview, but it takes maturity and courage to experience that person's worldview and so do justice to your understanding of their worldview.... 

That is what I am doing and it is a big reason in my returning to and immersing myself in Christianity....

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE ROAD AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WHAT I AM LEARNING ON THIS ROAD BACK: part 1 of 10..

Well, here I am and this is what I have to say, to start things off:

--I don't find myself walking back to Christianity and a relationship with God because I've discovered new and better arguments & evidence for: the existence of God, the resurrection of Christ, the power of prayer, miracles, that God used evolution do his creation, that among the religions, Christianity is "the way the truth and the life" through Jesus, the only way to the Father in Heaven, etc. etc...

--I find myself walking back to Christianity because I have certain needs that only religion AND spirituality can fill.  And there's so much more to express than this one sentence here, but at the same time the main reason I am coming back towards Christianity appears to be in its deepest essence  "simply profound", yes, simple and profound...

--I have a desire to return back to my roots and it does feel like a homecoming.  As I mentioned in my introductory post of this 5 part series, my starting to talk to God again was not hard or a force thing for me.  Instead it feels like I'm talking to an old, good friend whom I haven't connected with in about 5 years (August of 2007 was when I last spoke to God) and now it feels just like old times.... with some exceptions:
 
--I can't just simply pick up where I left off.  Alot has happened over these 10 years since the best days of my Christianity when I left the church in mid-2002 to when I started going back to church in early 2012...  There are realizations that I went through through those years, and I would call them disillusionments, that I need time to process and make sense out of.  And my sweet gardenia, my girl who has a sincere relationship with Jesus, is being wonderfully patient and understanding with me, and wants me to take all the time I need with God during this time to make sense of things..

Being in my Qivonne's life, getting to know this genuine aspect of her and numerous other aspects of her, and attending church with her has been perhaps the most significant aspect of this journey back into Christianity for me.  I'm now wading out into the waters of Christianity in an up close and personal manor.  It's too easy to not be sufficiently impacted with the invaluable characteristics of Christianity from a distance.  An armchairs approach to Christianity will NOT do it justice.  You cannot simply examine Christianity and walk away with its essence...  It says:
Mark 12:30, New American Standard Bible (NASB)
and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
So it's not just about your mind, but all of you needs to approach God and Christianity, if you're going to learn something here. :)

The road I went down led me to eventually trying to create a secular alternative to the vibrant Christian churches you see today, a TRUE secular alternative to Christianity, under the banner of Secular Humanism.. 

Well, me and the founders with me that started (click on link >) CFI Portland didn't even come close to accomplishing that....  And, no, this is not a community that simply needed, say, 5 years to grow and then you see results, because I eventually realized there were fundamental things that were missing in this "community".  I finally moved on from that 3-4 year attempt about a year and a half to 2 years ago.  At least I had the sense to realize it and move on..

As I'm making this slow trek up to the top of mount Sinai to get closer to God, this is one of the thoughts that I'm reflecting on.  It appears to me:
--That Christianity has more to do with the happiness, peace, and joy one has in the Lord and in their Christianity, and less to do with having evidence for the existence of God, the resurrection, the power of prayer, miracles, etc.  or having knowledge about how Christianity was formed..  
--That it's far less about one knowing and far more about one experiencing one's Christianity....
 And when I say "one's Christianity", I simply mean everything that entails your Christianity, including your relationship with God..

So that's a major premise in my travels here: That it's less about re-understanding Christianity and more about re-experiencing a deeper relationship with God and the power of God in my life...

I know I'm not going to qualify everything correctly as I express myself here.  I'm sure there will be some Christians who will disagree with some of the things said in this and other posts, but my heart and soul are in the right place and my Christianity is ultimately between me and God so enjoy the show folks!

WHY DO MOST SECULAR AMERICANS LACK ANY VISION OF A "SECULAR COMMUNITY" OUTSIDE FRIENDS & FAMILY?....

