Aaron Willmore

September 4th, 2014

What Do I Believe In? Writing Sample
Each person has a different set of beliefs. They are based on a multitude of different
things like upbringing, environment, and many other factors. What I believe may be different
from what you believe and vice versa. This world is so clouded by what to believe in and what
not to believe in. Wars are fought, lies are spread, discontent is sewed into the young adolescent
mind. I honestly do not know what to believe in.
Being raised by a father who had no religious affiliation and a mother who went to
church each week as a child I had mild exposure to religion. It wasnt forced down my throat,
thank God. I took some interest in Christian beliefs like there being an all powerful creator
named God but there were a lot of things that didnt make sense with Christianity and religion in
general. There is no proof that the texts are of true origin. Who is to say it isnt all made up?
Scientology is a made up religion based on tricking people into buying the books of the founder,
L. Ron Hubbard. Mormonism can easily be discredited as well due to the fact that the founder
was some guy who claimed that there are more commandments that he himself personally wrote.
Religion just isnt my cup of tea. I dont necessarily have a religion as I said and when I say that
people automatically call me atheist. Im not atheist, I believe in God and I try to be open to all
ideologies.
People tend to want you to believe what they believe. Some examples would be Adolf
Hitler with the holocaust, the South seceding from the North during the American Civil War,
radical muslims like ISIS, that being gay is ok or not ok and there are many other topics which I
could discuss in this paper that would definitely exceed the recommended three page amount; not
to mention that this paper isnt graded. When people force their beliefs onto other people it

causes major controversy. Right now in the middle east Jewish people are fighting for their
religion against Muslims because they have different beliefs over who should rightfully reside in
the holy land. People are killing and shaming people just for what they believe in.
Something that pops up a lot in my life, not that it has anything to do with me what-soever, is the topic of homosexuality. I know people who are friends with my family members and
they are homosexual. I have no problem with homosexuality but at one point in my life I was led
to believe by society that I was supposed to hate gay people and the thought of same-sex
marriage. A cult group known as the Westboro Baptist church has been seeding hate speech into
society over past decade or so. They picket funerals and say things like Thank God For Dead
Soldiers. The most controversial thing, in my opinion, is their God Hates Fags slogan. This
slogan seemed to get warped by the time I heard it and I honestly thought it was apart of
Christianity because I didnt know it was just hate speech. Those three words made me think that
I was supposed to hate gay people. The years after this I would say that gay marriage is wrong,
that being gay is wrong, and that was my belief.
My aunt is a supporter of gay rights because her friend is gay and she is always spouting
about how it is ok to be gay. Since I used to believe that it wasnt ok I was on the opposite side
of the spectrum. Each time she would go off about how it was ok to be gay I would go off and
say that it was morally wrong. After a while I actually found out about the Westboro baptist
church and how everything I believed was a lie and I then stopped with the morally wrong
mumbojumbo. Even though I stopped she never did. She continued on, as though it was her civic
duty to belittle everyone who didnt believe it was ok to be gay. Here is where belief gets forced
upon someone and goes unnoticed. When an anti-gay person says it is wrong to be gay they are
seen as the bad guy, forcing their views onto another person; but when a gay supporter forces

their views onto someone who doesnt believe it is also wrong but goes unnoticed. It is just a bad
situation. It is just like racism and how people were born to believe a certain thing. What should I
believe if both are wrong and both are right in the beliefs of others?
My eyes were opened my freshman year of high school. I was on the Internet one night
at a friends house and we were looking into some software I believe and we learned, on accident,
about SOPA/PIPA. It was a bill that President Obama was trying to pass that would police the
United States Internet. This already is happening in China and many other nations. We learned
about it while trying to access a file sharing site that was taken down by the FBI. It seemed a
little outrageous that the government would be allowed to police the information that I receive
through the Internet. We did more research into it and we stumbled upon a hacktivist group
known as Anonymous. This group were, and still are, modern day revolutionaries. They were
fighting to let the people of the United States have a say in getting the bill rejected. That is not all
they were doing.
The group opened my mind to ideals of equality, true equality, for mankind abroad. They
made me think about how people are just constantly fighting for and over what they believe.
Anonymous showed my who the Westboro Baptist church is. My belief, the little that I did have,
was obliterated. My belief in a government that protects the people and their interests, my belief
in religion being the way, it was all nothing in the expanse of everything. I do not wish to tie
myself to beliefs. I fear, since I have free will and I am a human with an opinion I am
undoubtedly a hypocrite. I will believe things I hear, read, and see. I will believe what I want to
believe, but truly I am conflicted.
Belief seems like a hindrance to the human being. It can make someone prejudice, racist,
anti-semitic, and rude. It closes the mind to new possibilities. It brought about the dark ages.

Belief is evil, but yet it is also good. It is one of the scariest, most powerful forces in existence. It
can kill thousands. Belief can also bring people together in positive ways, but I dare not say what
is positive for I do not know if in the eyes of another what I can see as positive could be seen as
pure horror. I do not know what to believe.