Posted on: June 30, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Sometimes I begin to wonder what have I done with my life. I mean I’ve done some cool stuff, been to a lot of awesome places, and had a few drinks with some friends…but I sometimes wonder is there more to life than getting drunk.

I know that with most 18 year olds that spirituality isn’t a main concern for them… but I’ve been though too much to not think that there’s something besides like what we can see…..I honestly wonder about religions like Islam I mean like look at Muslims they are so dedicated to their faith that they will commit suicide for it… what Christian would do that? I mean honestly. I’m not a supporter of terrorism or anything like that but…man look at them they are dedicated and the world honestly needs more people that would die for a cause. I honestly have got mad respect for them.

If you don’t know too much about Islam here’re some basics:

  • Islam a monotheistic religion (this means they only worship one god) originating with the teachings of Muhammad.
  • There are between 0.9 and 1.3 billion Muslims, making Islam the second-largest religion in the world, after Christianity.
  • The main text for Islam is the Qur’an
  • there are a couple if different denominations in Islam including : the Sunni and the Shi’ite
  • this religion is a pretty complex thing to explain and there are a lot of things that would take lots of time to try to explain…but if you are truly interested in Islam the Internet is an awesome place to get and unbiased take on things…try using sites such as Wikipedia .

Over the last few years I’ve actually put a lot of time and energy into studying Buddhism this religion over the years has come in and out of style with actors and actresses … and that wasn’t the reason I began to study it.

How I learned about Buddhism originally was I had a friend named Joe. I was setting in his room one night and we had just got done doing some work on a CD we were making for our band at the time, and I was looking at some books on his mom and dad’s book shelf and I saw a book about Buddhism …. see Joe’s family was from Vietnam and they used to be Buddhists …Joe ended up lending me the book and read it in like 2 days. I was utterly amazed by the concepts of this religion…the followers of the religion known as monks, will give up everything they have all personal possessions and even take vows of celibacy.. they don’t drink alcohol or anything. I mean this people give up everything that most people would think to be “the good life” and they are still perfectly content with their lives…and me personally I desire that …I want to be complete, Yet I don’t want to need something to be complete. Odd concept but I think it could work.

If you don’t know a lot about Buddhism here’re some facts:

  • Buddhism is a non-theistic religion (they don’t worship a god)
  • Buddhism is also known as Buddha Dharma or Dhamma, which means roughly the “teachings of the Awakened One”. Buddhism was founded around the fifth century BC by Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha.
  • The main principles of Buddhism are :the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddhist Precepts, Nirvana, and the three jewels.
  • Buddhism is mainly in china, Tibet, Japan, and India.
  • And like I said earlier I can’t even begin to describe this religion in detail so if you interested look it up online…

In conclusion I’ve thought a lot about these two religions and hope that one of these days I can find something spiritually that will fit my lifestyle …and I’ve got like 80 more years to find something that fits I mean I’m only 18 and I’ve got a lot of life left. But it does tend to make me wonder what it would be like to find something that I would enjoy… I mean who knows maybe I might be a Christian or maybe I might even be an atheist but until I’ve exhausted all my options and found the one I like the most. But until then I’ll continue to search and try to find the one that will fit me just the right way.

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