The title, of course, is my opinion on the matter..
I was getting a coffee this evening at a Peet's Coffee House and the person working there asked me if I had anything fun I was doing tonight, you know, employee & customer small talk, lol..  I said I had about 4 and a half hours of homework to do.  Some Psychology and some Sociology.

This employee further inquired and so I mentioned that I want to do an emphasis in Sociology on religious and secular communities, how they are similar, and how they are intrinsically different and why..  I mentioned that there are literally no good secular alternatives to the church, to which the worker surprised me a little by saying,
"Well, isn't that kind of the point, because you have all these secular options of things to do outside in society and isn't that a better idea than doing all this within the confines of a church?" (I am cleaning up a little of what this person said, but this was basically their point.)

So I didn't know what to say, the worker wished me a good day, and I headed over to where I was going to do homework and thought..

I finally realized this person was confusing "community" with "society".  Yes, there is definitely a secular society in our country with all these options that are out there.  But there are basically no "secular communities" like there are "religious communities", the most common form being a church.

The Peet's Coffee House worker did bring up an intuitive point that was brought up many times when I and a dozen other where thinking about how create a secular community several years ago.  And the two competing questions were:
1) Do we need a physical building, a physical single location to house our programs and activities?
&
2) Or should we meet in numerous different places, embracing the different aspects of secular society and not be tied down to any one place?

And I think it was mainly me and several others, who had been raised in churches for much of our lives, who most loudly promoted number 1 of the two options.  And even though I was biased to the idea of having a physical building, there are a lot of good points to having a place to call your own, that were surfaced during those debates.  And I would like to share what those points were and then finally mention why I don't feel most secular Americans have any vision anymore of a community outside of their friends and family..

....JOURNAL ENTRY, FEBRUARY 5, 2013:
I still plan to respond to definitely this last paragraph, but life has taken me by storm over these last 3 months.  Who knows, I may have to also wait till I'm done with my 10 part series to pick these inquiry up...

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE ROAD AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WHAT I AM LEARNING ON THIS ROAD BACK: a 10 part series- INTRODUCTION...

Now,
"correctly" starting off this blog post series depicting my journey away from Christianity and now my journey back into the faith and what I've learned on this road is too high a task for me, because there is no "correct" way to start things off but to jump in.. :)

So I will flesh things out eventually here with context, trust me!  But for now, I'll start the series off and jump in where I am currently with two of my latest journal entries from my private journal that I'm using specifically for this new time in my life:

---Thursday, November 1st, 2012:
Well, these last 15 days have been very significant for me in terms of my moving back towards God, and into what issues I'm moving deeper into...

It hasn't been that difficult at all to getting back into talking to God.  If fact, I have really welcomed it with great warmth, like getting to talk again with an old, good friend.  More on this later..

---Thursday, November 8th, 2012:
Wow, it's been a week already.  And it's not like I've been having fun and so time has been flying.  Strange, hmmm.
Anyways, I feel I'm on the verge of getting closer to God in addition to my talking to Him and praying for people..  I feel that God has been trying to remind me of His love for me through my relationship with Ivonne..  What a great gift from God she has been!  It is hard to describe how precious she is to me in all the little ways she is my Ivonne and in how I react to these things that she does.  It makes me want her to be happy in every possible way.  And she's a really, really good-hearted person and a sincere Christian, and she makes here relationship with God the biggest influence in her decisions on things, more important than anyone's advice to her..  

It is Ivonne in these ways, more than most things in my life, who is causing me to move towards God and reconsider things about God.  For instance, it's also showing me and reminding me how much more of a "full community" is the Timberline Baptist church that Ivonne and I attend; how much more it is a place for people & relationships than any secular alternative, like CFI Portland, that I know of.

Now, there's always room for improvement, but I think it takes my situation: not attending church for about 6 years, then really trying to create a secular alternative to it for a good 3 years, then being in limbo with ones secular "community" due to one's disappointment with it for about a year and a half, which was my way of slowly walking out of that "community" and the start of my, in early 2012, beginning to attend church (Imago Dei Community) again... 

