This I Believe

I believe that beliefs are nowhere near as important as our cultural dialogue would suggest. I am an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by career.

I used to call myself an atheist because I do not believe in god. I used the label frequently because other people would talk about their beliefs a lot, and would ask me about mine. Atheism was the most appropriate label for my belief system of physics, genetics, economics and other objective studies, so that’s how I identified myself.

But as I have grow older, I notice that other people do a lot of talking about their beliefs. A lot. In fact, I am frequently annoyed by the amount of it. Abortionists will go to hell, straight families need to be protected from gay marriage, I am gonna make it some day, meeting you was fate, I love you.

My life path has been driven very little by what I and those around me believe, but greatly by the actions that occur. My childhood experiences were in household with parents who believed they loved their children, but the actions of love were few and the actions of abuse and neglect were many. I have come to be very suspicious of mismatches between statements and actions.

I dont care what people believe. I care what they do. Even Jesus said something like acting like a good person is more important than piety at the temple.

So I stopped labelling myself as an atheist. Instead, I focus on what my knowledge/belief base lets me do. These days when people ask me about my beliefs, I say that I am a planner, in readiness for action.