I was amused to find that Google Alerts reported that an atheist blog
linked to my Ph103.Reflection, a page of notes I made when I was
reading for the undergraduate course I took in theology. The blog
confused my notes about the article with my personal beliefs. Since I
haven’t thought about this in a while, I figured I might as well
explore how I feel now.

The difficult thing about cold-reading me or trying to characterize me
is that I can always find similarities and differences. Let’s take
belief systems. I can talk about grace and the experience of the
sublime. I can talk about dharma and reincarnation. I can talk about
existentialism and nihilism.

And I can talk about faith: not in any one particular thing, but in
life, in the universe, in the love that I constantly experience. I
know very well that I can choose to view things another way—see only
a dark and depressing universe—but I *like* having a friendly
universe, and it rises to my expectations. =)

So people’s opinions of me depend greatly on what they want to think
and whether I feel like being agreeable or contrary. If they want to
separate themselves and look down on others, they’ll find many points
of disagreement. If we’re inclined to find agreement, we’ll agree. I
might not completely agree with everything they say, but I’ll probably
find a way of understanding.

This is why cold-readers find me so difficult. <laugh> Everyone
is a mix of different things. I’m just more in tune with my
contradictions.

Random Emacs symbol: process-send-region – Function: Send current contents of region as input to PROCESS.