I think it took this long process to really put into perspective for me how valuable and irreplaceable church is and how superior to any perspective that I've tried and practiced, (which I admit I haven't tried a lot of things), how superior is the Christian worldview and specifically: a personal relationship with Christ...
So, Ivonne and my increasing church experiences are indeed changing, steadily, the course of my life and worldview in 2012... 
"Lord, may I not underestimate the value of what I am experiencing here."


So, those were my most current journal entries.  They're a great introduction into this 10 part series and I look forward to writing part 1 in the very near future..  So let it be.., so let it begin!

WE ALL HAVE THRESHOLDS WE REACH WHEN OUR KNOWLEDGE IS CHALLENGED AND WE HAVE A CHOICE TO EMBRACE THIS REALITY IN EACH OTHER ....OR NOT.

It's seems that we all have a threshold when it comes to changing our minds or adjusting our beliefs, in light of new evidence.  To be more specific, there is a point that we each reach in our willingness to tolerate information that challenges our cherished beliefs and assumptions, where we draw the line.  When we reach this threshold, our amazing mind takes care of this dilemma with its natural ability to rationalize why there is no need for us to take this information and make new conclusions from it..

I know someone who considers himself to be a rational, scientifically-minded person.  Because I make a point of watching people's body language in conversation and am mindful of their tone of voice agreeing with or reacting to what the person they are dialoging with says, I have noticed this individual in several conversations reach his threshold..  When the conversations move into areas like politics, religion, or science, once in a while, I notice this individual react to a position or statement that the other person says.  And many of these statements have evidence supporting it that my friend could look into and verify for himself, as to if it has merit.  But my friend appears to dismiss it almost immediately out of hand..

Now this could be because my friend has already researched these things and acquired evidence that supports his conclusions.  But if that's the case, then he, in my strong opinion, should take that opportunity to share his own findings, his own evidence that supports his position and not simply dismiss the other person's position out of hand.  It is interesting that we all feel that we are pretty rational individuals right up to the moment when we are pressed in a situation that "causes" us to fall back into conclusions that are more comforting or give us a sense of stability in our lives.  What do I mean by "stability"?  Well, in the world of science, no hypotheses or theory is completely stable and secure..  Conclusions are always contingent on there being new and better information that will then alter if not completely change that hypotheses or theory.  This can be very disappoint for the scientist who has worked hard on establishing that theory.  They are human to, you know. ; )

If you have a mind, like the majority of people in the world, contingent truth is not very satisfying..  We want certainty, we want convictions, we want anchors of truth that we can put our hope in because we know they are unchanging..  But this is okay and natural in that this is a part of, an aspect of our mind that exists for a reason, just like the rational part of our mind exists for a reason.  BOTH are just as important aspects of our wonderful mind.

I think it's time that we stop demonizing and negatively stereotyping people who happen to reach their threshold with us in certain topics in our conversations with them..  It's time we stopped making conclusions of people this way, and making judgements of their character that they somehow don't desire truth as much as we do.  It's time we started embracing them in the sense that this is a juncture where their rational mind ends and where the convictions part of the their mind begins....  That is who they are and where they are..
WE NEED TO EMBRACE THIS, BE UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS IS WHO THAT PERSON IS, AND TOLERATE THEM, IF IT IS OUR INTENTION TO CONTINUE HAVING A TRUE DIALOG WITH THEM WHERE WE BOTH SHARE INFORMATION WITH EACH OTHER AND LEARN FROM EACH OTHER...

Whoever is reading this post:  maybe that's not your intention, may you aren't interested in embracing people to this degree, but only inserting your points of view in conversations and moving on..  If that is the case, then I have no interest in getting to know you, because you have no interest in truly getting to know me and appreciating me for who I am, the same respect I would give you.....

MY OBSERVATIONS OF MUSLIM MEN, AGE 20-35, AND THEIR SOCIAL COHESION WITH ONE ANOTHER AT STARBUCKS IN DOWNTOWN PORTAND...

It is my observation that white Caucasian men in Portland, Oregon, have the lowest degree of male camaraderie in terms of the need for communication with each other..

