Video 1: Questioning Your Religion
This is my first attempt at video for the Aim for Awesome site. I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get there yet. I noticed in this first video I’m too mellow for the first part, I’d like to get more energized like around the 9:30 minute mark you’ll see that I’ve changed delivery quite a bit. I know how to fix that for the future - shoot a few takes first and get comfortable with talking to the camera.
Talking to a video camera is not an easy thing. It’s not easy to pretend it’s a friend you’re talking to at Barnes & Noble… but eventually it feels comfortable enough at some point and the video starts to work.
Questioning your religious beliefs is something I feel very strongly about. I went from Catholic to Christian to Buddhist to nothing and maybe swinging back around toward Buddhism at the present. But a basic form of Buddhism that pretty much consists of: Try it. If it works, use it. If it doesn’t work, toss it.
At some point the Buddha said:
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
So many times I see people go through life playing the game of whatever religion they were indoctrinated into without questioning it.
They never ask themselves… Where did it come from? Is it the perfect truth?
A serious effort, a no holds-barred questioning and critique of your religious beliefs is called for. It’s a must. Your religion is the ultimate guide for your life. The one that holds the keystone to your beliefs, thoughts, decisions, actions, how you treat others and yourself… your career… and the meaning you derive from life. Your religion better be up to the challenge. It better be PURE truth or it’s not good enough.
In this questioning your religion video I cover:
- My experience with religion and how I went about questioning and challenging my religious beliefs over the years.
- A shot of southern Thailand from almost 1000 feet up a limestone mountain as a storm comes in.
- What I consider the 3 levels of truth or knowledge.
- Why questioning your religion is so important!
Questioning Your Religion, Video 1 >
Best to right click the video and choose “Save target as…” if you’re using FireFox browser or “Save file as” if you’re using IE browser. This video file is .wmv and opens with WIndows Media Player, is about 12 minutes long and about 13Mb in size.
Enjoy it! Comments welcome. Feel free to criticize. I aim to improve on this first video greatly!
Best of Life!
Vern
3 Comments, Add YOUR comment or Ping
iris
I was planning to write a post about why I gave up my religion. I’ll definitely be linking to this! :-D
Excellent video, Vern! Just my two cents’ worth: it might be a good idea to get one of those Flash video player things (like YouTube’s) that you can embed in the post so there’ll be no need to download. Better yet, start an Aim for Awesome YouTube channel. I’ll be your first subscriber. ;-)
Jul 15th, 2008
Perry Curkendall
Vern,
Very good and thoughtful video. I have been questioning the same things for years and you pulled it together in a video. One point you made is how your religion affects your life. Another point is how other people’s religions affect our life. Christianity in the U.S. for instance. Even though there is supposed to be a separation of church and religion, Christianity affects our everyday lives and we are all ‘expected’ to conform in some manner.
Jul 15th, 2008
Vern
@Iris - great, I’m glad you saw it! Most people in Philippines are Christian - yes? Catholic? I’m experimenting with players and formats to use for dishing out the video. I may have the Youtube deal - have you seen the other blogs videos there? I have like 60 online. I’ll zap you the url sometime here as I remember. Thanks for writing!
@Perry - Wow you read this blog of mine - nice! I went off the cuff with the video but I hit on some of the things that made me start questioning and then disbelieving. Yeah, I have had the long drawn out 2 hour discussions with evangelical Christians on a boat while I was supposed to be enjoying some deep sea fishing. It’s fun to talk about it sometimes and I always invite the Jehovah’s witnesses in for tea and cookies when they come to my door - many times I’ve done that. I love to give them my ideas as well as hear theirs. The USA is strange about Christianity - they don’t know how to get rid of it I guess… and too many supporters. That likely won’t change. It’s been a while… Thanks for writing Perry - take care my friend.
Jul 15th, 2008
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