Other male minorities have an advantage in this regard.
For example, they may have a 2nd language that they speak and which provides personal identification amongst each of them.
Also, the color of their skin, in my opinion, is more meaningful to them than the color of my skin is for me.  In a sea of white, for one to see their own skin pigment maybe reassuring and even bring a sense of security.  I've seen minorities who are perfect strangers of each other, on the train, immediately start communicating with each over immediately initiating communication with someone of a different skin color and ethnicity..

Having said this, I have been observing and making conclusions on the social behavior of Muslim men and women at a Starbucks in downtown Portland..  It is my observational conclusion that:
Muslim men and women, age 20-35, have a significantly higher degree of social cohesion than the white caucasian population of age 20-35.  And it's my observation that an element in the Muslim culture that appears to discourage Muslim men from freely communicating with Muslim women, actually is contributing to Muslim men turning more eagerly to other Muslim men for socializing, because we all have a need to communicate and socialize with someone!..
Add to this, a 2nd language, skin color, possible middle-east geographic origins(yes, probably many of them were born and raised here in the U.S. BUT they have relatives that have stressed the significance of their Muslim middle-east origins..), and a possible religious affiliation (Islam) with each other, and all these things are, in themselves, strong incentives for a close-net community.. that puts to shame any kind of "community" I might have in my life..

At least, I attend church, lol.. and have a wonderful woman in my life who believes in me, nurtures me, and who wants to know who I am personally, as a person...  And now, as of Sunday October 20th, we are going to church together.  I am blessed to have all these opportunities to be with her and socialize with those those who she truly feels to be her community and even extended family, in some respects.
But a certain percentage of our population does not even have these social opportunities!!  And thus, we should be rightly concerned about the social moral standards around us.  We should be rightly concern about the prevalent social apathy and lack of concern for one another that is so wide spread in this country..

So I think the majority of Americans underestimate the social impact that community has in their lives.  This brings up another aspect of the concept of community and its evolution in American society:  that the concept now includes, groups of 5-10 people, for example, as being someone's complete community.  No longer are we JUST talking about groups of 50 people and up.  An online tool that has greatly contributed to this phenomenon in small group communities is www.meetup.com This website helps you find the group in your area that has one of your interests, you all get together "meetup" based on that interest, and you do that at some public place.  And many people eventually treat these meetups like their very own, personalized community.  There are numerous people today who have several meetups that they go to, bird watching, wine tasting, hiking, philosophy, etc. and so this challenges the conventional view of what a community is..

So these things, and more, will be something that I will definitely focus on as I move, over the years, into the research aspect of Social Psychology in addition to moving towards a career in Clinical Psychology..

FOLLOWING THE EVIDENCE WHEREVER IT LEADS IS NOBLE & ETHICAL, BUT HAVING CONVICTIONS MAY BE VITAL & NECESSARY TO WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN..

It seems that truth for us is what matters most to us.  It's not what is the most logical, rational, and in touch with objective reality that is the truth we are most intrinsically drawn to.

No, it is what fulfills our deepest needs.  It's what remains for us as our desire when all else fails.  Many would refer to that as "hope".  All of us, whether religious or not, need an anchor for the "soul"; an anchor that remains steadfast for us when all else crumbles around us and we feel about to be washed away and powerless...

This seems to be the deepest truth out there..  And I've notice that the more someone trusts in that hope, whatever that hope is for them, the more effective it is in their life.

You can question everything, but you need to put hope in something.  Putting your hope in science is not what I am talking about here.  Yes, there is an area of the mind that is very much predisposed to scientific thinking, but there is also an area of the mind devoted to conviction and just as important and valid of a reality of the mind..

Certain people say it is unhealthy to compartmentalize these two different ways of thinking in our mind.  I think both of these areas; aspects of the mind serve vital functions and it only makes sense that we will move back and forth between the two as we go through our daily lives and experience situations that call for those particular aspects of the mind.

It can't be argued, in my opinion, that this religious, spiritual part of the mind is a vestige of the brain in the same way that a leg bone, which you find in whales, is a vestige of the whale; something that it used early in its evolution but no longer has a use for today...  This spiritual, religious aspect of the mind still has a function and aside from the advantages that it contributes to longevity, reduced stress, allowing us to cope with the realities of life that we don't immediately understand, allowing us to be more mindful and in touch with ourselves and our own thoughts.., aside from these advantages, you have the more fundamental advantage, that this reality of the mind is deeply meaningful to us and so many of us need it so much that we truly believe in its spiritual nature and it does not matter to us if we cannot prove this, it has proven itself to us... It has changed how we see the world, it has saved us from ourselves, it has, to the degree that we have given ourselves to it, changed our lives..  It has the deepest validity of anything we have ever known!

--Journal entry, October 30th, 2012:
But on a deeper level, the question that I want to ask is:
Why, in addition to our mind being designed to think logically and rationally, do we also have a mind designed for holding convictions, which may not have rational or logical substance to them, but nevertheless deep, meaningful substance to them?
That's right, just because they may have little or no rational or logical substance to them, doesn't mean they have NO substance.  If they had no substance to them whatsoever, I would think our mind would react with little or no sensation/resonance to that idea, like it would to this following idea:
"The white wall is British and a baker, which flies with the birds."  So here, my mind recognizes that this sentence is an irrational, illogical idea AND my mind does not personally connect with or resonate with this idea on any level.
Yet there are ideas that challenge our sense of logic and reason AND YET our mind does resonate with them deeply and give them substance....
Now, I'm not asking for an evolutionary psychological approach to this, because WHAT THAT ONLY DOES IS ANALYZE AND REDUCE THIS EXPERIENCE OF OUR MIND INTO IT'S BASIC PARTS BUT YOU REALLY HAVEN'T GRASPED OR DONE JUSTICE TO THE EXPERIENCE.  You haven't tackled the most important aspect of the experience: ITS MEANINGFULNESS and the fact that people really do believe it has made a very real and profound impact in their lives...
I think a lot of people react to someone mechanically analyzing their convictions in the following way, "You can't survey the tip of the iceberg of my conviction and say that represents the iceberg!  There is so much more lying beneath the surface that you are not surveying that is also just as much an intrinsic part of the iceberg.  When you take it upon yourself to ignore this 90% part of the iceberg and then say that the only part of this iceberg that is valid and real is this 10% that is above the surface, how do you think that makes me feel??!!!"

A great many people have very little if no desire to understanding the psychology behind their convictions, yet this is how so many secular individuals approach someone of conviction, when they are not simply dismissing that person's convictions.  Why is it so threatening to secularists to step beyond their comfort zone of merely analyzing someone's convictions to also trying to deeply receive from people of conviction, the depth, importance, and therefore the validity of their convictions..?  "People don't care what you know, until they know that you care."  That was a saying a pastor told me many years ago.  It is interesting that most people are much more interested in me demonstrating a caring, listening ear to their thoughts, than they are to what my thoughts are in the conversation.  And this makes my point... Do they know that I care enough to truly appreciate their convictions?  If not, they will feel that they are throwing their pearls before swine, to quote one of the Bible's scriptures, when talking about those things that are of the utmost sacred importance to them...

People want to experience their convictions and it feels absolutely natural and right to experience their convictions and unnatural and maybe even violating to that person to analyze and dissect their convictions!
This tells me that the mind definitely has 2 natural states that it weaves in and out of:
A rational state of thinking AND an "abstract" state of convictions.....
Both, are just as natural and both are just as necessary to our mental health.
IF YOU DON'T meet the needs of both when that need needs to be met or only do one and deny the other, pretty soon this will become apparent in your mental health, which also directs your behavior and actions..
Am I being a full and complete individual and embracing all that my mind has been created to be....?

A REVELATION FOR ME ON DEEP COMMUNICATION..

I think I might have come to a major revelation in my life:

The way you go about talking about really deep things with the opposite sex does not work best through just and only being friends.  Yes, be friends, but with the intention of moving it to a relationship IF it is your goal to reach deep, personal conversations and transparency with each other..

Why?

Because I guess we need more incentive to lay bear our inner, private world.  And relationships provide that incentive.  The person thinks a lot of us, finds us amazing, and that the last thing they would want to do is to judge us because they're biased and in love with us..

That now that we've become intimate, with even just kissing and making out, we now have a desire to learn everything about that person and to experience everything about that person, eventually including the most intimate of physical experiences & the most intimate of emotional experiences..

And it seems most people want to go about it this way as a sort of insurance against the opposit sex simply reacting badly and walking away from the other person, when they show a weird side of themselves or confide a "strange" personal detail about themselves or their life..
NOW, I KNOW there's many different reasons and goals for why people get into relationships, okay..

I'm just focusing on a very specific thing here..
And it's that people want to feel safe with and even "bound" to that special person.
The feeling that this person will not leave you nor forsake you..
And it's this intimate relationship, which also gives you a "power" over someone to not leave you nor forsake you, and that power is the rewards of intimacy..

There's just not a lot in it for someone TO WANT TO open up and be transparent with the opposite sex when the opposite sex is just and will only be a friend.  There is less incentive, less security in that person sticking around, and no reward of romantic chemistry.

And this has kind of been a disillusioning process for me in that self interest & chemistry are very much intertwined with a person's motivation to lay bear their heart with another person of the opposite sex...

In any case, there's a lot of incentive for me and this amazing woman in my life to continue our dance towards an intimacy on several levels, one of those being our depth of communication with each other..  Life is good!!

I HAVE BEEN SHOT DOWN AND AM IN LOVE....

Finally, after many years, this angel has now been struck by Cupid's arrows....

The arrows have found their mark, my heart did not survive, and this angel has now fallen...
in love.

It's interesting how we find love in the most unexpected of situations..

Chemistry does not discriminate who it chooses to visit or those it brings together, lol!!!

What awaits COULD be one of thee most important adventures for me....

Even though this new adventure of discovery will be a process and will take time, I can't wait to find out to what degree I am compatible with this amazing woman in my life....!

(((BLOG UPDATE)))  It's October 16th, 2012 and what I can tell you is that it has been one of the best month and a half's in my life.  Period!  Hands down!!
Her and my love is going higher and higher..  And also what I can tell you is that she is not merely just another woman in my life......

..IT'S THE SEASON OF LOVE, IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR..

It's that time of the year when people want to be outside and doing things together with others..
An amazing person I know shared this olde song with me recently and the lyrics struck a special cord for me:
The song can be meant for guys.  Simply replace the area where it says "woman" with "man"..

THE LONGEST TIME, BY BILLY JOEL...

Woa, oh, oh, oh
For the longest time
Woa, oh, oh
For the longest

If you said goodbye to me tonight
There would still be music left to write
What else could I do
I'm so inspired by you
That hasn't happened for the longest time

Once I thought my innocence was gone
Now I know that happiness goes on
That's where you found me
When you put your arms around me
I haven't been there for the longest time

Woa, oh, oh, oh
For the longest time
Woa, oh, oh
For the longest

I'm that voice you're hearing in the hall
And the greatest miracle of all
Is how I need you
And how you needed me too
That hasn't happened for the longest time

Maybe this won't last very long
But you feel so right
And I could be wrong
Maybe I've been hoping too hard
But I've gone this far
And it's more than I hoped for

Who knows how much further we'll go on
Maybe I'll be sorry when you're gone
I'll take my chances
I forgot how nice romance is
I haven't been there for the longest time

I had second thoughts at the start
I said to myself
Hold on to your heart
Now I know the woman (man) that you are
You're wonderful so far
And it's more than I hoped for

I don't care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things
I want you so bad
I think you ought to know that
I intend to hold you for the longest time

Woa, oh, oh, oh
For the longest time
Woa, oh,oh
For the longest time
Woa, oh, oh
For the longest time
Woa, oh, oh,
For the longest time